Its like tapping into the animating energy of the universe Guardian readers best albums of 2023 so far

From melancholy pop to jubilant rap, potent African pop and accessible jazz, Guardian readers worldwide pick out the new music that has most impressed them so far this year

James Holden’s label Border Community introduced me to electronic music that I probably would never have listened to otherwise. Over the years, he seems to have moved away from club-based music in favour of a more organic, human sound. It’s been almost 20 years since the creation of Border Community and this album is a celebration of that. Each track feels like a nod to parts of his previous discography. The percussion on most tracks is very faint and makes the album feel like a lost memory. The only track where the beat hits with a thud is Worlds Collide Mountains Form, which sounds like a band playing by the fire, feeding off each other in a trance-like state. To me, that signals where James is now and he wants you to join in. Ross, 35, Norwich

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by Guardian readers via Electronic music | The Guardian

Ragga-metal Y2K R&B and folk legends: 30 acts to see at Glastonbury

From big names including Arctic Monkeys and Kelis to must-see cult acts such as Yaya Bey and Vigro Deep, our music editors pick out the essential sets

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas and Laura Snapes via Electronic music | The Guardian

Meshell Ndegeocello: The Omnichord Real Book review infectious futurist jazz

(Blue Note)
Spanning synthpop to electronic R&B, the singer and bassist’s expansive Blue Note debut is a genre-hopping class act, with guests to match

Over the past 30 years, German-born American bassist and vocalist Meshell Ndegeocello has lent her unique blend of spacious melodies, rooted grooves and intricate fingerpicking to tracks by everyone from Madonna to Herbie Hancock and Robert Glasper. Across her own albums, Ndegeocello has been honing this sound to create soulful music that interpolates R&B and hip-hop as much as the virtuosity of jazz. Most recently she produced 2018’s Ventriloquism, which reinterpreted R&B tracks from the 80s. On her latest album Ndegeocello now looks forward, producing a futuristic, original soundscape of jaunty synthpop and electronic R&B.

Clattering electronic drum programming gives a modernist swing to tracks such as Georgia Ave and Omnipuss, while Josh Johnson’s synthesised saxophone underpins the keening harmonies of An Invitation. Features from vibraphonist Joel Ross on the balladic Towers and guitarist Jeff Parker on the fast-paced fusion of ASR are meanwhile anchored by Ndegeocello’s punchy bass playing, giving consistency to her genre-hopping palette. At 18 tracks long, certain numbers, such as the guitar-strumming Call the Tune or the ambient Oneelevensixteen, are tantalisingly brief and sketch-like. As a whole, it’s a confident imagining of her infectious future funk sound.

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by Ammar Kalia via Electronic music | The Guardian

We made horse semen into little shakers: the quest for musics most extreme sounds

From cannabis plants to screaming peacocks, swallowed microphones to babies in utero, musicians are rejecting regular instruments and software-derived sound

‘I didn’t shoot a horse to make this record,” clarifies Matthew Herbert. “I just scoured for sounds of horses being shot and having sex … although that did get me into slightly dodgy internet territory.”

The experimental electronic musician and artist may not have slain a horse for his latest record, The Horse, but he did use a skeleton of one. “I found [it] on eBay and it only had a day left,” he recalls. “So I had to make a decision really quickly whether to go for it.” He went for it. “Then I realised I’ve got a dead horse in the corner of my studio,” he laughs. “I didn’t have the space to assemble it, I didn’t know what I was doing, it smelt a bit, so I left it there for a couple of weeks.”

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by Daniel Dylan Wray via Electronic music | The Guardian

Parklife festival review – northern rave culture clearly in rude health

Heaton Park, Manchester
Enormous crowds for in-demand Fred Again vie with those for Aitch’s confident homecoming headline set, while the Prodigy chime with Parklife’s rave ethos

Parklife’s blend of DJs and live acts separates it from the band-centric Reading and Leeds and rap-heavy Wireless in the youth-cultural big leagues, but this year the headliners are a band and a rapper: the 1975 and Aitch, raised in the region and with Manchester dear to their hearts.

Rave culture, though, remains at Parklife’s core – everywhere you go, artists address the crowd as “ravers”. The Rinse FM stage hosts quality UK garage from aficionados such as Girls Don’t Sync, Interplanetary Criminal, Conducta and Salute; Jaguar, Melé and more loosen hips in house venue Magic Sky; and on the Eat Your Own Ears stage, Yung Singh spins a blistering mix of Punjabi garage and bassline, and Nia Archives whets appetites for the Prodigy’s set with remix-heavy jungle exhilaration.

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by Nathan Evans via Electronic music | The Guardian

‘Work is therapy’: synth-pop icon Johnny Jewel on David Lynch, Chromatics and near-death experiences

He was kidnapped as a teenager and later nearly drowned, but these traumas have been poured into an awesomely rich body of music for film, TV and the dancefloor

“Art is not a hobby, it’s a necessity,” says Johnny Jewel. “I have an unquenchable thirst for sound and tone.”

Jewel has been thirsty for two decades. He has produced shimmering and dreamy synth-pop, slick noir disco and infectious dance-rock via his bands Glass Candy, Chromatics and Desire. He was personally asked to remix the Weeknd’s multibillion-streamed megahit Blinding Lights, and his compositions have been sampled by everyone from 21 Savage to Jarvis Cocker. On top of releasing several solo albums, he runs a staggeringly prolific record label, Italians Do It Better, for which he also produces, writes and contributes to all the acts. He has also scored multiple films, including Drive, Bronson and Lost River, and several of his tracks were used in the TV show Twin Peaks: the Return.

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by Daniel Dylan Wray via Electronic music | The Guardian

Christine and the Queens: Paranoïa, Angels, True Love review – a grief-stricken masterpiece

(Because Music)
A howl of despair sublimated into beautiful experimental pop, the artist’s fourth album is his best yet

When Christine and the Queens first appeared in the anglophone world in 2015, the name was an alias for Héloïse Letissier: a French artist with an extraordinary line in immaculately cool, obliquely catchy, 80s-flavoured synthpop that mused on queer identity. By 2018, Letissier had become Chris – the eponymous, androgynous protagonist of her funky second album. Then, last year, the musician announced he was now using male pronouns as well as another moniker: Redcar, also the title character of his third album, Redcar les Adorables Étoiles.

That record, a reflective, slippery, not-quite-satisfying collection sung in French, was met with a muted reception. Now it seems simply a warmup for this masterpiece. Letissier’s clearly rocky path to self-realisation has been entangled with seismic grief – in 2019, his mother died – and Paranoïa, Angels, True Love is a howl of despair sublimated into astonishingly beautiful experimental pop, drenched in warm celestial light, punctured by spikes of confused pain. On Tears Can Be So Soft, loss is bluntly aired – “I miss my mama at night” – over a syncopated raindrops-on-the-roof beat and a minuscule snippet of Marvin Gaye. A distorted “fucking” is bellowed over sweet Johann Pachelbel strings on Full of Life. True Love couches romance in inescapable grief (“make me forget my mother”), the sound of a heart monitor and blasts of static.

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by Rachel Aroesti via Electronic music | The Guardian

The best albums of 2023 so far

From the unique sonic world of Yaeji to the dark folk music of Lankum, here are our picks of the best LPs from the first half of the year

Perhaps the pandemic forced us to appreciate the art of lolling about, but for whatever reason, the sound of slacker indie is as popular as ever, and this London trio are peak practitioners. They sound as if they’d borrow your cigarettes outside a pub with the most cursory of thank yous – there’s shades of Justine Frischmann’s delivery at times – but they are far from aloof, covering a broad emotional and stylistic range: nervy post-punk, perky lo-fi pop and also a kind of sexy shoegaze on songs such as Changer, Horsey Girl Rider and the superb Missus Morality. Ben Beaumont-Thomas

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas, Safi Bugel, Alexis Petridis and Laura Snapes via Electronic music | The Guardian

Speakers Corner Quartet: Further Out Than the Edge review – flawless hymn to fusion

(OTIH)
This long-awaited debut from the south London spoken-word night house band is rich in guests and dark, downbeat textures

In the mid-00s, Brixton Jamm in south London was home to a well-known open mic night Speakers Corner, which featured a house band going toe-to-toe with local MCs to develop a raucous hip-hop fusion. Seventeen years on from their first performances, that house band are now releasing their debut album, a tribute to the diverse network of collaborators they have gathered in the city.

Guest Coby Sey opens the 13-track set with his languorous baritone, lending swagger to a downcast guitar riff reminiscent of early the xx, while newcomer Léa Sen provides gorgeously ethereal vocals to the midtempo introspection of Dreaded!. Poets Kae Tempest and James Massiah, meanwhile, command their respective tracks, with the former lending meandering phrasing to the sweeping strings of Geronimo Blues, while Massiah’s staccato delivery punctuates the crackling atmosphere of Hither Green. Instrumentally, Further Out… is remarkably cohesive, thanks to the Quartet’s dark, downbeat textures that support everyone from Sampha to composer Mica Levi. The group maintain control throughout, making this a flawless and packed debut – one that has been worth the wait.

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by Ammar Kalia via Electronic music | The Guardian

Kylie, Genesis Owusu and David Bridie: Australia’s best new music for June

Each month our critics pick 20 new songs for our Spotify playlist. Read about 10 of our favourites here – and subscribe on Spotify, which updates with the full list at the start of each month

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For fans of: Ava Max, Eurovision, all the fake-sounding RuPaul songs

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by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen, Isabella Trimboli, Janine Israel, Shaad D'Souza, Andrew Stafford and Michael Sun via Electronic music | The Guardian