BN1 chats with Arlo Parks – the London songwriter whose tender, vivid poetics and soulful alt-pop has made quiet waves across the world on her debut Collapsed in Sunbeams.

Since their inception in 2014, Brighton four-piece Black Honey have proved themselves one of the UK’s most ambitious, uncompromising bands. Their expansive 2018 debut, Black Honey, incorporated trap and disco alongside their own brand of fizzy grunge pop, and was accompanied by a saga of videos aired from a retro world of pink coffins, cowboys and neon-lit murder scenes. A rollercoaster of exhaustive touring followed, including supports with Queens of the Stoneage, Royal Blood and slots at Glastonbury.

'One of the most exciting artists to emerge out of Brighton in years' Laundromat made a quiet but definite splash back in April with their debut EP Blue - a collection of immaculately crafted lo-fi that earned praise from the likes of Steve Lamacq and Marc Riley for its twitchy, melodic and innovative pieces. Green - the latest in what appears to be a succession of EPs - explores the end of the world, panic attacks and mental health with the same dry charm, self-awareness and sonic imagination.

Treading the line between concise craftsmanship and wilful sonic abandon Brighton’s Murmur have returned with their latest single ‘Shame’ - an exhilarating deep dive in to the more aggressive depths of their sound. The single is Murmur’s second outing as a three-piece following 2019’s grungy and infectious ‘Cradle’, and provides further proof of a band possessed of the rare ability to be at once sparse and powerfully visceral. Punching drums and Murmur’s characteristic angular guitar lines ope

Following her stunning July single ‘Ten Girls’, Circe has returned with lush slow burn ‘Ruined Your Sons.’ The release comes with the announcement of a much-anticipated EP ‘She’s Made of Saints’, out 25th November via Jazz Life. The title, archetypal of Circe’s fascination with subverted catholic imagery and the ethereal, is taken from this latest single. The track’s rich atmosphere, crafted out of lush synths and cool, swelling textures evokes a kind of heavenly melancholy. The lyrics seem to

Fontaines D.C.’s stunning sophomore A Hero’s Death is an album with complexity and style: one that is reflective, dissonant and internal. Haunting opener 'I Don't Belong' is charged with Grian Chatten’s characteristically illustrative lyrics floating above a texture of Sonic Youth-flavoured coolness. Already, Chatten’s lyrical landscape feels more distant and abstract than on debut Dogrel, as if written from his “annex of the earth”. The reserved chorus “I don’t belong to anyone/ I don’t want t

'A sound all its own and a lyricism to rival today’s most established writers.' With their strange and brutal EDM-flavoured punk, CLT DRP have carved themselves a niche from which to defy the limits of genre. In fact, you might call that CLT DRP’s modus operandi – to be the rebuttal of all things small-minded and confined. In an increasingly polarized world that shuns nuance Without the Eyes refreshingly sits rage and complexity side by side. ‘I Don’t Want to go to the Gym’ - its angular stabs me

Ghostpoet has the lyrical ability to depict life’s panoramas and minutiae with an equally deft hand - delicate sketches sit alongside huge existential questions on love, society and prejudice. With its dark, multifaceted ambience, this richly crafted self-produced album should reinforce Ghostpoet’s place as among our best, and most underrated artists. Over a restless evolution of looping beats and flickering white noise, opening track ‘Breaking Cover’ hits out at life in the cacophony of voices

Mark Lanegan finished writing his “nerve-shredding” memoir Sing Backwards and Weep without any reward of catharsis – “all I got was a Pandora’s box of pain…I went way in.” The relief came when he began writing music again afterwards, culminating in his confessional new album Straight Songs of Sorrow – a cinematic flood of sensation and abrasive energy; a person turned inside-out. The album opens with Lanegan’s voice rising over a blizzard of white noise and playful synths. ‘I Wouldn’t Want to S