Back catalogue: All genres

Review: The album 1982 stands out as one of the finest moments in A Certain Ratio's story. When you're talking about a band that started half a decade before the year 1982, that's saying something. Following on from the landmark ACR Loco, the outfit's 2023 record is packed with multidimensionality - dipping toes into everything from gritty post punk (a sound from whence they first came) to Afrobeat, all realised with exceptional attention to detail and the highest possible standards. 2023 EP, as the title suggests, builds on the impact of that latest long-from release. Opening on the jazzy late night club workout 'Day By Day', a brand new number, the package then jumps into work from the aforementioned LP, redone by contemporary dons. So that's Werkha on a stepping, garage-hued version of 'SAMO', Emperor Machine emphasising the exotic disco grooves of 'Constant Curve', and Jade Parker offering a highly percussive cosmic take on 'Waiting On A Train'.

Review: Here's a blast from the past for Decca and Adam & The Ants alike. Many people have many ideas about what Adam & The Ants sound like, but they confounded expectations from their very first single when they shared 'Young Parisians' with the world in 1978. As Adam Ant later described, their sole single for Decca confused everyone who thought they were a punk band, which was entirely their intention. As a lilting, swinging slice of jangle pop, it's not at all what most would expect of the band, but it's brilliant in its own unique way.

Review: The story of this one revolves around San Diego native Anthony "Antone" Williams. He was one day alone in a studio, messing about with the gear and before he knew he it lay down the haunting rhythm that underpins the tune now presented here by the good folks at Athens of the North. It's a sinister, restless one that got released as a hugely limited 7" on Unity Records with otherworldly soul production and a pained vocal up top. Post punk soul, some call it, and that's a fitting descriptor. A remix appears on the flip but the allure of the original is hard to beat.

Review: Canadian singer, songwriter and visual artists Allie X - real name Alexandra Ashley Hughes - is a great representative for the resurgent live electro-synth scene. Emerging from the Toronto indie circuit in the mid-2000s, it was a relocation to Los Angeles, a heartland for neon sounds, and early work with producers Circuit and Billboard that first saw an identity begin to form, which is as retro as it is futuristic, picking up scores of fans along the way, including Katie Perry no less. Girl With No Face is her latest long form, and sees the artist again stick her flag confidently in the ground. Tunes bounce, track, soar, step, pump and - at times - fall apart, emotionally speaking, with clear references to the likes of Ladyhawke, Madonna, Kraftwerk, Cocteau Twins and a-Ha, among others. Definitely one to watch, if you're not already.

Review: A lot can change in two years or so. Not least if 2021 saw you release one of the most celebrated records of the current decade, tackling the mental health crisis head on in the midst of a global pandemic. An album that despaired and threw its hands up, declaring that we, collectively, are not alright and something needs to change, all via staggeringly poetic prose, at times bordering on spoken word. Returning from that triumphant episode, Arlo Parks follows up with The Soft Machine, an LP that lands after most of the dust from that global emergency has settled, and she's relocated to sunny Los Angeles to live with partner and alternative rapper, Ashnikko. To say the result is something that sounds warmer, more appreciative of what you've got rather than focussed on what isn't would be an understatement, but the exquisite songwriting and willingness to speak honestly about major issues remains.

Review: Given Tornado Wallace's impeccable Balearic credentials, you'd expect his new A.S.O project - a collaboration with Berlin-based singer-songwriter Alisia Seror O'Neill AKA Alias Error - to tend towards the dreamy, immersive and emotive. It does, of course, with the pair conjuring gorgeous slabs of downtempo leftfield pop variously influenced by the layered textures of shoegaze, the wide-eyed bliss of 80s dream pop (Seror O'Neill's vocal delivery is at times reminiscent of Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser), the blazed Bristol beats of Massive Attack, the flat-on-your-back day-break headiness of ambient, the hard-to-pigeonhole brilliance of the Duratti Column and the late-night-on-AM-radio atmosphere of Kelley Polar and Morgan Geist's similarly inspired Ai Suisse project.