“My love, she lights a candle – it’s 1989.” Birthdays at Solo Pasta feels like the culmination of all the experiments of The Finks since their first release ten years ago, tied together by songs that take the form of fictional memories from the marriage of our two central characters. Signed to Courtney Barnett’s Milk! label from its inception, The Finks’ lyrics, written by the central member Oliver Mestitz, carry that same conversational effortlessness. They are transposed, however, onto gentler arrangements, executed with a masterful instinct for the minimal.

The Finks have always told short stories within songs but Birthdays is the first instance of their creating an album-wide narrative. Its storytelling is as lucid and elusive as memory, appropriate for a record filtered through an imagined past, which begins in a honeymoon summer in 1989.

Across the album, evocations of the fragile beauty of love and memory are further established by Mestitz’s vocal interplay with Sarah Farquharson, the other consistent member of the band across almost all releases. In tender harmony or exchange of lead vocals, their unaffected delivery creates the feeling that the whole thing exists on the point of falling apart.

Taken as a whole, this extended twin-character study crowns a discography littered with song-scale fictions. It completes the unfinished sentences and tangential rabbit holes of The Finks’ output up to this point, each loose end coalescing into this complete, novelistic collection. It makes for an immensely satisfying listen for long-time fans and an outstanding work on its own terms, gaining well-deserved attention from a wider audience and the endorsement of the Australian Music Prize, who longlisted the record in November. LLOYD BOLTON

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Not since Little Simz's breakout album Grey Area have I heard a female MC sound so exciting. On “Something Came To Me”, 24-year-old Sol ChYld sounds as poised as a rapper twice her age. Hailing from Camden, New Jersey, she has managed to craft one of the strongest hip-hop projects of the year.

The lively instrumentation of the record sets the tone for Sol ChYld's relaxed delivery and introspective lyricism. With each song, we are treated to lush piano chords and saxophone riffs dancing around Sol's captivating vocals. On the track “Miss Me”, for instance, we see Sol grappling with her desire for fame and importance and the need to stay down to earth buoyed by stellar instrumentation and an exhilarating beat switch.

The record is at its strongest when it gets its most intimate, like in the buttery rap-duet “Come Down” or the closer “11” and its deeply affecting lyrics about her relationship with her father and her aspirations for a better life. Weaving together challenging meditations on dreaming and sleepwalking, Sol hits at the heart of what can make jazz rap so great.

Something Came To Me is, without a doubt, one of the most emotional and introspective hip-hop records of the year. From the relaxing jazzy grooves and top-notch bars, Sol ChYld puts on a show from start to finish. Drawing inspiration from legendary rappers like Andre 3000 and Lil Wayne as well as contemporaries like JID and Saba, Sol ChYld has effectively combined her influences into a sum greater than its parts. Only after the record concludes are we able to truly appreciate the introductory sounds of a ticking clock, as it’s only a matter of time before Sol's greatest dreams come true. ARYEH GEGNER

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In September, Gia Margaret sat in front of a grand piano at St. Matthias Church in Stoke Newington, and spilt her sleepy arrangements all over the pews. The setting – grand and spacious and demanding silence – felt apt for Margaret’s serene sounds. Her music has always carried a soft, nostalgic quality, but this third outing is trancing.

Romantic Piano is a 25-minute meditation, transforming our bedrooms into deep forests. Margaret recreates that very natural congruence we feel when we take a moment, surrounded by trees or water or grass, and let ourselves breathe. These largely piano-led tracks are layered with field recordings, horns, and distant twinkles: "Cicadas" harmonises its gentle melody with a chorus of actual cicadas, while "2017" finds peace in interlocking samples and electronic snippets. The mixing is delicate and avoids any chaos – it is wall-to-wall euphony.

On "City Song" – the album’s only non-instrumental piece – Margaret’s misty voice traces memories in the outlines of shadows; "I stay up all night/And with one arm reaching out, I can almost feel you". The same nocturnal yearning echoes in the woozy, muffled piano riff on "April to April". And on "A Stretch", where a saxophone lingers over tumbling keys. It’s an undemanding melancholy that invites us to reflect on things we’d normally be too scared to.

The best music, I think, helps us to see ourselves a little clearer. In between its abstractions, Romantic Piano leaves room for us to imagine ourselves. There was a confident simplicity to Gia Margaret’s folky debut and her soothing follow-up. It lives on here, in an album that will outlast the year, stay on repeat, and become a mainstay for long walks and never-ending evenings spent staring out of windows. BEN FAULKER

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After the disco fiasco of 2020 where artists pulled from a sound older than them, it's become normal for musicians to make a quick throwaway throwback of a song, usually from the 80s or 90s, as a way to capitalize on the trend and make a quick buck on a viral moment (think no farther than that insidious "Lil Boo Thang" that appears on nearly every Instagram reel now). Often these feel fake and contrived, any pop star is likely to have a track on their newest album with some disco strings and then calls it a day.

On the complete opposite side is Gareth Donkin, whose debut album Welcome Home sounds like it's pulled from the spacey soundscapes and vocal stylings of Earth, Wind & Fire, Prince, and even some Michael Jackson at some points. Meticulously written and carefully studied, each song is a layered project that Donkin was in complete control over – soulful, wide-eyed singing, fun ad-libs, and a constant volt of energy runs through the project. It's consistently shocking he's a twenty-three-year-old from Britain.

Songs like "Something Different" and "Whenever" are groovy, upbeat tunes, "Falling for You" sees him head-over-heels, and "Nothing We Can't Get Through" is a classic, slow ballad about making the most of someone. "'Til the End of Time (Night Sky)" is a thickly layered, silky opener, a little dark, a little moody that makes way for the oncoming joy. It's an album full of highlights, with one new detail to pick out each time, and the joy of music-making in each sound. SAM FRANZINI

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Three albums in and Fieh are showing no sign of faltering. The eight-piece Scandi-soul marvels led by Sophie Tollefsbøl continue to weave an irresistible web of funk, jazz and hip-hop-inflected soul that should be getting more attention outside their homeland and its immediate geographical neighbours.

This year’s III is a dazzlingly technicolour trip that soundwise is more cohesive than its
excellent predecessor, 2022’s In the Sun In the Rain. Still, it’s not a case of one is better than the other, but rather different but equally great.

What seals the deal with Fieh is the addition of genuinely witty lyrics that poke and prod at the precarity of life in the neo-capitalist food chain. Whether that’s the tale of the pressures involved in keeping a band together in this income-starved modern age, as told in the ruefully titled “Full Time (Part Time Allthetime)", or the daydreaming wish fulfilment of “Judy Law”. A key lyric in the former; “People ask me if I work full-time and wonder how I’m able to survive”, and they don’t just do funky-as-hell hip-shakers but can also deliver luscious slo-mo stuff like “Daylight” with its woozy mid-afternoon weekday melancholy.

It’s not too late to jump on board the bandwagon and help ease Fieh’s existential challenges, they’re too good to ignore. SIMON HEAVISIDES

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It's a rare occurrence to be taken aback by a song in such a powerful way that everything happening at that very moment must be paused. The song, "Old Note", is rich in the enveloping power of an old standard such as "Jesus Blood Didn't Fail me Yet", a song of delicate beauty while being sprinkled simultaneously with grief, both captivating and unassuming. Lisa O'Neil's vocals, heavily accented by her upbringing in Cavan, Ulster, are totally unique and perfectly matched by a song desolate and genuinely startling.

The other seven songs that reside on All This is Chance – her fifth album – are equally as sublime. Informed by Irish folk music, she twists away from the traditional by applying stylistic references to Scott Walker at his most art-pop, while the dark drone channels the desolation of the early solo material of Nico, or Anna Von-Hauswolff, the storytelling nature of her lyrics evoking all-time Irish folk great Christy Moore at his most lucid.

Sketchings of nature, birds, bees and blood, or referring 1940s Irish poetry (Patrick Kavanagh's The Great Hunger), the music ensures O'Neil is firmly front of centre while being awash with unfussy intricate detail, whether it's the flourishes of minimal orchestral atmospherics, or stripped right back to banjo, double bass and the white noise of the outdoors.

While death songs masked as lullabies (Goodnight World) contain such powerful lines as "Everyone I love lies under you tonight" delivered with the kind of world-weariness of someone who has experienced the finality of death within her circle way more times than she cares for. CHRIS TODD

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Mar del Sur, the latest set from Ecuadorian band Sexores, brims with serrated guitars, alluring beats, otherworldly atmospherics, and Emilia Bahamonde Noriega’s mercurial vocals. Over the course of six songs and 27 minutes, a listener is alternately plunged into uncomfortable anxiety and prompted to acknowledge the sacredness of life, even if we’re doing so in what feels like a war zone, the world burning around us.

“Magallanes” launches with shimmery guitars and David Yépez Valencia’s contrastingly crisp drum part. Noriega’s vocal bobs in a foreboding mix. The dark-wave, shoegaze, and dreampop allusions are undeniable, yet there’s also an understated drone element, a narcotization that points to weariness, fatigue – The Great Overwhelm. Romulo Gallegos’s trombone gives the piece a night-club noir vibe. This is the party before the end.

The beat on “Aequorea” conjures something like steampunk disco, Noriega purring and lamenting as bodies move in the acidic air (and synth-flourishes singe and sputter). “Biolumínica”, meanwhile, features guitar lines dangling in the distance, crunchy welters spreading like a bittersweet corrosive. “Lago de Lirios” is more metronomic beat-wise, Noriega’s vocals particularly melancholic and eerily subdued. If the first four songs show the band bemoaning the expiration of the planet, albeit defiantly, energetically, this track shows them prepping for the funeral.

Closer “Albatross” is an ethereal coda. The beat is languid, draggy – synths and guitars are delicate gossamer. Perhaps it’s the aftermath. Death is behind us, a strange beauty emerges. There’s much to regret, but maybe we don’t have to carry that with us. Is it possible for an individual, a species, a universe to get a second chance?

Sexores, like Heartworms and Mandy, Indiana, draw from the dystopian canon – how the dire conditions of the planet reflect the dire conditions of the psyche: inner and outer mirror one another. But Sexores’ lush melds of wonder and urgency, their stinging recognition of impermanence, make for a distinct listen. This is an elegant band with a unique take on their sources and humanity’s place in the big picture. JOHN AMEN

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Blood Command's fifth full-length outing isn't short of ambition - it’s not short of anything, really. It's a bombastic 20-track deathpop opera worthy of its title, with injections of extreme metal, Mariachi brass, trap, electronica, and practically everything in between bubbling through its veins. There are moments of Robyn and Beastie Boys, which are quickly tempered by visceral bursts of hardcore; the flares of doom-riddled punk are infested with earworms you’ll have rattling around your brain for weeks.

World Domination arrived just over a year after predecessor Praise Armageddonism - the band’s first record with new vocalist Nikki Brumen (formerly of Australian alt. metal crew Pagan). 2023’s offering takes some of the ideas teased in that collection and elevates them to new heights with renewed focus - the sizzling melodrama of mastermind Yngve Anderson’s music is woven with some serious depth. “Forever Soldiers Of Esther”, a highlight of the album, is a prime example of the gravity on display - for all its grit, it’s a tender number dedicated to the memory of Anderson’s mother which explores themes of family and grief.

World Domination is unhinged and deliciously silly in places, but gut-wrenchingly affecting in others - Blood Command have always worn their hearts on their sleeves, and this album is certainly no different - and this kind of flippant sincerity is what keeps the feral genre flipping making sense. Trying to spell out what World Domination is like on paper probably makes it seem like a mess, but the way that the Norwegian-Australian fivesome combine their carnage with tenacity, authenticity, and sheer fun makes every moment an adrenaline-packed pleasure. LARRY DAY

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Two of my favourite artists this year from Spain put out some incredible debut collections. There were two strong EPs from Bb trickz – a name that’ll be on everyone’s lips this time next year – and a fantastic album from Mallorca-born Júlia Colom. Like a lot of artists from Spain, Colom is creating a new sound by paying tribute to her region; Miramar explores the culture of Mallorca through Colom’s interpretations of the traditional oral folk songs – "tonadas" – of her home island, which she found through her grandfather. The tonadas were acapellas, sung by peasants as they worked the land. The record’s opener ‘Que M’abrasava’ actually came to Colom via Alan Lomax, who recorded it on his visit to Mallorca in the early 1950s.

Miramar espouses resonant folk and electronic hums but it’s an album driven by the rhythm and beat of Colom’s vocal, which dances and hits in the same way as Caroline Polachek or Lorde. The old and the new co-exist in perfect harmony, all tied together through the Spanish guitar and beautifully warm production. If you only listen to one song from the record, hit play on the slick, chic “Estròfica” and marvel at where Colom might take her sound next. PAUL BRIDGEWATER

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