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my wild, batsh-t crazy side which I haven’t exposed in my music before... yes, I’m not always a sad f-ck writing sad songs.” And her second album is certainly not devoid of hope: Just My Luck ’s upbeat tempo and shiny, uplifting riffs evoke a spontaneous, luv’d-up road trip, while self-acceptance anthem F-ck It – a response to hurtful gossip – features punchy drums and instantly catchy hooks. During closer Couldn't Have Loved You Anymore , Collins ponders, “What went wrong?/ Am I impossible to love?”

The McNaMarr Project Run With Me Andrea Marr and John McNamara are soul singers in the truest sense of the word. Whether singing in harmony or swapping lead vocal lines they capture the spirit of artists such as Sharon Jones, Tina Turner, Otis Redding and Sam Moore on a bunch of their own songs and a medley of soul classics. Their deep understanding of the genre finds them swapping from soul ballads and slow blues to gospel and funk, their voices in perfect sync, with brass arrangements that refer to famed Californian funk collective the Tower of Power horns. The album's closer is a soul medley that honours Sam Cooke, Etta James and Otis Redding. (MGM/Planet) Billy Pinnell

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self-blame and feeling erased by the former love of your life. Collins began writing the material for Undone in the wake of a marriage separation (“I know it's my fault/ And I don't deserve your last name”) and the title track is one of her most heart-wrenching yet: “I remember writing this song on my bed in the dark while tears streamed down my face,” she recalled. Written in just an hour, Collins has said this record’s fourth single Backseat Valentine is “all about

Collins described her award-winning debut album, 2019’s Snowpine , as being “about my journey from when I was a kid to now”. On follow-up Undone , more pop than alt-country, this Tamworth musician bravely shares her emotional truth and finds strength in vulnerability: “Do you still call me your wife or that girl who f-cked your life?/ Hope someday we can be friends.”

Charlie Collins Undone

“I think it’s time I let you go/ Gotta cut the rope, ‘cause you’re tied to someone new...” – opener Lovers to Strangers aches with regret,

(Island Records) Bryget Chrisfield

Röyksopp Profound Mysteries

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This celebrated Scandinavian electro-pop duo – composed of Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland – make distinctive, expansive, all- knowing music that also references their homeland’s tendency towards

Hermitude Mirror Mountain Hermitude's seventh album soars through the craggy peaks and lush valleys of the revered electronic duo's hometown, the Blue Mountains. Opening track St Claire was the “catalyst for excitement”, says Gusto; its crisp, airy synths and fangin’ triangle beat lead to grimier bass and bells that glint like beads of moisture on your eyelashes. The Jungle Giants are perfectly placed to slot into the shuffling, pulsing joy of When You Feel Like This ; Golden Hour gives us a sweet little breakbeat and its analogue piano wanders into Flush With Love , a beautifully sliding palette with a rhythm that's eventually ground up into starlight. The excellent Tides of Time is a minimalist abstract painting in motion, while album closer Sixth Sense allows ambient rainfall to gliss down into poignant, angular synths which trip across textures. Stirring and stimulating. (Elefant Traks) ZKR

darkness and melancholia. A haunting piano melody dominates opener (Nothing But) Ashes… , this track totally peaking thanks to a string arrangement that conjures a flock of rainbow-feathered birds in flight, zig-zagging in unison across an aquamarine expanse of sky. The Ladder reminds us of those fractal posters favoured by students living on campus in the halls of residence. Track three, Impossible , is a deadset d-floor filler. At the point where Alison Goldfrapp’s otherworldly vocals achieve whistle-note gratification, her repeated “Aaaaah”s complete the listener’s fantasy. And If You Want Me is Norway’s winning Eurovision entry of the future (must be accompanied by Cirque Du Soleil-style flying trapeze routine, though). Attention club DJs: seek out standout cut This Time, This Place… immediately (we swear the volume leaps as it kicks in!) – the first time we hear this biblical banger out and about, the dancefloor is in serious trouble. Torbjørn has mentioned the pair used to lug around a portable DAT player when they were teens, to record “the sound of things like thick snow, boots in wet moss, broken twigs”, which could later be spliced-up to create Röyksopp’s beats: “The eerie ambience of a forest can be baked and rubbed into the music,” he pointed out – a-ha! Is this why we always fancy dancing to Röyksopp in a Norwegian forest? (DogTriumph/PIAS) Bryget Chrisfield

56 MAY 2022

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