As we get into what might well be one of the saddest months of the year, with Autumn and Winter rearing their heads, it's nice to know that we have a heap of new music to fill our mundane morning commutes and dreary late night walks with.


PETITE NOIR - LA MAISON NOIR/THE BLACK HOUSE
I have been following Petite Noir since I had my first ever touch screen iPod and I feel like whenever we get something fresh from him, it comes in dribbles. Now after this drought, Petite Noir is back to quench our thirst and about time to. His recent single "Blame Fire" is easily the best work I've heard from him since discovering him in 2012. The production sounds SBTRKT-esque at points with a political sample edge akin to Moses Sumney. I'm over the moon that this gets to be in my ears so soon (the 5th of October).

KELELA - TAKE ME_APART, THE REMIXES
After making it pretty high up on my list of favourite albums from 2017, Kelela is collaborating with some of the biggest names in production and some of the most groundbreaking people in music over the past couple of years - both underground and more mainstream. My favourite remix right now, unsurprisingly comes from resident favourite - Kaytranada - and is an effortless classic. However, I'm most excited to hear the contributions from LSDXOXO, Bad Sista, GAIKA and serpentwithfeet. The album drops on the 5th of October a year after the release of her amazing debut.

JESS GLYNNE - ALWAYS IN BETWEEN
I must admit, I never did listen to Jess Glynne debut album in 2015 but after seeing her live at Lollapolooza Festival in Berlin in 2016 I definitely think I had more respect for Jess as an artist. She was slaying the charts across both of those years with both solo and featured material however something about her never fully clicked in my mind. Her latest single "123" is a little bit vocally lazy but is undeniably catchy. The sophomore drops on the 12th of October and I'll definitely be tuning in to see if I've been missing out all these years.

BASEMENT - BESIDE MYSELF
One of my favourite new discoveries of 2016 - I was a little bit late on the bandwagon but I've done my catching up and I can happily say that Basement are one of my favourite UK Pop Punk bands at the moment, both live and on record. After having their last album Promise Everything on a loop for months it will be nice to have something new from them to spin. This will be their first release via Fueled By Ramen too and whilst I do love most of the material that comes from the FBR camp, I will be interested to hear how this changes the band's sound. Listen in with me on the 12 of October.

DJANGO DJANGO - WINTER'S BEACH EP
Another blessing from Django Django this year - what have we done to deserve all of this new music?! Their album earlier this year Marble Skies was the soundtrack to my trips around Australia and with winter hot on our tails, what better way to march through frosty streets than with Winter's Beach in our ears? Their latest single "Swimming at Night" wouldn't have gone amiss on the last album however, I love how robust the instrumental sounds on this. It actually reminds me a bit of Dutch Uncles' "Big Balloon" at points. Out on the 12th of October I expect that these six new tracks will feature heavily in my wintery days.

MØ - FOREVER NEVERLAND
After battling in MØ's corner for years before she broke the mainstream with Major Lazer, I have to say that I was a little bit disappointed with her debut record No Mythologies To Follow. Although it included some of my favourite singles of hers including "Maiden" and "Glass", I felt like the album had a lot of filler to it and some of the previously released singles now sounded a little bit too polished in my ears. However, I still stand by MØ's talent and expect that there will be a few sweet heavy hitters on this sophomore release. Out on the 19th of October.

NAO - SATURN
Nao is another artist that I will be campaigning for until she gets all of the credit that she's due. That said, her latest singles from the upcoming album have each made pretty big waves, and her most recent single "Drive And Disconnect" was going round and round in my head for days after the first listen. On her debut album Nao was able to highlight the most subtle and something unusual sounds giving her voice the experimental touch that she's often labelled with. I suspect that this flair will still be present on Saturn however I anticipate a very different sound for this one. Closing out the month for us on the 26th of October.


Alongside these we also have potential gems to listen to from these artists later this month - Tom Walker, Neneh Cherry, Farao, Tom Odell, Lil Yachty, Robyn, Nothing But Thieves, Ty Segall and Unknown Mortal Orchestra. I'm always overwhelmed with the amount of music being delivered every single day and this is not even close to half of it. Sometimes I wonder with music where the balance between quality and quantity should lie but as this list shows, this month we may just have the best of both worlds.

Alongside SZA's album, this has had a lot of talk around over the year surrounding its release. Evidently most of it was warranted as Kelela's Take Me Apart sits here at my number 11 spot just whispers away from a top 10 spot.

After catching her set at Sonar Festival last year I was sold. I'd heard a few singles beforehand but after seeing her perform my eyes were opened. If you get the chance to see her at a show in the new year - take it. You will not regret it one bit. Sonically and visually, Kelela is out of this world.It's not often that you'll go to a show a find yourself torn between closing your eyes to immerse yourself in the sound and keeping your eyes open to keep track of the visual performance. Kelela gives you both and even just by looking at her video for "LMK" you can understand what I mean.
 
Being her first studio album this definitely Kelela starting s she means to go on. Her earlier tracks still show off her talent well but this album brings everything full circle. The tracks that I've spun the most since it was released have to be "Frontline", "Onanon", "Turn To Dust", "LMK" and "Truth Or Dare". I think after listening to "Turn To Dust" for the first time I actually said that Kelela sounds a bit like this new generation's Mya. The tone is reminiscent but the two's concepts are relatively different. Just by listening to these few tracks I can see a whole repertoire full of quality material unfolding in front of Kelela and I look forward to getting to listen to it.

Tomorrow we get into this year's top ten, if you've stuck with it all month - kudos. If you're just jumping in now; keep your eyes peeled.

This was a little bit of a late discovery for me this year, but better late than never because this is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've heard all year. Swimming in at number 17 in the list is Moses Sumney with Aromanticism.

The first thing that I heard about Moses actually wasn't really to do with his music. A friend of mine told me about him after bumping into him at an event and being caught up by his presence, understandably. After a bit of googling and youtubing I stumbled on this video of Moses performing at Sofar a couple of years ago, and I've been keeping track ever since. 

One of my biggest praise points and my smallest criticisms of this debut is the conscious choice to go it alone. Moses has a lot of big musical connections that he could have had feature on these tracks (e.g. Solange, Kelela, Kindness, Dev Hynes, etc...). I would have really loved to hear Lianne La Havas somewhere on this record; I could've even seen Thom Yorke lending his hand on a couple of tracks on here. One of my favourite things about music is how collaborative it can be. However, Moses forgoes all of this on the debut and in doing so, gives us the rawest version of his musical sound. One of the bravest things to do as an artist is to put out work that holds a piece of you, and Moses has done so big time, with nothing to hide behind and it's come out beautifully.

My favourites on the album so far are "Don't Bother Calling", "Quarrel", and "Lonely World". It wasn't until second or third listen that I realised that quite a lot of this album is instrumental. As cheesy as it'll sound, the music speaks so loud, the whole album could've been instrumental and it still would have made me feel how I do listening to it now. All I want for 2018 is to see this performed live.