Now comes their ninth album, We Mean It, Man!, and if the title sounds blunt, that’s because it is. This is Gogol Bordello at their most focused and forceful—a band stripping away the last of their Raggle-Taggle romanticism and tightening their sound into something lean, muscular, and unambiguously defiant.

Few works in the choral canon invite the kind of collector's obsession that Elgar's magnificent oratorio inspires. With nearly every significant recording of The Dream of Gerontius to hand, and the bar raised considerably high over the past few years—not least by Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort, and Nicholas Collon's compelling account with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra—a new release must earn its place on crowded shelves. This one does.

Back in October, Cruz Beckham suddenly hard-launched his music career.

On Julia, Ásgeir reaches a quiet but significant turning point. Now on his fifth studio album, the Icelandic folktronica artist steps out from the long shadow of his father, Einar Georg Einarsson, whose poetry shaped much of Ásgeir’s earlier catalogue (often translated into English by collaborators such as John Grant)

After celebrating 25 years of animated genre-hopping with anniversary celebrations, Gorillaz could have opted for caution. Instead, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett have made something reflective and quietly ambitious. The album is shaped by personal loss—Albarn's father passed away, as did members of Hewlett’s family—and its emotional core is filtered through Indian musical traditions and spiritual ideas. Albarn’s trip to Varanasi to scatter his father’s ashes hangs over the record, giving it a searching, inward pull.

Greek mythology has long exerted a powerful hold on composers, and the Italian pianist and composer Olivia Belli is no exception. Her debut piano concerto, Daimon, takes Homer's Odyssey as its imaginative springboard, and what emerges is a poetic work that blends classical tradition with her own unmistakably personal musical signature.

Leeds Song has announced the appointment of Michael Chance CBE as a new Trustee and Chair Designate of the charity. Chance will succeed Kathleen Evans BEM as Chair after the 2026 festival comes to a close.

Talented film and media students from across the UK have been celebrated at the 12th annual Moving Image Awards ceremony held at the British Film Institute in London. Launched in 2014 in partnership with the British Film Institute, the Moving Image Awards celebrate outstanding moving image work by students studying Eduqas Film and Media qualifications.

Francis Dunnery is a man of many talents: musician, storyteller, astrologist, and charity organiser. He is probably best known for being the frontman, guitarist, and main songwriter in the band It Bites, whose biggest hit, Calling All the Heroes, is still played on the radio today, forty years after the song was released.

Blending country charm with an Irish heart, Nathan Carter has become one of the most enduring and beloved figures in modern country music, building a career defined by versatility, determination and a fiercely loyal fan base. Known for his ability to seamlessly merge pop, Irish folk and traditional country sounds, Carter has carved out a unique space in the genre.

There's much to savour on this album, which marks the debut appearance of Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, leading the Vienna Philharmonic in the legendary New Year's Concert. This annual jamboree of festive Viennese waltzes, polkas and marches, broadcast from the Golden Hall of the Musikverein, is a tradition that perhaps benefits from the occasional refresh of its familiar formula, and Nézet-Séguin has risen admirably to that challenge.