Alchemical Sisters take our album of the week, the Chemical Brothers’ rave-struck team-up of Eris Drew and Octo Octa. Michael Kiwanuka returns after six years amd a recovery from a stroke, Shabazz Palaces and Caroline Rose reinvent themselves again, Anderson .Paak and Cordae join forces, Claud returns and alongside major anniversary reissues from Amy Winehouse, My Chemical Romance and De La Soul. It is a huge week for Irish releases too, with the debut album from Dublin pop superstar Jazzy landing along with Whozyerman?, Was Man, Midnight Wayne, Leigh Arthur, Good Skin and Boa Morte.
Nialler9 keeps a rolling list of Irish album releases for 2026.
This week’s releases
Album of the week
Alchemical Sisters – Alchemical Sisters
The clue is in the name. Alchemical Sisters, comes out of the blocks sounding inspired by the big beat acid rave break euphoria of Chemical Brothers and their ’90s ilk.
Alchemical Sisters is the collaborative project romantic and electronic music partners of Eris Drew and Octo Octa, aka Maya Bouldry-Morrison, the DJ duo behind the T4T LUV NRG label. Their self-titled double album, out on Interdimensional Transmissions and tied to this year’s Samhain, pushes the psychedelic, acid-driven big beat of their all-vinyl back-to-back sets onto hardware.
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It was recorded in the pair’s New Hampshire forest cabin where they emptied the master bedroom and “slept on the studio floor while, in white nightgowns and under the spell of mushrooms, they brought dulcimers and ancestral instruments into communion with turntables, twentieth-century machines, and new technologies.” The record was mixed over two weeks with producer BMG in Detroit in a high end studio.
Served as a rave communion for the head and the floor.
Recommended albums out now
Shabazz Palaces – It’s a Style Sport
Ishmael Butler returns as Shabazz Palaces with It’s a Style Sport on Sub Pop, his most reflective and upfront record yet and the follow-up to 2024’s Exotic Birds of Prey. He frames it as a return to rap’s root spirit of friendly competition, out-styling your peers with flair and substance both. Recorded live over eight days at Seattle’s Hall of Justice with a band including Kassa Overall, Evan Flory-Barnes and Thaddeus Turner, and produced with longtime collaborator Erik Blood, it sets Butler’s Afrofuturist, ‘Afro-fractal’ poetics against everything from Prince-like guitar to a fuzzed-out, Stereolab-ish closer. The opener ‘Ahh World (I Won The Alpha Bet)’ narrates his own rise in the third person. Singular, restless rap from one of its true originals.
![Shabazz Palaces - Ahh World (I Won The Alpha Bet) [Official Visualizer]](https://nialler9.com/wp-content/cache/flying-press/8ec30f17062c850cc2fd02c389611613.jpg)
Caroline Rose – Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall
The American songwriter Caroline Rose follows the heartbreak opus The Art of Forgetting with Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall, another turn of Rose’s restless, witty art-pop. Rose has moved from alt-country to synth-pop to confessional indie across the records, always with a sharp eye and a theatrical streak, and the typically unwieldy title promises more of that playful ambition. One of the most singular voices in US indie.
Jazzy – Peace and Patience
The Irish dance-pop producer and vocalist Jazzy, one of the biggest home-grown chart stories of recent years, releases her debut album Peace and Patience. Built on the euphoric, piano-led house-pop that made ‘Giving Me’ a number one, it is a confident full-length from an Irish dance pop phenomenon, and the most streamed female DJ in the world.
Jazzy plays 3Arena on Saturday.
Anderson .Paak & Cordae – Heavy Is the Crown
The first joint album from Anderson .Paak and Cordae, Heavy Is the Crown pairs two of hip-hop and R&B’s most charismatic performers across a cast of guests including J. Cole, a Bill Withers ‘Lovely Day’ sample with production from 9th Wonder among others. Expect .Paak’s drummer’s swing and soulful hooks set against Cordae’s limber, old-soul rapping. A heavyweight meeting of styles and generations.
Claud – Me and the Music
The Chicago songwriter Claud, the first signing to Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory label, returns with Me and the Music on Dead Oceans. Trading in warm, diaristic bedroom-pop with a sharp melodic streak, it is led by the single ‘She Doesn’t Love Me’. Another set of smart, tender guitar-pop from one of the label’s most likeable voices.
Michael Kiwanuka – FUDGE
The British soul singer-songwriter returns with FUDGE, his first album since 2019’s Mercury-winning KIWANUKA, and a record he has framed around his recovery from a stroke, which he has discussed publicly. It carries his warm, psychedelic strain of soul into looser, more intimate territory, led by the single ‘Summer Clothes’. The album is inspired by words read in an interview with the late Chick Corea – “you have to be certain what you like, not what you think sounds good to someone else.”
Whozyerman? – Belly Of The Beast
The solo project of Paul Savage, once frontman of the Choice Prize-winning Waterford band O Emperor, Whozyerman? returns with his second album Belly Of The Beast. Written as a set of character sketches drawn from passing encounters and people he sees around him, it trades the lo-fi electronics of 2022’s Blink for something rawer and more outward-looking, examining absurdity and humanity with sharp satire and understated charm wrapped up in psychedelic singer-songwriter pop. Shaped in tandem with Savage learning the piano, which he calls a game changer for his songwriting, it is a clear-eyed record about falling back in love with your artform.
Whozyerman? live:
- 23rd October: Bank Lane, Waterford – Imagine Arts festival
- 5 November: Cleeres, Kilkenny – supporting Arborist
- 10th November: The Cobblestone, Dublin
- 26th November: Monroe’s, Galway – supporting Arborist
Leigh Arthur – Wait Of The World
The debut solo album from the London-based Dublin alt-rock singer-songwriter Leigh Arthur, formerly of Extravision. Across nine tracks, Wait Of The World trades in singer-songwriter alt-rock.
Clara Mann – Wishbone
The French-British songwriter Clara Mann releases her debut album Wishbone, expanding the hushed, literary folk of her early EPs into something fuller. Singles ‘Oblivion’, ‘Go Getter’ and ‘All My Devotion’ pair plain-spoken intimacy with careful arrangements, her voice holding the quiet at the centre. A poised, affecting first full-length.
Shovel Dance Collective – Everything In Readiness
The London collective Shovel Dance Collective dig deep into British and Irish folk tradition, reviving old songs and tunes with a communal, exploratory spirit. Everything In Readiness, out on Glitterbeat, gathers their drone-rich, many-voiced take on the tradition into a bold statement. Essential for anyone following the new wave of British folk.
Midnight Wayne – Midnight Wayne
The debut from former Hot Sprockets frontman Wayne Soper, Midnight Wayne was recorded at his home studio in Crumlin. It is lo-fi psychedelic indie and bedroom pop about introversion, grief and new fatherhood, warm and homespun throughout. The album features ‘Right To Return’, a song about Palestine and how the genocide there has affected people over the last few years.
He launches it at Whelan’s Upstairs on December 5th.
Was Man – A View of Other Hills
Was Man is the solo project of Warren McCarthy, who also sings and plays guitar in Let’s Set Sail. A View of Other Hills is a sparer, rawer counterpart to that band’s dense arrangements, mixing intimate songwriting with electronic production and alt-folk.
Boa Morte – Signal:Lost
The Cork avant-folk band Boa Morte return with Signal:Lost on Gare du Nord, the first of two sister albums cut in the same sessions, with the quieter, more ambient The Following On to follow in March 2027. Drawing on folk, alt-Americana, jazz and post-rock in a nod to Eno’s song-and-instrumental albums, it threads muted trombone and saxophone through gentle, shifting melodies. MOJO gave it four stars, calling its intricate offerings a marriage of unorthodox instincts and melodic intuition. They play Coughlan’s in Cork on October 29th.
Amy Winehouse – Back to Black (20th Anniversary Edition)
Amy Winehouse’s landmark second album Back to Black turns 20, reissued through Island with demos, rarities and a lost live show. The Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi-produced record remains a modern soul touchstone, ‘Rehab’, ‘Back to Black’ and ‘Love Is a Losing Game’ as devastating as ever. A reminder of a talent taken far too soon.
My Chemical Romance – The Black Parade (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
The Black Parade at 20, reissued in an expanded deluxe edition. My Chemical Romance’s theatrical emo-rock opera remains their definitive statement, ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ still an era-defining singalong. Fresh fuel for a fanbase that never really went away.
De La Soul – Stakes Is High (30th Anniversary Edition)
De La Soul’s Stakes Is High reaches 30, reissued to mark three decades of one of hip-hop’s sharpest records since its release in 1996. The trio’s first album made without Prince Paul, its J Dilla-produced title track and jazz-soul production still land hard. A welcome return to print for a crucial piece of their catalogue.
Ryan Hemsworth – Numbskull
The Canadian producer Ryan Hemsworth returns with Numbskull on Topshelf, his warm, emo-tinged electronic pop stitched through with guest voices including Tegan and Sara and Nana Lourdes. More than a decade on from his blog-era breakthrough, Hemsworth still builds bright, bruised songs out of samples and feeling. Lead single ‘One Step’ feels like Girl Talk doing a DJ Shadow track.
Clark – Steep Stims II
The veteran producer Clark follows 2023’s Steep Stims with a second volume, doubling down on its hard, bright, club-facing electronics. Steep Stims II trades his cinematic side for propulsive rhythm and acid sear, built squarely for the floor. A restless shapeshifter in British electronic music still finding new charges.
Good Skin – Slow Heart Attack
The solo project of Dublin artist Sean Meehan, Good Skin shares Slow Heart Attack, an album that splices alternative songwriting with dance-music machinery, ballads and 303s, Fenders and 909s. It moves easily between song and club, rock-pop guitar and acid, with a strong melodic instinct holding it all together. A promising, genre-straddling record for sure.
EPs out today
DJ Python – to accomplish many things EP
The New York producer DJ Python, originator of the dreamy ‘deep reggaeton’ sound, returns with the to accomplish many things EP on XL. Five tracks fold collaborators ari, Tony Bontana and EDEN into his misty, dembow-driven ambient club, the opener nodding to Frank O’Hara’s ‘Having a Coke with You’. Lush, hypnotic and romantic.
Muireann Bradley – Blackwood Pew EP
The Donegal country-blues guitarist and singer Muireann Bradley follows her acclaimed debut with the Blackwood Pew EP, including a tender cover of Daniel Johnston. Bradley plays fingerstyle Piedmont blues with startling authority and a disarmingly warm voice.
The Awning – The Awning EP
The Awning share their debut, a self-titled four-track EP of ethereal folk, mostly produced, mixed and mastered by the band’s own Darragh Purcell, with Chris W Ryan brought in to produce the single ‘Don’t Stop Running’.
Also released today
- Alarm Will Sound – New Acoustica
- Fenne Lily – Win Win
- girl in red – Blue EP
- Hildur Guðnadóttir, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin & Robert Ames – This Will Be Us
- Josh Johnson – Animative
- Manic Street Preachers – The Holy Bible Live
- MÉAV – Sweet Sorrow
- Nathan Fake – Caldera EP
- Sadhbh Keane – Anam EP
- Strawberry Guy – Give Me A Dream
- The Olivia Tremor Control – The Same Place
- Tommy Lefroy – The Precariat
- William Basinski – Passing the Cup of Sorrows
Nialler9 keeps a rolling updated list of Irish album releases.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
