An icon of the 1990s (notably thanks to the single Torn), Natalie Imbruglia moved away from the studio in the 2010s (with the exception of Male, a cover album released in 2015), to focus on fashion and television. Written and recorded between the UK, the US and her native Australia, her sixth album is another example of what she does best: bright, airy pop rock. With her clear voice, our diva is as comfortable on the dancefloor (Maybe It's Great) as with vibrant guitar-vocal arrangements (When You Love Too Much) or with moving ballads (Change Of Heart). Natalie Imbruglia takes the listener on a rollercoaster ride from the abyss of the soul (Dive To The Deep) up into spiritual heights ("I'm aiming higher, older and wiser", she sings in On My Way). Co-written with Albert Hammond Jr. of the Strokes and Romeo Stodart of the Magic Numbers, the tracks on the album prove that Natalie Imbruglia is a true "firebird": light as a bird, but ablaze with passion. © Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz

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After the cinematic orchestral experience that was his last album, Continuum (conceived in collaboration with the Munich Radio Orchestra under the direction of Patrick Hahn), trumpeter Nils Wülker is back with a new release: Closer. The music on this album is much more sombre and intimate, both in terms of form (the pieces are more similar to songs here) and mood, evoking a whole range of melancholic emotions that are more implicit than explicit.The song is clearly at the centre of Wülker’s artistic intentions here. He creates a minimalistic, sophisticated ambience with short, delicate trumpet phrases, which are elaborated upon by guitarist Arne Jansen. Together, the two musicians develop a deeply layered sound that pulsates with haunting rhythmic loops. Wülker and Jansen’s take on the duet is orchestrated and arranged, and they allow themselves very few solo digressions. This stunning record is atmospheric, refined and welcoming; it’s beautifully restrained without ever becoming dull or unnecessarily complex. © Stéphane Ollivier/Qobuz

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French composer Eric Serra is best known as a constant collaborator of Luc Besson, and Le Grand Bleu contains music that Serra wrote for Besson's feature film of the same name. This was their third collaboration.© Sergey Mesenov /TiVo

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French composer Eric Serra is best known as a constant collaborator of Luc Besson, and Le Grand Bleu contains music that Serra wrote for Besson's feature film of the same name. This was their third collaboration.© Sergey Mesenov /TiVo

Having produced several EPs over the past few years that have placed him firmly in the category of artists to keep an eye on, the eclectic and prolific Polish producer Bartosz Kruczyński aka Earth Trax has now released his first long format, with the rather understated name LP1. Originally noticed for his dreamy deep house created with his fellow countryman Newborn Jr (the alias of Adam Brocki) which attracted comparisons with trailblazing British group Orbital, Earth Trax displays his versatility, talent for arranging and the full spectrum of his electronic culture: acid house (Full Throttle, Pandora’s Box), electronica (Adhocracy), breakbeat (Squawk Box), drum’n’bass (Fade Away or the single I’m Not Afraid), ambient/psychedelic (Your Fading Other) and atmospheric deep house (the languid Mechanisms)... They are all coherently injected in one way or another into this project, a real demonstration of musical intelligence. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

In 2022, a band releasing an album every two years somehow feels like a frenetic pace. But for Aussie indie rockers Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, it's likely that the band may feel like underachievers. After all, with a sound that subtly hearkens back to several different strands of mid-'80s Antipodal underground rock (during which it seemed like bands had new EPs and full-lengths every time you turned around) and an ethos that prizes emotive immediacy, one wouldn't be surprised if RBCF's discography was twice as big. And, were it not for the pandemic, likely that the band's follow-up to 2020's Sideways to New Italy would have been made and released quite a bit sooner. Due to Australia's lockdown rules (and their extended duration), the band found themselves in a bit of a forced slowdown, but used the time to retreat to a lakeside house a few hours north of Melbourne where, relatively isolated and able to collaborate and iterate, they wrote and recorded the material that would become Endless Rooms. That material is just as direct and warmly ragged as their previous work, but a bit less explosive and a bit more expansive, once again indulging in a sound that is simultaneously bright and a little doleful; the three-guitar approach of the band is a texturally lovely one that splits the difference between open-chord jangle and guitar-forward punk. The songs bubble with the energy and vitality of youth, but also with a wit and winsomeness that speaks to a more mature approach. To be sure, there's plenty of fizzy energy here—"The Way It Shatters" careens off the walls with buzzy, fatalistic verve and "My Echo" is as epic as it is caffeinated—but there's also a good dose of shaggy sprawl too. Tracks like "Caught Low" and "Saw You At The Eastern Beach" evoke classic Aussie singer-songwriter-isms, while the title track is wistful and optimistic, threading the vibes of '80s underground rock through a gentle, wobbly psychedelia. It's album closer "Bounce Off The Bottom" that provides both a summation and a statement of forward purpose for the band; a spry, mid tempo rocker, the track is thoughtfully arranged and tightly played. That enveloping, chiming guitar tone is present again, but accompanied by actual percussive chimes, making for a gorgeous coda to a remarkably dynamic album. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

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