BMG US レコード& CD

Review: The Love Invention is the debut solo album by Alison Goldfrapp, the singer of the longtime electronic duo Goldfrapp. Striking out on her own here, it contains 11 tracks in her usual cross-section of house, dance-pop, and nu-disco, but this time around they were co-produced with the likes of Richard X and James Greenwood (aka Ghost Culture) instead. A rallying cry for freedom and cleaving out a space for one's own, the album also deals with subjects such as falsity and authenticity, and takes a lot after the former Goldfrapp project Head First.

Review: If there's anything that can make a Kylie album more appealing, it's a lovely bright orange vinyl pressing, which is what this is. Minogue, of course, is Australia's premier cultural export many decades into her career. Tension is her first decent-sized body of new work since the 2020 disco, dance and pop album Disco and is her 16th long player overall. This one has a hint of electro-pop to it but it's still rooted in glossy, accessible, happy dance sounds that will be popular at weddings for decades to come. Dutch DJ and producer Oliver Heldens has linked with Kylie for one of the better tunes, '10 Out of 10' and it's a vibrant mix of euro dane from across the ages.

Review: Long-term Pumpkins fans might have been forgiven for thinking that Billy Corgan had taken leave of his senses of late, given his ventures into wrestling management and the eight-hour freeform modular synth take on Herman Hesse's Siddhartha that he baffled an audience with in his coffee shop recently. Yet fear not: on the evidence of Monuments To An Elegy, the combination of riff attack, fragile melody and plaintive melancholy that was at the heart of the Pumpkins' classic work is very much present and correct, not to mention Corgan's charismatic songwriting suss. Monuments To An Elegy is a fitting title, for both the rock solid and emotionally engaging elements of classic Pumpkins are here explored anew.