Everything But The Girl: Fuse (Buzzin’ Fly Records)

This first album in nearly a quarter of a century from EBTG – aka husband-and-wife team Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt was born in lockdown, with Watt recording early sketches in the form of piano loops and ambient sound montages on his iPhone. The album proper was then recorded in secret in a studio in Bath booked under the name TREN (Tracey and Ben, geddit?). “Open-minded playfulness,” is how Thorn describes the couple’s approach to Fuse at the start of the recording process. “It ended,” says Watt, “in a kind of coalescence, an emotional fusion. It felt very real and alive”. The result, then, is another welcome entry in the beat-driven electronic soul the couple pioneered in the early 1990s after making the switch from jazzy acoustic balladry to a more club-focussed sound.

April 21

Sparks: The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte (Island)

Album number 26 for cult sibling duo Ron and Russell Mael sees them return to Island Records, the label which released their 1974 breakthrough Kimono My House. Ditching their band and moving to the UK, it found the duo reinventing themselves as purveyors of off-kilter, Glam Rock-tinged pop. They haven’t looked back since. Today they’re loved by generations of musicians such as Franz Ferdinand (they joined together as supergroup FFS for an album in 2015) as well as hip filmmakers like France’s Leos Carax, who collaborated with them on his acclaimed 2021 rock opera Annette. The album release is followed by two dates at London’s Royal Albert Hall in late May.

May 26

Complete Mountain Almanac: Complete Mountain Almanac (Bella Union)

Fronted by Swedish singer Rebekka Karihjord but powered by twin brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner – guitarists with US indie rock behemoth The National – this collaborative endeavour is a concept album of sorts, with each of the 12 songs named for a month. Ah, but there’s more. Completing the quartet is a third member of the Dessner family – sister Jessica, an artist, poet and dancer. There’s an over-arching theme of climate change, but it’s Jessica’s lyrics, drawn from poems she wrote after being diagnosed with breast cancer, which lends the project its emotion and profound sense of intimacy. If you enjoyed Aaron Dessner’s work on Taylor Swift’s low-key lockdown albums Folklore and Evermore you’ll love its more atmospheric and experimental cousin.

Out now

Lewis Capaldi: Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent (EMI)

He doesn’t appear at Edinburgh’s Royal Highland Centre until early September but all tickets for Lewis Capaldi’s only remaining Scottish date of 2023 were snapped up within minutes of going on sale, proof that there are few bigger names in music right now. Ahead of that comes his second album, the follow up to his 2019 debut Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent (he does like those lengthy titles). It has already spawned two number ones – 2022 smash Forget Me and Pointless, which hit the top spot earlier this month – and its release will mark a frantic spell of touring for the 26-year-old dubbed “the king of heartbreak” by Billboard magazine. It looks like 2023 is going to be Lewis Capaldi’s year.

May 19

Young Fathers: Heavy Heavy (Ninja Tune)

Having retreated to their underground studio, this first album in five years from the Mercury Prize-winning hip-hop experimentalists finds Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and G Hastings taking a back-to-basics approach. “Heavy Heavy could be a mood, or it could describe the smoothed granite of bass that supports the sound,” the band say. “Or it could be a nod to the natural progression of boys to grown men and the inevitable toll of living.” The Edinburgh trio are touring in support of the album and land at Glasgow’s O2 Academy for two nights (March 3 and 4) ahead of gigs in Newcastle, Manchester and London.

February 3

Boygenius: The Record (Matador)

An indie powerhouse bringing together a trio of accomplished solo artists – Grammy nominee Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus (a hit at last year’s Edinburgh International Festival) and confessional singer-songwriter Julien Baker – Boygenius follow 2018’s six song EP Boygenius with their debut album proper. Three lead singles were released jointly earlier this month, including Emily, I’m Sorry, which has already caused a minor eruption online as Bridgers fans debate the identity of the song’s titular addressee. Meanwhile a huge Rolling Stone profile recently dubbed Boygenius The World’s Most Exciting Supergroup and “a one-of-a-kind band powered by friendship, sick books, and sicker songs”. They’re high on the bill at April’s prestigious Coachella festival in California and following Bridgers’ eye-catching appearance at Glastonbury last year – she was joined on stage by Arlo Parks for I Know The End and sang backing vocals for The Jesus And Mary Chain on Just Like Honey – expect UK summer festival shows to follow.

March 31

Gorillaz: Cracker Island (Parlophone)

So restless, prolific and endlessly creative is former Blur frontman Damon Albarn that it’s easy to forget about Gorillaz, the fictional ‘virtual band’ he cooked up with Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlett back in 1998. But since 2001’s multi-platinum debut the albums have kept coming. Incredibly, Cracker Island is their eighth studio release and once again its mixture of styles features a who’s who of musical greats. Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks appears, the first two singles featured the talents of LA bassist Thundercat and Australian musician/producer/polymath Tame Impala respectively, and there are further contributions from Beck and Puerto Rican reggaeton megastar Bad Bunny.

February 24

Lana Del Rey: Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (Interscope)

If the title track is anything to go on – a spare, sparse piano ballad about sex and death – expect more dark pop balladry from the acknowledged queen of the form on this, her ninth studio album. All the usual elements are in place, from the powerful lyrics to the languid delivery, and regular Taylor Swift producer and co-writer Jack Antonoff also returns. But the smoky-voiced chanteuse has acquired some new helpmates too, including Tommy Genesis (described by Dazed magazine as “the internet’s most rebellious underground rap queen”), leftfield indie rocker Father John Misty (formerly of Fleet Foxes), and (even more leftfield) Judah Smith, a pastor with Los Angeles megachurch Churchome.

March 10

Natalie Merchant: Keep Your Courage (Nonesuch)

Grounded in classical music and the Great American Songbook from an early age, Natalie Merchant became a kind of indie-rock pin-up in the 1980s thanks to the success of her band 10,000 Maniacs. But despite having spent nearly three decades now turning out peerless collections of solo work broadly sited in the American folk tradition, there’s still something uncategorisable about her. In part it’s the inimitable voice, in part it’s a roster of collaborators which runs from avant-garde British composer Gavin Bryars to Billy Bragg to bosom buddy and fellow traveller Michael Stipe. That trend continues here in her first album of completely new work since 2014’s eponymous Natalie Merchant. Joining her are Irish folk supergroup Lúnasa, Syrian clarinettist Kinan Azmeh, jazz trombonist Steve Davis and singer Abena Koomson-Davis, leader of the Resistance Revival Chorus. When your songs have been covered by Joan Baez and Christy Moore you must be doing something right.

April 14

The National: First Two Pages Of Frankenstein (4AD)

With guest appearances from Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers among others, and the promise of “a new era” for the band, this ninth studio album from REM’s heirs apparent is shaping up to be a less lowkey affair than 2019’s I Am Easy To Find. For which read: expect more of the electronics and synth textures which flavoured 2017’s Sleep Well Beast, if not perhaps any sentiment you could describe as optimistic. The National don’t really do euphoria, after all. What they do provide, as lead single Tropic Morning News ably demonstrates, is dark, atmospheric, hook-laden dives into lead singer Matt Berninger’s psyche. Music by grown-ups, for grown-ups.

April 28