Best New Albums this week: Sorcha Richardson, Sylvan Esso, Bonobo, This Is Lorelei...

Dublin songwriter Sorcha Richardson takes our album of the week with her third record Draw The Outline, leading a strong week for Irish music alongside Driven Snow, Jayne Pomplas, Strange Boy and d_abdu. Elsewhere, Bonobo, Sylvan Esso and Bloc Party all return, and This Is Lorelei push leftfield, and there are new records from Agnes Obel, Ibibio Sound Machine and Valerie June.

Nialler9 keeps a rolling list of Irish album releases for 2026.

New Albums + EPs

Album of the week

Sorcha Richardson – Draw The Outline 

The third album from Sorcha Richardson, among the finest songwriters in Irish music today. Since her 2019 debut First Prize Bravery and 2022’s acclaimed Smiling Like an Idiot, the Dublin artist has built a reputation for sharp, emotionally precise writing, wrapping everyday heartbreak and hard-won clarity in warm, widescreen indie-pop.

Out on Faction and trailed by the single ‘Grenadine’, Draw The Outline finds her writing at its most assured. Intimate, melodic and deeply felt, largely focusing on acoustic over synth or electric tones.

“This is a record that I felt in many ways was missing from my discography. The process of making it was often quiet, and solitary, but it’s also an album that wouldn’t exist without help from some incredibly talented friends (Chris W Ryan, James Vincent McMorrow, SOAK, Hugo White, Carey Willets). It’s an album that brought me great solace and peace in writing it. I hope it can do the same for whoever needs it…I made nearly every big decision about this album and these songs walking along Ventry beach in West Kerry.  Releasing it today feels in a way like watching a wave break and be pulled back into the sea. A cycle completing.” 

Sorcha Richardson

INSTORES:

11^th Sept – Spindizzy Records, Dublin, IRE
13^th Sept – The Commercial, Limerick, IRE
14^th Sept – Banquet Records, Kingston-Upon-Thames, UK
15^th Sept – Rough Trade Denmark Street, London, UK

LIVE:
30^th Sept – 4^th Oct – Salt Water Festival, Bundoran, IRE
25^th Oct – Aiteall Festival, Bantry, IRE
4^th Nov – Belfast Empire Music Hall, Belfast, UK
5^th Nov – Gleneagle INEC, Poulnamucky, IRE
6^th Nov – The Academy, Dublin, IRE
8^th Nov – Savoy Club and Venue, Cork, IRE
10^th Nov – Hoxton Hall, London, UK
12^th Nov – The Lodge at Deaf Institute, Manchester, UK

Sylvan Esso – Ow ∞

The new album from Sylvan Esso, the North Carolina duo of Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn, and their first in four years. Reworked and revisited nearly every day since 2022, and released on their own Psychic Hotline label, Ow ∞ is their most expansive record yet, built with a small army of collaborators and led by the single ‘Concrete Glen’, which weaves in a sample of Sigur Rós. The band describe it as a trust fall into a dystopian present, messy, immediate and full of feeling.

Bonobo – Distance in Static

The new album from Bonobo, the British producer Simon Green, one of electronic music’s most dependable craftsmen. Across two decades on Ninja Tune, Green has perfected a warm, organic, globe-spanning take on downtempo and dance music, equally at home in headphones and on festival stages.  Distance in Static continues that run, featuring Arooj Aftab, Joy Crookes, Nilüfer Yanya, Ichiko Aoba, Nicole Miglis and Aanya Martin, with lyrics in English, Urdu and Japanese. Much of the record was completed at Neil Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch in California, where Green spent several weeks earlier this year. He brings it to the National Stadium in Dublin later this year.

Colin Stetson & Brìghde Chaimbeul – All the light in the world 

A collaborative album between the American saxophone powerhouse Colin Stetson and the Scottish smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul, two musicians who conjure vast, drone-rich soundworlds from breath and circular technique. Hypnotic and elemental, it is a meeting of two singular players.

Driven Snow – Mother Of Christ

The second album from Driven Snow, the married folk-pop duo of Emily Aylmer and Kieran McGuinness of Delorentos. Recorded with Tommy McLaughlin at Attica Studios in Donegal, Mother Of Christ is a layered, raw journey through family, adulthood and parenthood, moving from intimate songs about fear and doubt to joyous bursts about the chaos of life.

d_abdu – we’re still down here, looking up

The debut solo album from d_abdu, the project of Dara Abdurahman, until recently a member of Bricknasty. His solo material moves into more intimate, Elliott Smith-indebted songwriting, and this first full-length is a promising step out on his own.

Ibibio Sound Machine – Chopping Mountain

The new album from Ibibio Sound Machine, the London group fronted by Eno Williams who fuse West African highlife and Nigerian storytelling with electro, funk and post-punk. A joyous, ferociously danceable live act, they channel that energy into Chopping Mountain, another hit of their infectious Afro-electro.

This Is Lorelei – The Singer in My Band

A new album from This Is Lorelei, the project of the prolific Nate Amos, also of Water From Your Eyes. After 2024’s widely loved Box for Buddy, Box for Star, Amos continues his run of warped, tuneful, genre-hopping bedroom pop, and The Singer in My Band should cement his cult reputation.

Standing On The Corner – Standing On The Corner II

A new album from Standing On The Corner, the New York experimental collective led by Gio Escobar, whose dense, cinematic collages weave jazz, soul, hip-hop, dub and field recordings into something wholly their own. Standing On The Corner II is a long-awaited full-length from among the most adventurous units in American underground music.

Alex G – Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Original Score)

The film score from Alex G, the beloved Philadelphia songwriter, for Jane Schoenbrun’s Cannes-garlanded meta-slasher Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. His third collaboration with Schoenbrun after We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow, this album collects his instrumental score cues, following the various-artists soundtrack released last month. A woozy, eerie companion piece for anyone who has fallen for his singular world.

Ezra Collective – HERE BECAUSE OF HOPE

The fourth album from Ezra Collective, the London quintet who have become the most joyful and celebrated band in modern British jazz, Mercury Prize winners and Brit Award-topping festival headliners. Fusing jazz with Afrobeat, reggae, hip-hop and dancefloor energy, they make music built for collective release, and HERE BECAUSE OF HOPE promises another surge of their irrepressible spirit.

Bloc Party – Anatomy of a Brief Romance 

The seventh album from Bloc Party, the London band who defined a certain strain of jittery, danceable mid-’00s indie with the seminal recent listening party subject album Silent Alarm. Their first since 2022’s Alpha Games.

Various Artists – Nigeria 80

A new compilation from the ever-reliable Strut Records, and the long-awaited sequel to their landmark 2001 Nigeria 70. Compiled by Duncan Brooker, Nigeria 80 digs into the independent-label boom of 1980s Nigeria across thirteen first-time reissues, spanning highlife, juju, Afrobeat, reggae and early fusion, from Victor Uwaifo and Prince Nico Mbarga to Onyeka Onwenu and Evi-Edna Ogholi. Essential listening for crate-diggers and newcomers alike.

Haruomi Hosono – Yours Sincerely

A new album from the legendary Haruomi Hosono, the Japanese musician and producer who co-founded Yellow Magic Orchestra and shaped decades of pop, ambient and electronic music. Out on Ghostly International, Yours Sincerely is a rare and welcome new statement from one of the greats.

Jayne Pomplas – This Is How The World Ends

The debut album from Jayne Pomplas, a Dublin-based fiddle player, vocalist and composer. Led by the single ‘Mother Superior’, the record balances original compositions with imaginative takes on traditional material, and features a host of collaborators including John Francis Flynn, Adrian Crowley and Jaz Delorean.

Hug – Hug

A collaborative album from Hug, a band msde up of f guitarist Gyan Riley, son of minimalist pioneer Terry Riley, freak-folk polymath Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsome producer/collaborator Noah Georgeson. Out on Luaka Bop, their self-titled debut pairs Riley’s intricate guitar work with Banhart’s warm, whimsical songwriting for something gentle and transporting.

Broncos – King Laugh

The debut album from Broncos, a Belfast post-hardcore trio – vocalist and bassist Shane McMullan, guitarist Cameron Leggat and drummer Michael Smyth fuse the raw aggression of At The Drive-In, Alexisonfire and Deftones with atmospheric synths, trading dual vocals and deeply personal writing. Recorded and mixed themselves in their own practice space, and led by ‘In Amber’, ‘Gloom’ and ‘Hold Me’, King Laugh, its title lifted from Van Helsing’s monologue in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, turns lost love and grief into visceral catharsis.

Also released this week

• An Chéad Ghlúin Eile – ACGE
• Brian Fallon – Not Bad For New Jersey
• Chrome Sparks – Ball Of Light
• FKJ – Tyber
• Podge Lane – Ebb And Flow And The Great Unknown
• Unknown T – LISTEN.
• Valerie June – Brighter Blue