August: 18 albums you need to hear this month

Session Victim 'Listen To Your Heart'

Session Victim have impressed us with their Vitamin D-soaked house before. For third LP ‘Listen To Your Heart’, the Hamburg-based duo recorded in San Francisco, and once again went rifling through record bins in order to find interesting sounds to sample. Their cratedigging has paid off, as evidenced by the revitalising melodies of ‘Shadows’; ‘Over And Over’, meanwhile, starts with jazz-streaked loops of guitar, before the stunning use of synths and Rhodes-led keys riffs transform its house vibes into playful disco, soul and understated euphoria.Some listeners may be waiting for an edgy, sharp breakaway to smack them in the chops, but there’s really no need when ‘Victims’ is such a brilliantly coherent fantasy. Leah Jade Connolly

7/10

London Grammar 'Truth Is A Beautiful Thing'

The production team on this album includes Jon Hopkins, Greg Kurstin and Paul ‘Adele’ Epworth: clearly, London Grammar mean business. Fuelled by the peerless pipes of singer Hannah Reid, the torch songs and late-night ballads on debut LP ‘If You Wait’ captured a genuine moment in time. The question is, can they do it again? Well, the bona-fide future-classic ‘Oh Woman Oh Man’, the soft-focused but laser-guided balladry of ‘Hell To The Liars’ and ‘Rooting For You’, and the title track are as good as anything on their debut – and in ‘Non Believer’, they may well have written their finest song yet. There’s plenty more where that came from and, in this day and age, that’s no mean feat. Ralph Moore

8/10

Various 'Reworks Volume One'

Erol Alkan has always been an astute indie-electronic producer and arranger, as his work with Kindness, Daniel Avery and Franz Ferdinand will attest. But his epic club reworks are the focus here, with mixes of New Order, Night Works, Justice and Hot Chip all taking the originals to a higher level. The best two – his Jacques Lu Cont-style eight-minute Tame Impala rework and that scorched analogue mix of Hot Chip’s‘Boy From School’ – are a reminder that, in a way, he was a more angular, Trash-y underground successor to Fatboy Slim and his pop-fuelled takes on Cornershop et al. Ralph Moore

8/10

Nídia 'Nídia é Má, Nídia é Fudida'

The red-hot Afro-Portugese club music Príncipe specialises in is usually released on 12” single and EP. Many of its artists are in the early stages of their careers, which is why a debut LP from Nídia (fka Nídia Minaj) is such a big deal. It’s a thrill to hear this music, made by an artist barely out of her teens, across a full LP. The tracks are short and sharp: ‘Mulher Profissional’ is class balie funk, ‘Underground’ nods to classic hip hop production, ‘I Miss My Ghetto’ recontextualises deep house, ‘Puro Taraxxo’ displays Portugal’s sensual side, and many of the other tracks evoke Nídia’s booming club performances. A stellar debut album, if there ever was one. Seb Wheeler

7/10