Albums of the week: Kieran Hebden and William Tyler, Kojey Radical, Wednesday and L’Antidote

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Kieran Hebden and William Tyler

(Eat Your Own Ears Recordings)

Even in a genre-agnostic age, some pairings still surprise. Kieran Hebden is a musically omnivorous electronic producer better known as Four Tet. Once a pillar of left-field clubbing, he now punches mainstream air in the company of party-starters such as Skrillex and Fred Again. Americana guitarist William Tyler, meanwhile, has been making solo “cosmic country” since 2010.

The musicians first came together in 2023, and this elegant, undefinable album puts more flesh on the bones of their earlier collaborations. Stated influences include sonic outliers such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Fennesz, plus country star Lyle Lovett and guitarist’s guitarist David Grissom.

What unfurls over the course of seven tracks includes delicate finger-picking, minimal techno and dream-like interludes. Kicking off with oscillations and a cover of the guitar part to Lovett’s If I Had A Boat, the duo up-end expectations with the club pulse of Spider Ballad. The pair put guitars through a systems-music overhaul on the blithe Timber, while Secret City ties things up with a mantric jam overlaid with textured atmospherics – a beatific meeting of musical minds. By Kitty Empire

Don’t Look DownKojey Radical(Atlantic)

Second albums are notorious for causing their creators stress. So it is with Kojey Radical, whose debut, 2022’s Reason to Smile, took him from one to watch to something of a UK rap national treasure. Now, having realised his childhood dreams, the pressures of celebrity and personal ambition versus the desire to do right by his son is the central conflict in Don’t Look Down.

Knock Knock, which finds a protagonist locked in the bathroom at a party giving himself a pep talk, borders on corny but sets the tone for the playful yet thoughtful storytelling that flows through the record. The album is full of rich, polished musicality: bombastic, bassy golden age hip-hop meets careening strings and psych-tinged guitars.

Radical’s candour and slick delivery are engaging as he considers hookups, the cost of living, a longing for real love and – on the stunning closing track Baby Boy, featuring Ghetts – his desire to be a good father. On this sumptuous, soulful feast of poetic lines and warm grooves featuring a powerful supporting cast, Radical makes his second album look far from difficult. By Tara Joshi

BleedsWednesday(Dead Oceans)

The combination of Karly Hartzman’s observational lyrics and her former romantic partner MJ Lenderman’s guitar hooks made Wednesday’s breakthrough album, Rat Saw God, one of the best US indie albums of 2023. Considering that their relationship outside the band ended last year, and Lenderman’s involvement no longer extends to appearing on stage, the North Carolina quintet’s follow-up is even more impressive.

They’re not afraid to go off-piste at times, taking in elements of hardcore punk (the frantic rush of Wasp) and country rock. Indeed, the glorious Phish Pepsi sounds as Courtney Barnett might have had she fronted the Flying Burrito Brothers. And it includes relatable yet intriguing lines such as “Last time I saw you was a live stream of a funeral” and funny ones: “We watched a Phish concert and Human Centipede / Two things I now wish I had never seen.” Other highlights include the Breeders-style chug of Bitter Everyday and Townies, and the stripped-back introspection of Elderberry Wine and Carolina Murder Suicide. The highs and lows of small-town US life are rarely depicted so vividly. By Phil Mongredien

L’AntidoteL’Antidote(Ponderosa Music)

Indian classical music, Arabic maqam, western classical arrangements and jazz improvisation all combine on the engrossing self-titled debut by trio L’Antidote. Comprising Albanian cellist and composer Redi Hasa, Iranian percussionist Bijan Chemirani, who has previously played with Sting, and Lebanese pianist Rami Khalifé, a featured soloist with the Liverpool Philharmonic, the group celebrates genre-crossing collaboration.

Several of the nine tracks revel in downtempo, lyrical melodics. The Orchard combines a crawling bass and piano motif with rattling rhythm on the Iranian zarb drum, while Rosée creates a luscious interplay between piano and Chemirani’s finger-picked oud, while Shadows of Flowers on My Wall showcases Khalifé’s pensive, neoclassical phrasing.

Yet the trio excite most when they pick up the pace: Dates, Figs and Nuts rumbles through sprightly plucked cello and piano melody, and Na Na Na channels Indian konnakol rhythm to deliver a dazzling sense of propulsion. Breezily playing through the trio’s various influences, L’Antidote is a virtuosic debut. By Ammar Kalia

It takes a bold musician to cover a song from one of the greatest albums of all time, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. But London-based French-Senegalese artist anaiis (below) has the poise and pipes to pull it off. In May, she released a stunning version of To Zion, Hill’s ode to her firstborn, finding smoky new depths and adding a full choir. It was an ambitious checkmate, pointing to a fresh talent who again sees motherhood and music as intertwined.

Unconditional love and primordial connection, ritual and self-actualisation thread themselves through the R&B spirituals of anaiis’s forthcoming album, Devotion & the Black Divine. Its funky basslines and crisp drums call to classic 1970s soul, but as with her fellow Ella Fitzgerald superfan Moses Sumney, her music is gilded by lo-fi guitars, giving it an intimate, genre-fluid feel.

Since her 2021 self-released debut This Is No Longer a Dream, anaiis (the lower-case styling is a tribute to author-activist bell hooks) has become a cult voice, taking in a show at Chaka Khan’s Meltdown festival last year and providing numerous “who’s that?” moments on tracks from UK jazz stars such as corto.alto and Kokoroko. But anaiis’s new record is a big solo statement: there are no showy guests, only spoken-word interludes from activists and thinkers, and slinky slowburners that let her mellifluous cadences shine. By Kate Hutchinson

Photographs by Ashley Verse, Gabriele Surdo, Graham Tolbert, Alex Waespi