The Best Albums Of November 2014

Choice long-players, from the likes of Dean Blunt and DELS…

The best albums of November 2014, go

(Click the covers to scroll through them.)

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DELS – ‘Petals Have Fallen’
(Big Dada, released November 3rd)

“One of those rarely heard, potential-fully-realised collections that can only emerge from a creative environment of comfort surrounded by friends tight enough to feel like family. It’s worth popping a tenner on this exceptional LP making the Mercury shortlist in 2015.”

Read the full review
Read our interview with DELS

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Ryan Hemsworth – ‘Alone For The First Time’
(Last Gang, released November 3rd)

“It’s a sad record, but one that envelops you in a warm hug, wipes your eyes and plays with your hair. Its juxtapositions are characteristic of an artist addicted to sampling and SoundCloud discovery. Sonically, nothing is off limits.”

Read the full review
Read our interview with Ryan Hemsworth

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Dean Blunt – ‘Black Metal’
(Rough Trade, released November 3rd)

“As Blunt strings low cryptic one-liners together, we’re guided by awestruck voyeurism. From ‘cover art’ to core, it might seem the listener is last on his list, but this is just classic reverse psychology. The less Dean Blunt cares, the more we do.”

Read the full review

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Arca – ‘Xen’
(Mute, released November 3rd)

“The otherworldliness of ‘Xen’ is down to a moving of brightness through a mutinous church of new-school New Romanticism, with more archetypal monochromes – ‘Bullet Chained’ develops a techno arrhythmia with an 8­bit blister – inserted like trapdoors. A captivating, at times unexplainable reaching of pained highs and battered lows.”

Read the full review

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Wiley – ‘Snakes And Ladders’
(Big Dada, released November 3rd)

“Wiley’s always been an outsider – a weirdo, who eats dessert before dinner and looks for the sky while he’s chilling on the sofa. In classic Eskiboy fashion, this 10th – and, apparently final – solo album’s dropped suddenly, without any press, the main hype being Instagrammed shots of track names on his iTunes and a handful of tweets. By the time the album winds down we find a mature artist bowing out of the ring.”

Read the full review

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Wildbirds & Peacedrums – ‘Rhythm’
(The Leaf Label, released November 3rd)

“For the uninitiated, Wildbirds and Peacedrums’ music is ultimately a melodic tussle between inventive percussion and the riveting vocals of Mariam Wallentin. The sense of a swelling and subsiding storm at the heart of her performance on ‘Gold Digger’ is staggering, while the constant sense that the drums are chasing the words on ‘Soft Wind, Soft Death’ evokes memories of Björk’s ‘Volta’.”

Read the full review
Read our interview with Wildbirds & Peacedrums

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