Twelve Nudes is Furman’s most urgent and cathartic record. The album’s deathly intrigue is drawn from her own personal traumas, which she successfully spins into something that feels universal. Ed Sheeran to 'take a breather' from work and social media . It’s more a reminder of how fleeting yet beautiful life is, and an appeal to make the most of it.
“I stopped judging myself, and at that moment found hope in MAGDALENE.” At times, MAGDALENE is just as ungraceful, confused and fractured as its creator was – a rush of baroque electronics, industrial noise, opera, synths, autotune and precarious falsetto. "I just wanted to play music as a job. “There are so many things that he did that I do. Each song feels personal yet relatable – the deep-rooted despair felt on “Trauma” at the sight of wealthy bullies rising to power is a universal one, as is the sense of liberation in just letting go on “What Can You Do But Rock n Roll”. Polachek’s voice is her secret weapon – so jolting and elastic she had to prove it wasn’t autotuned in an astonishing Twitter video. He has Springsteen’s rousing holler, and the early indications of someone who could be the voice of a generation – not because he wants to be, but because he sees things and understands. (RO)Swift’s sixth album Reputation was camp and melodramatic, killing off “the old Taylor” and waging war on anyone and everyone who dared to criticise her. "I'm reading Elton John's book at the moment and there are so many things that he did that I do. (HB)The production here is superb. As well as expectations of confessional singers, she subverts folk music’s focus on bare-bones songwriting. On “Environment”, he talks about the conflict between what people see of his apparently glamorous life, and the reality behind the scenes where the blood and sweat is drawn out of him. Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
She flips between two tones: formidable and reflective. It allows our most engaged readers to debate the big issues, share their own experiences, discuss No Home Record channels the dissonance and avant-garde vibe of New York’s experimental no-wave movement in a nine-song, genre-defiant collection that jumps between industrial, minimal electro-rock and abrasive art punk. “I have a very addictive personality,” the 29-year-old said in the interview. There’s a fantastic sense of space, too, spun from diaphanous arrangements such as “The Light”, where she meanders delightfully from a clear, lilting call to a deep vocal rumble. You have notifications blocked. On All Mirrors, she dials things up even further than 2016’s Sixties-leaning My Woman, and turns her focus outwards – it is an album, she says, “about losing empathy, trust, love for destructive people” and “owning up to your darkest side”. But two bottles of wine probably might make you quite sad the next day.
It’s a bittersweet mourning of her past. Lead single “Religion (U Can Lay Your Hands On Me)” is a slinky shoulder roll of a song, laden with passionate blasphemy: “I wanna consecrate your body, turn the water to wine, I know you’re thinking about kissing, too.” It’s laced, too, with piano – an instrument she’d always been “allergic to” before this record – and opulent orchestral strings. So you’ll come back home and life has moved forward three years. It’s an album by an artist intent on readdressing her relationship with her own existence. There are some missteps – “Wish You Were Gay” being one of them – but for the most part this is an album as full of charm and bite as Eilish herself. Home has always been at the heart of his music, so he maintains the close-quarters perspective of his 2005 debut Home Sweet Home; the swaggering confidence of that record, though, is replaced by a more thoughtful gravitas. Lead single “Exits”, six scintillating minutes of Eighties “sledgehammer” pop that lumbers into view like a heavy artillery vehicle covered in sequins, concerns the one percenters building underground cities to escape global warming. For further details of our complaints policy and to make a complaint please click Comments are subject to our community guidelines, which can be viewed Ed Sheeran opened up about his addictive personality in a rare interviewEd says he can relate to moments in Sir Elton John’s autobiographyEd Sheeran was inspired by guitar legend Eric Clapton at schoolThe singer believes you learn more from your failures than achievementsEd with dad John, an art lecturer, and mum Imogen, a jewellery makerEd’s touring routine saw him drink into the early hours of the morningEd would sleep on the bus in the day until his next performanceEd was glued to his phone for 19 hours a day when at his worstEd has warned that social media is 'dangerous' for youngstersEd has used his time off from touring to get back into artEd's wife Cherry helped him overcome his wild lifestyleThe couple rekindled their romance in 2015 and now live in a Suffolk mansionInside Ed Sheeran’s £19.8m Notting Hill home with marble decor and brick walls