Albums of the week: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, War Child, Joshua Idehen, Shabaka

We Are Together Again

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy

(Domino)

Will Oldham often resembles an artist from another century, his music derived from, but not limited to, folk. But as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, his recent records have increasingly met the present moment; his latest is about fear and isolation, as well as their opposites – community, trust and good times. It was also an intentionally communal effort, recorded with many old friends in Oldham’s hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, following the artist’s 2025 album The Purple Bird, made in Nashville.

Two songs about dread – personified by an insatiable, relentless lion – bookend We Are Together Again (Why is the Lion, Bride of the Lion). Oldham also sings of the remedies for it, such as love for the next generation (Hey Little), and friends who come round and help you solve your problems (The Children Are Sick). But at the heart of the album is one of the bleaker lyrics Oldham – author of the much-covered I See A Darkness – has written yet, sung in his gentle quaver and set to low-key strings. “The human times have come and gone,” goes Life Is Scary Horses, “we must accept our rule is done.” Kitty Empire

Help(2)

War Child

(War Child Records)

It’s the sequel no one wanted. In 1995, during Britpop’s high summer, 20 acts including Radiohead, Oasis and Massive Attack recorded new material for the Help album. It raised funds for the charity War Child, which looks after children affected by conflict. The charity estimates that twice as many children are living in war zones today than when it was founded in the mid-1990s. So, regretfully, here we are again.

Help(2) sounds sumptuous, having been produced at Abbey Road in a week under the aegis of the top producer James Ford. The lineup is thankfully far more diverse than the very white, very male Help. There are wishlist covers (Beth Gibbons taking on Velvet Underground), repurposed fan favourites such as Wet Leg’s Obvious, plus surprise supergroups such as Anna Calvi with Ellie Rowsell, Nilüfer Yanya and Dove Ellis. And there’s a big comeback single: Arctic Monkeys’ spectacularly ominous Opening Night.

It is a generous collection that unfolds expertly, with highlights including Ezra Collective with Greentea Peng, Cameron Winter and Foals, as well as Pulp’s awesome glam-riffing Begging For Change. Damien Morris

I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got to Try

Joshua Idehen

(Heavenly)

It is two years since Joshua Idehen’s Mum Does the Washing came gleaming out of the internet’s spin cycle. Starting life as verses on a Twitter thread, it skewers ideologies from libertarianism to Terfism according to how clothes might be laundered under each. Now based in Stockholm, the British-born Nigerian poet has teamed up with the Swedish producer Ludvig Parment to put more of his whipsmart wordplay to music on his debut album.

At the outset, Idehen is like a millennial Maxi Jazz preaching the virtues of the dancefloor over generic club-ready beats. Thankfully, though, Parment expands the musical range as Idehen turns his attention inwards: the woozy piano on My Love frames Idehen’s exploration of his flaws, and Brother features Shabaka Hutchings’s skronking saxophone over a chopped-up breakbeat. On Whatever Comes, Idehen recalls a friend’s breakdown on a night out and hopes “that my presence is enough” to help them. These are earnest songs that go straight for the gut and this is a confident debut from a compelling new voice. Lewis Huxley

Of the Earth

Shabaka

(Shabaka Records)

At the end of 2023, one of the UK’s most acclaimed and distinctive saxophonists announced he was retiring from his instrument. After winning a Mobo award for his work with the double-drumming group Sons of Kemet and a Mercury prize nomination for the first album by his synth-heavy trio The Comet Is Coming, Shabaka took up the flute instead, and made the meditative 2024 record Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace.

Yet on Of the Earth, Shabaka makes a return to the sax, with 12 tracks of self-produced woodwinds and frenetic beats. From the breathy, languorous opening track A Future Untold to the sprightly melodies of Step Lightly, Shabaka’s tenor saxophone playing is dextrous and deeply felt. Artfully interwoven polyrhythms create a lively foundation for his woodwinds on tracks such as Call the Power and Stand Firm, while menacing bass tones undulate beneath spoken word on Go Astray. It might have only been a brief hiatus, but Shabaka’s re-emergence on the saxophone is welcome. Ammar Kalia

Drill beats are so spacious and allusive that they demand a spotlight-seeking presence to master them. Enter the 21-year-old rapper Keaton Edmund, AKA Kidwild, who started acting at age 12, with credits including the CBBC football drama Jamie Johnson, West End show The Bodyguard and Stormzy’s Vossi Bop video.

A Tottenham fan, Kidwild wanted to be a professional footballer, but listening to rappers such as J Hus inspired him to write his own bars during the pandemic. He landed a record deal that went nowhere slowly then evaporated, despite the successful single Popular Loner. In desperation, he applied for online customer service jobs. He got his only interview callback a year after applying – just as his self-released Sade-sampling hit Indecisive started taking off.

Forget 9am Zoom calls – Edmund’s day job instead involves delivering instant classics from Popular Loner to Forgive Me, a piercing, fierce disquisition about his mostly absent father. Kid’s superpower, like that of Dave, is making powerfully honest and poignant verses hit like battle rhymes. His acting career is on hold for the moment while he focuses on the mic. “Acting is closer to working a job,” he notes. “In a studio things are more in your control. You’re the director.” Damien Morris

Job’s Not Done mixtape is out now. Kidwild plays Lowest Third, London WC2 on 30 March

Photographs by Terry Way/Adama Jalloh/Joseph Ouechen/Fabrice Bourgelle Pyres/Ramsey Ramone