June: 18 albums you need to hear this month

Cassius 'Ibifornia' (Love Justice SARL/Justice SARL/Interscope)

Anyone who’s followed Philipe Zdar’s production career over the past few years will undertand why the band’s new album has been jokingly dubbed “Cassius & the Family Stone”: with cameos from the likes of Pharrell Williams, Cat Power and Beastie Boys’ Mike D, ‘Ibifornia’ is a lush, exotic album with star-studded collabs which sounds as inspired by the jungle as it is by the dancefloor. It’s also not scared of playing pop in the same way that ‘1999’ and ‘Feeling For You Did’ – ndeed, ‘The Missing’ with Ryan Tedder and Jaw sounds like a soulful update of ‘Starlight’ by The Supermen Lovers. Mike D also appears on ‘Love Parade’, too, although ‘Go Up’ with Pharrell and Cat Power is ‘the album’s true jewel in the crown.

8/10

Various 'MadTech Ibiza 2016' (MadTech Records)

MadTech Records’ latest compilation offers up 16 more exclusives that’ll have you pining for the start of the Ibiza summer season. Producer Max Chapman puts in a screamer with ‘Paravana’, while No Artificial Colours follow their stompers for Of Unsound Mind with the pumping, infectious beat of ‘Daze’. It’s the newer artists who demand the most plays, though, from Solardo’s dark ‘Music Saved My Life’ to Truth Be Tolds rumbling ‘Tone Def’.Waitz’ infectious ‘Get Into It’ is made for the main room, going back to back with Lance Morgan’s energetic mover ‘Let Loose’ and Montel’s bumping, tech-house charger ‘Rhythm Of Change’. Ibiza, we’re coming for you!

6/10

Alexis Taylor 'Piano' (Moshi Moshi)

There’s something almost voyeuristic about listening to this poignant album from Hot Chip frontman Alexis Taylor. It’s just him, a piano and a bunch of songs (some original, some standards), and they feel so raw that listening to them borders on the uncomfortable. Taylor’s sweet, fragile voice is centre stage: on a rendition of Elvis favourite ‘Crying In The Chapel’, you can hear him inhaling and exhaling; you can even make out the saliva crackle on his lips. There are overtones of King Creosote, the Scottish folk artist that Jon Hopkins collaborated with in 2011, in the confessional ‘Piano’. But despite its loveliness, a take on Hot Chip’s ‘Just For A Little While’ feels more like a demo to the sultry original.

8/10

Laura Mvula 'The Dreaming Room' (RCA Records)

Written in her producer’s garden shed rather than the confines of a studio, Laura Mvula sounds confident and free throughout her second album. She enlists Nile Rodgers’ funky basslines on lead single ‘Overcome’, while ‘People’, a collaboration with Wretch 32, is inspired by “the crisis of black identity in the west”. Elsewhere, the hymn-like ‘Show Me Love’ reveals Mvula’s captivating vocal like a peacock showing its feathers before grand instruments add a cinematic touch, and ‘Kiss My Feet’ is a mass of disjointed beats, SBTRKT-like synths and stark lyrics about loss. ‘Nan’, meanwhile, forms a brief but inspirational interlude that paves the way for the gospel-funk closer ‘Phenomenal Woman’.

8/10

Grace Jones

'Warm Leatherette' (Deluxe Version) (Island/Universal)

Grace Jones is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only is she still delivering blistering performances at the age of 68, but her albums only seem to get more influential as time goes on. 1980’s ‘Warm Leatherette’ was the record where she broke away from disco and embraced new wave, post punk and reggae, covering the likes of Joy Division and Roxy Music, assembling the legendary Compass Point All Stars and taking on her androgynous look. It still sounds somehow classic and futuristic at the same time, and the rare and unreleased mixes and dubs are worth the price of admission.

9/10

Audion 'Alpha' (!K7)

Has it really been a decade since Audion’s ‘Mouth To Mouth’? The answer, it seems, is absolutely, and while there have been a smattering of releases since then – including seven singles in 2009 and the ‘Audion X’ retrospective in 2013 – this new album is just what the doctor ordered. ‘There Was A Button’ and ‘Napkin’ both seemingly take their cue from ‘Erotic Discourse’ before heading into malevolent Planet E territory, and the creepy robo-vocoder voices permeating ‘Gut Man Cometh’ make it a spooky delight. Trippy instrumental ‘Traanc’ is probably the most quintessential Audion track, while ‘Destroyer’ and ‘Sucker’ scream Circoloco 2016 until their production lungs run out of steam.

8/10

Marquis Hawkes 'Social Housing' (Houndstooth)

Ever since his arrival in 2012, Marquis Hawkes has made sure his house music is always pumping, prickly and served with a big dose of reverence for Chicago. Far from pastiche, though, the still rather mysterious man behind it all manages to lay down bumping beats and scintillating percussion that are off-kilter and ghetto-fried, as well as being hugely fun. His debut LP is fine proof of that: all 13 tracks are club-ready weapons that range from slamming and sleazy to swinging and acid-laced, variously shaded with influences of Derrick Carter, Dance Mania and DJ Sneak. Catnip for DJs and dancers alike, this is as visceral yet charming as house gets.

9/10

DJ Shadow 'The Mountain Will Fall' (Mass Appeal)

Genius clearly isn’t enough sometimes. This album shows that DJ Shadow’s superhuman abilities – in reassembling sounds, samples, textures and melodies into something greater than the sum of their parts – have clearly been undiminished by time. There are ebbing and flowing synths that pluck at the heartstrings, single drum hits that alone can make your synapses tingle and gorgeous hooks and atmospheres agogo. But Shadow clearly wants more: he then tweaks everything here to within an inch of its life, either with quasi-Squarepusher micro-edits, manic trap and crunk drum patterns or over-the-top production bordering on EDM. There are a few tracks (including the two straight-ahead rap tunes and haunting closer ‘Suicide Pact’) where he does actually let the groove unfold naturally, but that just makes even more frustratingly clear how much better the rest of this record could be if only Shadow would just ease off on the tinkering and fidgeting. Sometimes, it seems, more is actually less.

5/10