Album Spotlight W04
Anna B Savage – You & i are Earth
Anna B Savage’s “You & I Are Earth” emerges as a gentle declaration of relocation – both musically and geographically. The British singer-songwriter crafts a love letter to Ireland’s Donegal coast by trading her previous electronic experiments for folk-jazz intimacy.
The album completes an unplanned trilogy, following her lockdown debut “A Common Turn” and therapy-inspired “in|Flux.” This time, the synthesizers make way for seagull-mimicking strings and Atlantic-rippling guitars, with Savage’s voice leading us through ten tracks of introspection.
Producer John ‘Spud’ Murphy (of Lankum fame) wraps everything in an organic blanket of harmonium, bouzouki, and taishōgoto, matching the album’s moss-and-fern artwork.
Savage has crafted something deliberately grounded – an album about finding home, both in place and person. The title, borrowed from a 1661 London artifact, suggests connection over innovation. Like its creator’s cover portrait, nestled in greenery, this is music content to grow where it’s planted.
DITZ – Never Exhale
Brighton’s DITZ returns with “Never Exhale,” crafting a sophisticated noise-rock statement between IDLES support slots and relentless touring. Despite rushed studio time, they’ve delivered a meticulously structured sophomore album.
Three years post-“Great Regression,” the band emerges into a post-punk landscape refreshingly devoid of pretenders. Frontperson C.A. Francis’s incisive commentary on queer commodification and class exploitation cuts through the carefully controlled chaos of their sonic assault.
True to its name, “Never Exhale” doesn’t pause for breath – it’s a feminist, trans-inclusive, anti-capitalist manifesto wrapped in a wall of sound. For a band lamenting their time constraints, they’ve managed to capture lightning in a bottle between tour dates.
Ghais Guevara – Goyard Ibn Said
“Goyard Ibn Said” marks Philadelphia MC Ghais Guevara’s transformation from mixtape to label artist, trading his raw political edge for something more.
Split into two acts like a theater piece, the album first seduces with mainstream trappings before pulling the luxury rug out from under the listener’s feet.
CITYPROBLEM’s engineering elevates the sonics from bedroom DIY to studio polish while maintaining the experimental edge that made Ghais interesting in the first place.
The album creates an anti-hero narrative that questions not just hip-hop stardom but the very nature of audience complicity.
Consider this Ghais Guevara 2.0: more refined, more complex, and definitely more likely to make you question your role as a consumer of Black art while nodding your head to some seriously well-crafted beats.
FKA Twigs – EUSEXUA
FKA Twigs’ EUSEXUA lands as a delicious paradox: an experimental pop album that’s both defiantly weird and inexplicably accessible. After heartbreak-processing MAGDALENE and the poppier CAPRISONGS, Twigs found inspiration in Prague’s brutalist techno bunkers while filming the gloriously doomed “The Crow” remake – proving even cinematic disasters can birth sonic gold.
This record’s brilliance only became clear during a shared listening session with The Unkle, “lo zio”, from La XXVora, my favourite and best musical web sanctuary (in Italian). It’s beautiful how shared passion and friendship can illuminate music in new ways. Through the collective listening experience, EUSEXUA reveals a rare beast: an experimental artist’s triumph that’s both museum-worthy and dancefloor-ready.
Twigs remains pop’s most elegant outsider, several steps ahead, making the journey irresistible for anyone brave enough to follow.
Charm School – DEBT FOREVER
Andrew Sellers trades his indie folk moniker (Andrew Rinehart) for Charm School’s credit score blues, delivering a debut album that turns financial anxiety into post-punk gold. Think of “Debt Forever” as a collection agency’s worst nightmare – set to distorted guitars and existential dread.
Drawing from ’70s post-punk and ’90s noise rock, Charm School crafts a timely soundtrack for our economically uncertain times. Consider it the unofficial score to your next overdraft notice – delivered with enough precision and punch to make even your financial advisor start a mosh pit.
