Loma Vista Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Before recording As Above So Below, her second album, Sampa Tembo decided to move back to her native Zambia after years spent living in Australia. Reconnected with her cultural roots, she set about making an album that brilliantly blends hip-hop and 21st century electronics with native Zambian musical forms and hat-tips to psych, blues and folk. It would be fair to say that it works - and then some - with her chosen lyrical themes and an impressive array of guests (Kojey radikal, Chef 187, Witch, Denzel Curry and Joey Bada$$ included) further enhancing the offering. It sounds and feels like a genuinely landmark album - something that creates something genuinely new and fresh out of disparate musical cultures. In other words, it's a triumph.

Review: Trailed by her label Loma Vista as "a rebirth in process", Chelsea Wolfe's tenth studio album wears its weighty and deeply personal inspirations (cutting ties with friends and lovers and the extensive period of healing that follows) as a badge of honour. While these themes are most explicitly explored in the lyrics (and shine through her delicate, frequently weary vocal performances), there's a darkness and brooding intensity to some of the music on show that undoubtedly suits its subject matter. For proof, check the gnarled, raw and fuzzy Nine Inch Nails-meets-Tricky flex of 'Whispers In The Echo Chamber', the claustrophobic sound design and razor-sharp guitars of 'Everything Turns Blue', the Mezzanine-era Massive Attack growl of 'Tunnel Lights' and the breathlessly brilliant closing cut, 'Dusk'.