Albums of the week: Ms Banks, James Blake, Kim Gordon, Tinariwen

South Ldn Lover Girl

Ms Banks

(Believe)

The south-London rapper Ms Banks sets out to shatter preconceptions. “You never really see the words ‘south London’ and ‘lover girl’ put together,” she has said of her latest release, “unfortunately us girls from south have a bad rep”. Her debut album, following her 2022 mixtape Bank Statement, shakes off an often protective exterior to explore the vulnerabilities lying beneath.

“If I’m feeling angry,” she sings on Why?, “I should not feel ashamed.” Intro opens with sampled media coverage of the Tory donor Frank Hester’s disgraceful 2024 comments about Diane Abbott, and moves through the “strong Black woman” stereotype to find a link between Black women’s stress and their high incidence of autoimmune conditions. Such pressures play out in relationships: on a track called POV, she asks to be truly seen by a lover.

A mark of Ms Banks’s skill is how she successfully weaves all this material into bops such as 4C, a rallying call to celebrate the texture of Black hair, to more loved-up tunes laced with Afrobeats. Meanwhile, the harrowing title track tells cautionary tales of how easily lives can be derailed. Kitty Empire

Trying Times

James Blake

(Good Boy)

The blueprint of James Blake’s best work is impeccable. Basslines, hitting like a kick in the head by a horse, go to gentle war with his delicate, tremulous voice. Blake is the only artist who produces this type of music to this standard with A-list collaborators; his monopoly will always attract an audience. So leaving his label to go independent makes sense, and Trying Times launches his new era with flair.

Blake’s voice is still as spectral and icily perfect as ever on these grownup love songs. If you prefer his experimental side, you’ll be disappointed that there isn’t more of the gnarl that curls through the opening track Walk Out Music. But the title track is a joy, unwinding into majesty, as is the beautiful, piano-led Just A Little Higher. Dave lends a verse and some spikiness to Doesn’t Just Happen, whose accelerated vocals and seasick rhythms are pleasingly reminiscent of Blake’s monstrous club classic CMYK.

Few of Blake’s albums are inarguably great, especially the last pair Bad Cameo and Playing Robots Into Heaven, but their finest moments are always unforgettable. Damien Morris

Play Me

Kim Gordon

(Matador)

Forty-five years into a boundary-pushing career, the former Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon has never sounded so modern. As with her two previous solo records, 2019’s No Home Record and 2024’s The Collective, this album finds her once more working with the Charli xcx, Kylie Minogue and Sky Ferreira collaborator Justin Raisen, and the resulting ominous, bass-heavy soundscapes are a perfect match for her dystopian yet drily humorous lyrics.

The woozy Dirty Tech is a critique of our AI overlords and the damage they inflict on the little people; Subcon skewers Elon Musk’s SpaceX pretensions (“You want to go to Mars / And then what?”). The deadpan title track is inspired by the names of curated Spotify playlists. Most arresting is Bye Bye 25!, a reswizzle of The Collective’s opening track, which replaces the original lyrics with words Donald Trump has tried to ban in public life and records. There is something ridiculous about Gordon intoning atop industrial noise: “Gulf of Mexico ... transgender ... they/them … uterus … peanut allergy” – making it all the more chilling. Phil Mongredien

Hoggar

Tinariwen

(Wedge)

The journey of the Tuareg group Tinariwen from refugees to desert blues kings is one of modern music’s more heartening tales. Growing up in the camps between Libya and Algeria, the band have defied political turmoil to emerge as an African original, their music a deft fusion of traditional call-and-response numbers, the sort endlessly recycled around Saharan campfires, and the electric guitar of Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, who founded the group in 1979. Their shows remain transportative and mesmeric.

The group’s 10th album finds them back in Algeria, displaced once more from their Mali homeland by Islamic terror groups. Mesmeric chants and skittering riffs offer little innovation beyond a dash of electronica from the producer Patrick Votan, but the record is a powerful creation

Aba Malik rains curses on the Russian mercenary group Wagner, and Imidiwan Takyadam, beautifully sung by José González to a female chorus, berates the “hellish tyranny” to which women are subjected. Joy and hope also find voice: scalding guitar parts on Tad Adounya demand love and compassion, while elsewhere there is a playful homage to the Honda Land Cruiser, the modern nomad’s dream car. Intense and compulsive. Neil Spencer

Photograph by Robbie Lawrence/Moni Haworth/Marie Planeille