Back catalogue: All genres

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.