September: 18 albums you need to hear this month

Glass Animals 'How To Be A Human Being' (Wolf Tone)

Glass Animals’ tropical-tinted debut ‘Zaba’ met with mixed reviews, but the Oxford quartet sound more interesting and original on this follow-up. Lead single ‘Life Itself’ is cool and confident, its bouncy bongo drums mixing with bold oriental melodies. ‘Youth’ follows suit, boasting bizarre chords, before ‘Season 2 Episode 3’ showcases frontman Dave Bayley’s experimental lyricism: “My girl eats mayonnaise from a jar while she’s getting blazed” is brilliantly nonsensical wordplay. ‘Pork Soda’ and ‘Cane Shuga’ are both delightfully odd, ‘The Other Side Of Paradise’ is built around a hip hop structure and intriguing closer ‘Agnes’ has stadium-sized potential. Nobody else sounds like them right now.

9/10

Boxed In 'Melt' (Nettwerk Records)

After featuring on one of 2015’s biggest club hits, George Fitzgerald’s ‘Full Circle’, singer-producer Oli Bayston’s dance-pop project Boxed In is back less than a year after their well-received debut. The London four-piece impress most with upbeat, club-leaning efforts like the rumbling, progressive undercurrent of ‘Up To You/Down To Me’, while the swelling electronica of ‘Jist’ fuses a catchy bassline with infectious, repetitive lyrics. The album’s percussive moments are perfect for sunny festival slots. Elsewhere, ‘London Lights’ is comparatively relaxed, though its slow-burning synth-line stretches into club territory, and the expansive sonic landscape throughout ‘Black Prism’ could be a James Blake cut.

7/10

Eddie C 'On The Shore' (Endless Flight)

On four of the tracks here, it feels like the trip-hop revival is upon us. Not Portishead/Tricky style moody song-based stuff, but trip-hop in the sense of early Mo’ Wax, Ninja Tune or Nightmares On Wax: heavily swung and beautifully edited, with dusty, crackly breakbeats, loads of dub space and cool jazz chords. It’s all done so crisply and lovingly, too, that it somehow manages to sound fresh. The rest of the album is sunny, chilled boogie and deep house that approaches the style of Endless Flight’s parent label Mule Musiq. All that is often exquisitely done, but it’s the downtempo tunes like ‘Low Road Dubs’ and ‘Mistaya’ we keep coming back to, and crave more of.

7/10

Various 'Kon & the Gang' (BBE)

Kon, of renowned New York crate-diggers Kon & Amir, strikes out on his own with a collection of easy-going disco-house. For most UK clubs, this would be back-room stuff. Cuts such as Serge Gamesbourg’s ‘Do It Well’ and Kon’s own soulful ‘Can’t Get Enough’ are sedate, but on the New York underground, these blissed-out shufflers set the pace. There’s inarguable funk in Bosq’s bass-bumpin’ ‘Out Of My Head’ and Kon’s rework of Doc Daneeka’s ‘I Promise’, which features a Seven Davis r’n’b vocal. On this occasion, though, the point isn’t whether it makes you dance, but how it gels into a hazy journey that musters a mood of smooth tranquility.

710

Larry Heard 'Rebirth 10' (Rebirth)

House heads already know precisely who Larry Heard is: he’s Mr Fingers and the producer behind perennial vocal anthem ‘The Sun Can’t Compare’ as Mr White. He’s also already remixed three tracks for Italian label Rebirth (check out ‘Even If’ by Bocca Grande on the second disc/mix), and has now been recruited to mix 46 of the label’s best. The music is excellent, and while the mixing doesn’t always soar (hey, there’s a lot to cram in here), remixes from Morgan Geist, dOP. Soul Clap and Mark E are a reminder that since the closure of Buzzin’ Fly, Rebirth have picked up the baton when it comes to vocal house.

7/10

Patten 'Ѱ' (Warp Records)

Patten’s third LP isn’t your average summer party album. But then, summer 2016 hasn’t been your average summer. Blending elements of grime, footwork, techno, industrial and more, the UK duo has created an at times claustrophobic and unnerving (yet always compelling) LP that seems to perfectly soundtrack our uncertain times. Recalling the tunes acts like Zomby and Ikonika dropped after the first wave of dubstep started to sound tired, Patten’s third release is a whistle-stop tour of the UK’s hardcore continuum, never pausing long enough to get bored. ‘Sonne’ is a firecracker, all gunfinger beats, eerie keys and disembodied vocals, while ‘Used 2 B’ is ethereal electronica of the highest order. We can’t wait to hear it on a big system with a huge AV show.

7/10