In Emika, Ninja have a vocalist worthy of the term ‘diva’ through stealth. It’s because she doesn’t have obvious vocal histrionics, but when push comes to shove she has a voice that is completely memorable. She is musically versatile, too, and on this album ‘Filters’ has an effortless cool, ‘Dem Worlds’ operates with cold, cinematic strings, and then ‘After The Fall’ comes over like a very soft Sinead O’Connor. What puts ‘Dva’ up a notch is the quality and breadth of the songwriting, and Emika’s...

The eagerly awaited second album from Empire Of The Sun definitely doesn’t disappoint if it’s good vibes and high energy that you’re after. It is however a little bit less weird and more mainstream than ‘Walking On A Dream’, the band’s debut, though it’s hard to tell that from looking at the outlandish cover! By ‘less weird’ I mean that some of the quirks that made the first album so enjoyable have been ironed out a bit, leaving more solid four to the floor pop songs than ones that can really ba...

Luke Solomon’s house music has always had a very clear human touch, and he continues that approach with an LP that dips in and out of different moods and emotions, bringing something new to the table vocally. While ‘Not Coming Home’ gets the party started with its feelgood statements, later on we encounter the darker ‘Gods And Monsters’, with its darker and more thoughtful outlook that “I’m ugly inside, now I’m ugly outside too”. In the course of his album Solomon takes on religion, love, partyi...

He’s a very clever man, Jon Hopkins, and a very modest one too – happy to sit behind the scenes while the fruits of his producing labours are revealed. The likes of Coldplay and Brian Eno have already benefited from his talents, while the collaborative ‘Diamond Mine’ album with King Creosote was a subtle delight. Here he returns to self for a fourth album, but something is different – the tempo has shot through the roof. It might surprise long-time fans of Hopkins to learn there are some pumping...

Bomb The Bass have now been going for a quarter of a century! That remarkable fact illustrates how durable the music of Tim Simenon and his various guests have been over the years, though recently the line-up has settled down to stand for Simenon and regular vocalist Paul Conboy. In this most recent incarnation the duo have produced some of the best and most consistent material under the BTB name – and ‘In The Sun’ continues that trend. The blissful, heat soaked ‘Wandering Star’ kicks things off...

It might seem like an indecently quick second album for iamamiwhoami, but in fact Bounty is the audio-visual prologue to the Swedish duo’s debut album proper, last year’s Kin. On the strength of its single letter song names alone Bounty does not appear to be making a bid for the mainstream, but it represents a follow-up record of confidence and flexibility. Jonna Lee’s vocal continues to be the big selling point, and she is able to move from a soft whisper to a full throated bellow, which means ...

The second Gold Panda album is a worthy companion to the well-received first, Lucky Shiner. It is a warmer, more personal utterance, beautifully shaded and thoughtfully written. It has a warm ambience running through from start to finish, though the choices of beats and rhythms vary considerably from the chunky deep house of ‘We Work Nights’ to the self-assembled ‘Junk City II’, where it feels like you the listener are in a musical workshop with Gold Panda himself. There is music of real charm h...

Now releasing on his own DRUT label, Kel McKeown – known to us as Kelpe – has reached his fourth and best album. The vibrant colours of the cover offer the strongest clue to the warmth of this music, which is a winning blend of extremely danceable beats, quirky asides and brightly coloured chord sequences. A lot of this warmth is down to his analogue equipment, not to mention some inventive rhythms that take their lead from hip hop and breaks but plough their own individual furrow. ‘Single Strip...

Mount Kimbie’s eagerly awaited second album justifies its build up, though it does so in a way that makes Dominic Maker and Kai Campos a bit more subtle than their sonic boom of a debut. Here the sounds are just as imaginative, but there is a wooziness at times that makes the album an ideal late night soundtrack, and a warmth that brings them closer to the listener. The wonkiness of ‘Slow’ works well, while ‘Blood and Form’ brings an intriguing blend of styles to the table, all of them left of c...

‘Audio Therapy’ is the stunning debut album from the young multi-talented singer/songwriter Nathan Adams on Tribe Records. This honest body of work demonstrates Nathan’s versatile ability to write real heartfelt songs spectacularly delivered by that silky smooth-voice of his that oozes with delicious soul. ‘Audio Therapy’ is a melting pot of soulful dance and downtempo Neo Soul jams which sees Nathan collaborating with some of the World’s most presigious dance music producers. These include the ...

Like it or not, the return of Daft Punk represents the hottest dance music release in years, coming off the back of a spectacularly effective PR campaign. All of this has shown the album as a format is still alive and kicking, and that it remains possible to keep an element of mystery, even in a world where personalities get the close and relentless scrutiny of social media. Daft Punk will forever keen a barrier between us and them as long as they keep their robot faces, and that forms part of t...

Jaga Jazzist and the Britten Sinfonia make a natural pairing, with the orchestra following the ensemble's lead in music that is part improvised but fully coherent. This is a natural follow on from the Norwegian band's 'One Armed Bandit' album, and although much of the source material is taken from that record, it is reimagined and reinvented in vivid colours and bright new arrangements. Perhaps predictably the opening title track responds really well to a quasi-orchestral arrangement, while 'Toc...

For much of 'Silver Wilkinson' Bibio returns to more pastoral climes, keeping a fine balance between electronic and acoustic as he navigates his way through a charming set of tracks. His core style remains, though - tuneful, slightly quirky, always colourful, and with an eye on 1960s psychedelia that works really well when projected forward on to electronic tracks. 'À tout à l'heure' is especially good, with that winning mix of quirkiness and wistfulness, while 'Business Park' is lively and upbe...

Letherette's main objective is to introduce a bit of much-needed fun back into electronic music – and by and large the Wolverhampton duo succeed in music that charms, smiles and most importantly impresses. At times their off-kilter funk seems to float in a dream, but elsewhere in a track like 'Warstones' they pump some iron at the disco to good effect. Tracks like 'After Dawn' combine a bit of pop sensibility, a couple of hooks, a sense of exploration and a whiff of nostalgia in the harmonies, a...

This collection of eight tracks represents another chapter in the collaboration series between Burnt Friedman and Jaki Liebezeit, one of Can's founding members. As the title suggests the emphasis of each of the unnamed tracks is firmly on rhythm, though the approach is a relatively subtle one – and in the persuasive third track the pair introduce soft, chant-like vocals. Some of the percussion is tuned, which means there is an occasional melodic thread, but most of the time it's all about the in...

It's difficult to explain, but Boris Carloff's debut album is a bit of a head scratcher. Not in a bad way, you understand, but the music moves restlessly between a number of different styles in reflection of his varied musical background. Normally that is a good thing, but here the music struggles to settle, giving the impression that the clearly talented producer and vocalist hasn't fully settled on a definitive approach yet, remaining something of a work in progress. The progress is found in s...

In need of a synth pop shot in the arm? Well you'll find it here, without a shadow of a doubt, because Big Black Delta make fabulously upfront music to administer that immediate musical high. 'Put The Gun On The Floor' is a brilliant, highly charged opener, and the album never looks back from there, bringing in shades of M83, Depeche Mode and Passion Pit – which all ties in with main man Jonathan Bates's musical past. The two tracks already unleashed as singles on a grateful audience, 'Capsize' ...

'Tranklements' is apparently a Sheffield word that means 'a collection of objects, often precious to the owner' – and it's safe to assume the 16 objects making up this particular collection will become precious to their owners in time. The Black Dog are well versed in albums of course – this is their twelfth, after all – and it shows, with an ebb and flow that works well between the close knit, slower tracks and the ones that break loose towards the dancefloor. These quicker tracks include the i...

Few voices, Western or otherwise, have the range of expression and natural instinct that Rokia Traoré does – and here she returns to a slightly more Western way of thinking with the inclusion of producer John Parish. The title track is striking, not just because she sings in English, but because it comes from the very heart of her home continent. It is symbolic of the intense motion felt throughout the album, whether in the gentle breeze of ‘Ka Moun Ke’ or the lighter instrumental arrangements o...

If you excuse the frankly dubious name and album title, Pearl Necklace are well worth investigating, because they make the kind of slower, leftfield beats that Norwegians are so good at. A key part of this is the guest slots of Arp, who crops up on the loping, slow disco of ‘Did You Feel It’. Meanwhile the woozy, unfocused sounds in Why Toto? work nicely, as does the shimmering ‘Wist’. Sometimes a bit more pace would be welcome, and ‘Don’t’ feels like it creaks along rather, but overall this is ...