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Fopp’s Picks
May 2024
May is here, and we’re pumped to share our top picks for this month’s releases
Fearless Movement
Release: 3rd May 2024
Available on ltd. one red, one blue double vinyl / standard vinyl / CD
Washington calls ‘Fearless Movement’ his dance album. ‘It’s not literal’, Washington says. ‘Dance is movement and expression, and in a way it’s the same thing as music – expressing your spirit through your body. That’s what this album is pushing’. ‘Fearless Movement’ features Washington’s daughter – who wrote the melody to ‘Asha the First’ during some of her first experimentations on the piano – as well as a host of collaborators new and old. Andre 3000 appears on flute, George Clinton lends his voice, as do BJ the Chicago Kid, Inglewood rapper D-Smoke and Taj and Ras Austin of Coast Contra, the twin sons of West Coast legend Ras Kass. Washington further enlisted lifelong friends and collaborators Thundercat, Terrace Martin, Patrice Quinn, Brandon Coleman, DJ Battlecat and more.
Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown
Beth Gibbons – Lives OutgrownRelease: 17th May 2024
Available on deluxe edition vinyl / standard vinyl / Caseband book CD/ CD
Beth Gibbons releases her debut solo album ‘Lives Outgrown’ in May 2024. Featuring ten beautiful new songs recorded over a period of ten years, the album was produced by James Ford & Beth Gibbons with additional production by Lee Harris. ‘Lives Outgrown’ is, by some measure, Beth’s most personal work to date, the result of a period of sustained reflection and change – ‘lots of goodbyes’, in Beth’s words. Farewells to family, to friends, even to her former self. These are songs from the mid-course of life, when looking ahead no longer yields what it used to, and looking back has a sudden, sharper focus.
Paul Weller – 66
Release: 24th May 2024
Available on deluxe edition blue vinyl / vinyl / Hardback Book 2CD / CD
In the ever-evolving landscape of contemporary music, few artists possess the enduring influence and innovative spirit of Paul Weller. A recording career that began in 1977, now takes in the release of his 17th solo album. As the title and artwork by Sir Peter Blake (his first for Weller since 1995’s Stanley Road) indicates, the album marks the completion of his 66th journey around the sun. ’66’ is quite a reflective and inward thinking album that pulls back the camera lens and shines a light on the way Weller’s creativity interacts with his wider world. Continually finding new ways to alchemise the miracle of living and the meaning of it all, he draws on fragments of real life, ruminations on spirituality and even childhood memories. There are songs touching on faith, changing circumstances and the fractured realities of life in this turbulent age. But ’66’ is positive at heart, bursting with the wisdom and perspective accrued by the business of someone who has really lived and loved.
Keeley Forsyth – The Hollow
Release: 10th May 2024
Available on vinyl / CD
The wilds of Keeley Forsyth’s adopted home in the north of England seem to inhabit this, her third record. An often bleak and foreboding landscape surrounds the Yorkshire town in which Forsyth resides. The moors, on clear days, visible from her home studio window, impact upon a music that often feels made of these places. Windswept, rain soaked and blinking through the low-lit landscape. It is here through the gloaming mist that the storm breaks and the fox tears at the throat as the red kites circle to scavenge whatever’s left. ‘There was a sound I had in my head. One to reach, that hovers above and is slightly less grounded. But a sound and feeling that nonetheless is inevitably tethered to the soil’. Working again with producer Ross Downes, Forsyth desired to place the music to the side of any given genre. ‘We wanted to make something slightly more expansive, continuing to reference what we love from various genres without ever belonging to one’. It’s with this ethos that we recognise aspects of sacred music, minimalist post-classical, dark ambient, film and theatre soundtracks.
Barry Adamson – Cut to Black
Release: 17th May 2024
Available on vinyl / CD
2024 ushers in a brand new Barry Adamson album entitled, ‘Cut to Black’. The album swaggeringly embraces Adamson’s trademark genre hopping compositions, covering pop, soul, jazz, hip-hop and gospel. Having released nine studio albums, including the 1992 Mercury Music Prize nominated ‘Soul Murder’, Adamson has continued to tour globally with his talents being in as much demand by new generations of artists, as he was after his first solo release.
The Lemon Twigs – A Dream is All We Know
Release: 3rd May 2024
Available on vinyl / CD
Following the release of ‘Everything Harmony’ (2023), which garnered acclaim from Questlove, Iggy Pop, Anthony Fantano, The Guardian, and countless others, The Lemon Twigs – the New York City rock band fronted by brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario-have once again captured the attention of the music listening public. Set for release less than a year after their last album, ‘A Dream Is All We Know’ is a joyous affair. As the title suggests, it’s less of a sober look at the darker side of life, and more a hopeful sojourn into the realm of dreams.
Rachel Chinouriri – What a Devastating Turn of Events
Release: 3rd May 2024
Available on ltd. edition red vinyl / standard vinyl / CD
The album is a culmination of the experiences, challenges and joys of Chinouriri’s life so far, explored through the prism of musical stylings honed through years of experimentation and creation. Ever-eclectic and brutally honest, the album traverses life’s light and shade, the writing and sharing a healing process for Rachel, and she hopes, her listeners.
Mdou Moctar – Funeral for Justice
Release: 3rd May 2024
Available on ltd. edition red vinyl / standard vinyl / CD
‘Funeral for Justice’ is the 2024 album by Mdou Moctar. Recorded at the close of two years spent touring the globe following the release of 2019 breakout ‘Afrique Victime’, it captures the Nigerien quartet in ferocious form. The music is louder, faster, and more wild. The guitar solos are feedback-scorched and the lyrics are passionately political. The songs on ‘Funeral for Justice’ speak unflinchingly to the plight of Niger and of the Tuareg people. ‘This album is really different for me’, explains Moctar, the band’s singer, namesake, and indisputably iconic guitarist. ‘Now the problems of terrorist violence are more serious in Africa. When the US and Europe came here, they said they’re going to help us, but what we see is really different. They never help us to find a solution’.
Amen Dunes – Death Jokes
Release: 10th May 2024
Available on ltd. edition coke bottle vinyl / CD
With ‘Death Jokes’, for the first time since the project’s incarnation in 2006, the spiritual reflections and meditations of Amen Dunes are turned away from himself, and out sharply towards the world. The album is also a drastic turn musically and thematically, rooted in the electronic music of raves and of rap music he grew up with but never imagined himself able to make, playing like a scathing electronic essay on America’s culture of violence, dominance, and destructive individualism.
Jordan Rakei – The Loop
Jordan Rakei – The LoopRelease: 10th May 2024
Available on double vinyl / CD
Grammy-award nominated Jordan Rakei is a renowned multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, producer, and songwriter who, has been on a wide-ranging journey that explores the outer reaches of his inner psyche, traversing themes of emotional evolution, personal growth and family with unwavering sincerity. Always positioning himself in and amongst the bigger questions in life, he has navigated his musical journey with passion and precision, unveiling something new about himself through his songwriting at every turn. The Loop is by far Rakei’s most cohesive and evolutionary work to date following an impressive career of previous releases, each of which have demonstrated his natural curiosity and capabilities in exploring new sounds.