Back catalogue: All genres

Review: The album 1982 stands out as one of the finest moments in A Certain Ratio's story. When you're talking about a band that started half a decade before the year 1982, that's saying something. Following on from the landmark ACR Loco, the outfit's 2023 record is packed with multidimensionality - dipping toes into everything from gritty post punk (a sound from whence they first came) to Afrobeat, all realised with exceptional attention to detail and the highest possible standards. 2023 EP, as the title suggests, builds on the impact of that latest long-from release. Opening on the jazzy late night club workout 'Day By Day', a brand new number, the package then jumps into work from the aforementioned LP, redone by contemporary dons. So that's Werkha on a stepping, garage-hued version of 'SAMO', Emperor Machine emphasising the exotic disco grooves of 'Constant Curve', and Jade Parker offering a highly percussive cosmic take on 'Waiting On A Train'.

Review: Defeat is a 22-minute new mega-single by Animal Collective, who by now should need no introduction (but for the rookies, we'll indulge one anyway) as the paradigm-breaking experimental pop band and formed in 1999. 'Defeat' is divided into two parts. The first is a beatless, coming-of-age pop seance, spanning surreal harmonia, whirling organelles and beatless spirallings, lyrically centring on the theme of overcoming adolescence. Part two is far darker, concerning the implicit alienation of a mother restlessly searching for her daughter in a lost dystopia, while horrific, tremolo'ing cellos play out in bad-trip horror flick fashion. Recorded with producer Russell Elevado, violinist Samara Lubelski, cellist Leila Bordreuil, and saxophonist Ben Chapoteau-Katz, it's certain to sate fans of the Collective, who remain committed to an ever-chameleonic bravado.

Review: The super French crew Hard Fist have got a brilliantly twisted new Balearic record on their hands here thanks to the work of Shkema in both original and remix mode. He goes first with the deep, dubby and post-punk moodiness of 'Tas Malonumas' then 'Room Of Men Eaters' is a chugging deep disco cut with a fine vocoder vocal that brings some trippiness. 'Sarka Syrkaza' on the flip is another dark one with twisted metal guitar lines and rooted drum drums, then he remixes Afrodelic's 'Je N'Aime Pas Les Fetes' into a loose-limbed and percussive dub disco delight with filtered and freaky vocals.