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Janelle Monae: Archandroid

Cosmic retro-future pop beamed down from Heaven's Gate, sounding like some unholy p-funk supergroup formed in the mind of Sly Stone featuring Big Boi, George Clinton and the Purple One himself, Prince. One of the more unlikely Fritz Lang fans in modern hip-hop, Monae's first proper release on Bad Boy Records, Archandroid, contains the second and third suites of a Lang-influenced triptych, an expansive concept in which Monae's alter ego Cindi Mayweather becomes a Messiah-esque figure to the android community of Metropolis. Needless to say, a graphic novel and movie are planned. Monae is not one lacking in either ambition or confidence, and Archandroid serves as a startling statement of intent. It's Afrofuturist art-pop, drawing from Star Wars and Stevie Wonder as much as Salvador Dali and Philip K. Dick. The most impressive thing about ArchAndroid isn't that it bounces between genres, but that it does so without compromising quality or cohesion. Despite the style-hopping, the album is sequenced so that many of the songs flow together seamlessly, and the shifts in tone seem intuitive rather than jarring. It’s a delicate balancing act, but one Monae pulls off with dazzling ease.  If this world is right, then it's an album which serves as the birth of an icon. Tomorrow's sound today.

Sleigh Bells: Treats

The most recent signees to arch-provocateur M.I.A.'s N.E.E.T. imprint, Sleigh Bells meld guitar riffs carved out of lightning bolts with the type of pop hooks that would put Lady Gaga to shame, all played as if they were turned up and beyond "max" on a dime store boombox. Based in Brooklyn, the duo are comprised of Derek E. Miller, ex-guitarist with post-hardcore also-rans Poison the Well, and Alexis Krauss, a former kindergarten teacher and one-time member of teen-pop band Rubyblue. An unlikely union, for sure, but it really works. Recipients of some of the most incendiary online hype for quite some time, their debut doesn't disappoint. A mix of corroded, blown-out beats and hurricane-strength guitar combined with Krauss' pop-star posturing, Treats is something special. There’s spirit to this music, and the sonic assault is celebratory, asking only that you come along with it and join in. And if it's true that records this intense and exhilarating don't always sustain themselves over the long haul, that's not really a worry either. The visceral thrill on display here may not last forever, but neither does life; right now, this feels like living it.  Packed full of distorted gems, foremost amongst them 'Crown on the Ground' and 'Tell 'Em', it's an album that easily rides the hype storm. Get on board.

Lissie: Catching a Tiger

 It's about time someone channeled the spirit of Stevie Nicks. Lissie's debut, Catching a Tiger, is the sort of album that wouldn't sound out of place playing in some glass-fronted Laurel Canyon villa in the mid-70's. It's all straw hats, shawls, and cut-off denim shorts here, the sort of winsome, sun-tinged folk that makes the summer feel like it'll last forever. Catching a Tiger is an album for lolling waves and sandy shores, picnics under fading skies and lamp-lit nighttime conversations that go on until sunrise. Recorded in Nashville with Jaquire King (Tom Waits, Modest Mouse, Kings of Leon), Lissie's debut should be one of those slowburners, a underrated treasure that builds and builds, subtle nuances revealed with every listen. It's already won over a fair few of us at Rise HQ, and it won't be long before it's grabbed you too. Lissie isn’t some freckled balladeer borne of milk and cookies and cornfields. She’s more like Neko Case raised on a diet of campfires, bourbon and Bix Beiderbecke. Catching a Tiger is the kind of album that creeps up from nowhere and gets in your heart, the stuff of spring floods and pick-up trucks and bona fide blue collar country music. Timeless in the best possible way.

 O. Children: O. Children

Coming on like the precocious sons of Goth-rock overlords Bauhaus as if dressed by Bryan Ferry, the mighty O. Children conjure up sounds fit for a death disco, ghost train guitars haunting the speakers, possessing the room with their sheer audacity as they spill out loud and clear. To put it simply: the band are bone-chillingly good, crafting neo-goth graveyard anthems that transcend any attempts at pigeonholing. Now that the Horrors have laid down their eyeliner in favour of the Can back catalogue, fans of dark, brooding guitars and world-weary croons have new heroes waiting right here. Fronted by the 6' 8" Tobi O'Kandi (imagine the child of Grace Jones and Lux Interior and you’re not far off), jaws dropped wide open at Rise Towers when the first sounds rolled out of the stereo. Don’t dismiss them as just another set of brooding hipsters though. As much fans of Donna Summer as they are of the Birthday Party and Siouxsie and the Banshees, there are dancing feet hidden under all that dry ice, disco rhythms filtered through the reverb. Having built up a fearsome live reputation, now’s the time for everyone to hear O. Children. Keep your ears to the ground, and watch those shards of guitar fall from the sky.

Mystery Jets: Serotonin

Unfairly lumped in with any other number of indie also-rans when they emerged in the pages of the NME, Mystery Jets have since gone on to prove themselves as one of the most idiosyncratic bands working today. Distilling their myriad influences, from the New Romantic movement to the early 80’s no-wave scene, into giddy three-minute pop gems has always been their strong point, and the pattern continues wonderfully on Serontonin, their third album and first on new label Rough Trade. It’s nothing less than a modern day pop masterpiece, recorded at London’s British Grove studios and produced by the legendary Chris Thomas, a man whose CV speaks volumes: previous acts include Pink Floyd, The Beatles, and Blur. Whereas previous albums contained undeniably great singles framed by a lot of filler, on Serotonin the band have produced a set of wall-to-wall hits-in-waiting, most obviously in opening track ‘Alice Springs’, coming on like a lost early 90’s Pulp hit that Jarvis Cocker left in the back of a taxi, and ‘Flash a Hungry Smile’, a track so heavily influenced by Roxy Music that it wouldn’t be a surprise if Bryan Ferry was revealed to be the band’s secret sixth member. Longtime favourites with the staff here, it’s great to see the band finally capitalizing on the promise they’ve shown for so long.

School of Seven Bells: Disconnect From Desire

Fans of nu-gaze dreampop rejoice! School of Seven Bells are back with Disconnect from Desire, the mysterious follow up to 2008’s great, beautifully low-key success story Alpinisms. The enigmatic band has been fairly quiet leading up to their sophomore effort’s release, but fans of the first shouldn’t be disappointed. As on Alpinisms, School of Seven Bells conjure dreamscapes from dark corners, sounds and textures floating in and out, vocals and melodies making their presence felt only intermittently. It’s a wonderful formula, and one which many bands have attempted to emulate since their debut, but it’s a trick this Brooklyn threesome pull off better than most. Produced by the band’s Benjamin Curtis (formerly of the altogether louder Secret Machines) and recorded in their home studio, it’s an album heavily influenced by crystalline 80’s sorcerers Cocteau Twins, with Curtis and twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza creating densely textured, atmospheric aural excursions that veer off on their own paths before gradually finding their way back home. “From the start, we knew we wanted to make a record that connected on more of a direct and personal level than we ever had before,” says Curtis. “It’s a complete account of our lives this past year, and it’s crazy how taking an honest look at yourself can tell you the most about the world around you.”

Wild Nothing: Gemini

The latest release from the wonderfully lo-fi Brooklyn label Captured Tracks, enjoying something of an annus mirabilisalready following outstanding albums by the likes of Woods, Ganglians and Dum Dum Girls, is a different beast altogether. Like a sleek new stallion in a stable full of ponies, Wild Nothing’s Gemini, the solo project of Jack Tatum, is a shimmering pop monster, as influenced by My Bloody Valentine and the Go-Betweens as his label mates are by the Wipers and the Germs. It’s an album inspired by Tatum’s long-term love affair with nostalgia, a set of woozy, carefree FM ballads that linger with an inexplicable sense of regret. Building on his early cover of Kate Bush’s ‘Cloudbusting’, Gemini foregrounds a unique brand of dreamy-pop songs that come across like the head-in-the-clouds lovechild of the Shop Assistants and Cocteau Twins. Wild Nothing transcends the lo-fi pop mould, striding out towards brighter shores, his deliberately frail vocals wrapped in an oozing neon haze. Tatum carves a tunnel from Ibiza’s beaches to Manchester’s rain-soaked fairgrounds,  carefully orchestrated synth hooks nestling on a bed of trebly guitar riffs and battered drum machines, blending together to create an intriguing, texturally rich glo-pop album that could come only from the young at heart.

Seth Lakeman: Hearts and Minds

Britain’s foremost folk troubadour returns with his hugely anticipated fifth album, Hearts and Minds. Long a favourite here at Rise, Lakeman’s star has risen swiftly in recent years, with the clamour for his latest reaching almost feverish levels. Whilst those who criticised his recent foray into rockier territory won’t find much to appease them here, Lakeman’s deviation from traditional folk to the more rabble-rousing variety is one to be applauded, and it’s a shift he pulls off with much aplomb here. Hearts and Minds capitalizes on the mainstream folk success laid down in the last year or so by the likes of Mumford & Sons and Noah & the Whale, mingling eternal themes of life, love and loss amidst contemporary issues like the plight of the working class in the 21st century, the encroachment of pluralism, and even foot and mouth disease. The twelve-track album moves away from the sea-dominated ditties of his critically acclaimed 2008 offering, Poor Man’s Heaven, and focuses on the heart of folk music - people. Lakeman is arguably the forefather of the modern indie-folk renaissance, and really shows them how it should be done here. Contemporary themed tracks rub shoulders with more traditional tales and furious fiddle playing whilst stomping rhythms combine with intricate acoustic numbers to form an album which undoubtedly represents his most mature and compelling work to date.

Dangermouse, Sparklehorse, and David Lynch: Dark Night of the Soul

After almost a year of unsavoury legal wrangling with EMI, which resulted in the project’s accompanying book being put out with a blank CD-R alongside a note from Dangermouse obliquely stating “do what you will”, the true version of Dark Night of the Soul finally sees the light of day. The real tragedy here, of course, is the death of Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous in the interim, meaning a man who put so much into this astounding project never got to see it properly released. Thankfully, though, it serves as a more than fitting tribute to such a gifted and sorely-missed songwriter. Dark Night of the Soul is well worth the wait, a multi-formatted, multimedia extravaganza, featuring a 100 page-plus book of photos from David Lynch, intended as a visual narrative for the music, as well as a website with so many nooks and crannies that it seems impossible to fully explore. In a day and age when physical music formats are in danger of becoming irreversibly stale, it’s a pleasure to see a project with so much effort and thought put into it being released. Dangermouse and Linkous recruited a remarkable cast to lend their vocals including Flaming Lips, the Pixies, The Strokes, Suzanne Vega, Iggy Pop and even Lynch himself. An outstanding triumph and proof, if ever there was, that good things are worth waiting for. Linkous would be proud.