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The French musician celebrates 50 years in the game, but too many collaborators threaten to spoil the broth
The TV naturalist was a keen collector of the music heard on his travels
The genre-hopping singer takes on the personal and the political with trademark eloquence
Veteran calypso stars will be among the performers in a show celebrating the arrival of Caribbean immigrants
The folk supergroup reunite for a gory exploration of the traditional songbook
Gently unspooling mood music from a versatile French musician
The artist probes the borders between reality and illusion to twanging surf guitar
The Scottish singer sang tales of migration and escape
Sharply observed songs jostle with more theatrical spoken-word material
The album features instrumental Afrobeat with a stew of extra flavours, from punk and free jazz to Angolan music
Ethel Merman, Frank Sinatra and Lady Gaga are among those who have performed the 1934 classic
Songs are ‘loosely bound by our clumsy ties with the land’, but the singer’s imagination runs wider than the parochial
The live performance of ‘Ghost Gamelan’ finally allowed the album’s songs to breathe
The title track starts as a meditation on chance, coincidence and roads not taken, and ends up as a contemplation of death
The artist’s collaborators provide a shimmering timbre of xylophone and metallic gongs to sit with her meditations on mortality
The best songs tell a story, give voice to a character or explore a conceit
Cover versions by male artists often amp up the hysteria, while women are more sympathetic to the original
The album features lyrics that are elliptical, rooted in the personal but hinting at the political
Songs start with distorted guitar and drumming that measures phrases rather than rhythms, then the vocalist begins to weave stories
The collection features electronic rhythms and textures, with acoustic instruments and unexpected funkiness
Inspired by a close succession of birth and death, the album features lullaby, folk songs and a version of John Lennon’s ‘Mother’
The band’s sophomore album is built around electronic textures that huff and glitch like analogue synths
The singer has emerged from retirement with a tour featuring her own material and poems set to music
South Africa’s BCUC were the highlight of a fertile and sometimes rainy festival
A blend of vodou and Creole folk music trace the country’s history back to Africa
