Staff Picks 2022

Superchunk - Wild Loneliness

Released 25th February 2022. "Like every record Superchunk has made over the last thirty-some yea...

Released 25th February 2022. "Like every record Superchunk has made over the last thirty-some years, Wild Loneliness is unskippably excellent and infectious. It’s a blend of stripped-down and lush, electric and acoustic, highs and lows, and I love it all. On Wild Loneliness I hear echoes of Come Pick Me Up, Here’s to Shutting Up, and Majesty Shredding. After the (ahem, completely justifiable) anger of What a Time to Be Alive, this new record is less about what we’ve lost in these harrowing ti...

Laura Veirs - Found Light

Expected Release 8th July 2022. Found Light may be Laura Veirs’ 12th studio LP, but it also, in m...

Expected Release 8th July 2022. Found Light may be Laura Veirs’ 12th studio LP, but it also, in many ways, feels like her debut. If 2020’s My Echo—written and mixed just prior to her 2019 split from her longtime husband, her longtime producer, and the father of her two sons—was her divorce album, Found Light is about what comes after. Found Light is a liberating collection of inquisitive and surprisingly assured snapshots of healing and personal growth, and her very first release with co-prod...

BODEGA - Broken Equipment

Released 11th March 2022. The follow-up to the band's acclaimed debut album, Endless Scroll (2018...

Released 11th March 2022. The follow-up to the band's acclaimed debut album, Endless Scroll (2018), and 2019's Shiny New Model EP, Broken Equipment was inspired by a book club. In the early months of 2020, the Brooklyn art-punk incendiaries gathered together with close friends to study the works of a wide range of philosophers. Passionate debates lasting long into the night became a regular occurrence, motivating the band to become asideologically unified as the weighty tomes they were readin...

Spoon - Lucifer on the Sofa

Released 11th February 2022. Spoon’s tenth album, Lucifer on the Sofa, is the band’s purest rock ...

Released 11th February 2022. Spoon’s tenth album, Lucifer on the Sofa, is the band’s purest rock ’n roll record to date. Texas-made, it is the first set of songs that the quintet has put to tape in its hometown of Austin in more than a decade. Written and recorded over the last two years – both in and out of lockdown – these songs mark a shift toward something louder, wilder, and more full-colour. From the detuned guitars anchoring “The Hardest Cut,” to the urgency of “Wild", to the band’s bl...

Gently Tender - Take Hold Of Your Promise!

Released 26th August 2022 Rising from the ashes of Palma Violets, Gently Tender first begun as a ...

Released 26th August 2022 Rising from the ashes of Palma Violets, Gently Tender first begun as a reminder for Sam Fryer to treat himself more softly. Joined by his former bandmates Will and Pete, along with The Big Moon’s Celia Archer and guitarist Adam Brown, the band’s long-awaited debut album ‘Take Hold Of Your Promise!’ has been five years in the making, and marks a return to something slow and careful, rooted, and soulful.

Cass McCombs - Heartmind

Released 19th August 2022 SK says: "Despite its inspiration being the loss of several close frien...

Released 19th August 2022 SK says: "Despite its inspiration being the loss of several close friends and collaborators, 'Heartmind' is one of McCombs's most breezy and playful outings to date. "Karaoke" comically riffs on love song titles, while "New Earth" is a kind of post-apocalyptic bossa that could've come from the pen of the Conchords. That's not to say that 'Heartmind' doesn't have its knottier moments- the pleasingly loose and rambling "Unproud Warrior" sounds like something Lonnie Hol...

caroline - caroline

Released 25th February 2022. UK eight-piece caroline’s eponymous debut album often cascades with ...

Released 25th February 2022. UK eight-piece caroline’s eponymous debut album often cascades with force like an avalanche, squalling and rumbling on the edge of all-out collapse. At other points they slip back into impossibly fragile moments of quiet – a simple bassline or a rattle of snare the only sound amid a dark sea of silence. caroline know exactly the right balance between restraint and release. These songs are expansive and emotive pieces, their rich palette drawing on a mixture of cho...

The Big Moon - Here Is Everything

Released 14th October 2022. The Big Moon are back. The last time you heard them it was welcoming ...

Released 14th October 2022. The Big Moon are back. The last time you heard them it was welcoming the release of their dazzling second album, Walking Like We Do, back in January 2020, when life was very different to how it is now. That was a coming-of-age record, bold songs for Saturday nights and sad songs for Sunday mornings. So much has changed, continues to change, and promises to change some more. And in this world of constant change, we yearn for the familiarity of a constant. Thankfully...