Each month, we rally the team together and annoy them until they tell us the best music they listened to in the most recent calendar month. It can be something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue – it can be whatever. Once, it was even a busker someone had heard while walking through a train station.
In October, it was these things:
Joe Hoare
Albums are contextual entities – the circumstances of their release can give them a different meaning, a new life. Consider the release of Bowie’s Black Star, his subsequent death, and the realisation that he knew he did not have long left when he recorded it. Similarly, the release of Kiwanuka’s FUDGE has come off the back of a recent, heartrending interview in which he revealed that he’d had a stroke on his last tour. He is battling through a lengthy recovery, not knowing what of his old self will remain when he has completed his rehabilitation, though he remains hopeful that one day he will return to recording and performing.
FUDGE – his fifth studio album – was recorded before the stroke but it takes on new significance as it may well be Kiwanuka’s last for a time. His last outing Small Changes was a more pared back sound, harking back to his debut album, Home Again. This one feels like more of a combination of all his previous works, with some of the building walls of noise of his middle albums juxtaposed against some more simplistic songs. It is soulful, thoughtful, and relaxing and incorporates lots of instruments and elements without ever feeling crowded. There are new sounds: some more synthy-sounding electronics, slide guitar, and organs that feel new without it feeling like it is just for the sake of it. Nowhere is this clearer than “Love in my Heart” which starts with an electronic sounding “wob” before building into a vintage Kiwanuka ballad – crooning and introspective. It crescendoes throughout, synths and electronic sounds complimenting piano, electric guitars, and a choir: it feels film-score big without being overwhelming.
Naturally, some of the lyrics transcend their original meaning in light of Kiwanuka’s illness. The album ends with particularly poignant lines: “Baby, it’s alright, I’ll hear you sing again. Life has a way, swings and roundabouts.” I can only hope that life will find a way and we will hear Kiwanuka sing again.
Tom Burrows
I thought there was no chance of my partner and I catching James Blake’s New Century show 6 weeks into parenthood, but way back in the spring, I bought a couple of tickets in hope. I saw him twice in 2011 way back in his wunderkind years, and hold those shows in such high esteem (honestly, the sound). So, surprised to see he was playing one of my favourite venues – and a mid-sized one at that – I hoped the chaos would subside for an evening to let me leave the house.
Lo and behold, with willing babysitters, we made it. It felt very weird to freely nip out on a Sunday night like old times, and we felt like we’d left something behind, but as soon as the boy Blake went into some choice older cuts in his opening intro, I knew we’d made the right decision to rip the plaster off this early. (Blasting the walls off with an Untold remix from 2009? I was there for it.) It’s easy to forget amidst the sometimes syrupy singer-songwriter stuff of recent years that this is a generational talent who produced some of the most innovative electronic music of the previous decade. This was a super evening, and a hell of a reminder of what he’s capable of.
Lisa Whiteman-Pearce
This month, I have mostly been listening to Dopamine Chamber by Fontaines DC, as I presume many others have.
I have been waiting for this. First listen, underwhelmed but intrigued. Second and onward, hooked. It is a mellow record dotted with points of genius, shout outs to Mimesis, Japan and Demolition.
Lets go there: Where Is Gone? Having seen Deego provide his usual slick backing vocals in her place on their Later With Jools Holland outing, I got it and I preferred this version. Deego 1 – 0 Rosalià. It is a Bond-theme in waiting. It is a departure. It is their November Rain. It is the moment they disappeared up their arse. But, as it happens, their arse is a pretty cool place to be.
Best of the month? Maybe. 9/10 if anyone asks.
Rick Larson
Caroline Rose is a freak, a weirdo. The phrases “shape-shifting” and “genre-bending” are routinely tossed their way. They are also one of the most interesting music artists of this century, a U.S. counterpart to Asa Söderqvist (aka ShitKid.) In October, they released a new album Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall, which will appear on fringe Best of ’26 lists everywhere. It’s the best thing they have done since 2018’s Loner; that was simply one of the most exciting albums of this quarter-gone century, a happy marriage of Lily Allen and Nick Lowe with its own off-center charm
This new album is a hoot, a raucous stomp through the American underbrush, not a place where you want to get caught without good company. It blazes out of the gate with ‘Yip Yip Yow’ a cowpunk nonsense song, soundtracking well a current communal angsty mood where the only certainty now is that something batshit crazy is about to go down. Is ‘Hello Again, Jim’ the best song of the year? Fuck, maybe. Should free downloads of ‘Notes to Teenage Self’ be offered at area high schools? Absolutely. Shall we take to the streets to the sounds of ‘Cement Head’? Stay tuned.
James Spearing
I’ve had my eye (or should that be ear?) on Kaeto for a while now, but she’s yet to release a debut album (aside from 2024’s long EP INTRO). And as far as I’m aware, she’s yet to have her own headline tour. Anyway with new song ‘Propane‘, Kaeto continues her brand of sad and understated pop with an added sprinkling of 90s guitar. I’m hoping this is the first single in that well-worn path to debut album and follow up tour. Because I want to pay money for both.
Kate Burke
Most of my October has been taken over by fellow Picky Bastard Fran’s pick for last month – Man/Woman/Chainsaw have undoubtedly become one of my favourite new finds of 2026, ‘Only Girl’ and ‘Nosedive’ in particular have been on repeat. I also remedied my lack of having ever listened to Fontaines D.C. by putting Dopamine Chamber on my rotation. ‘Japan’ is my favourite track, however I feel like I should admit to mishearing the lyric “‘why’d you go and make it real” as ‘why’d you go and make it weird.’ Probably because that seems to be my MO in life.
While I occasionally regret letting my 8 year old daughter DJ on our car journeys, in particular because I allowed her to sing along to an explicit version ONE TIME, and now it’s every time (the explicit version of Katsye‘s ‘Gnarly’ in particular, “I’m makin’ beats for a borin’ dumb bitch /Fuckin’ gnarly” always makes my mouth drop), this month she also came up trumps with a new artist for me. There’s a level of algorithm at work undoubtedly – she likes some songs on my playlists by Hannah Grae, Florence Road and Venus & the Flytraps – but I had never come across Precious Pepala before. A Sheffield singer-songwriter, while the young one’s pick is the super catchy, pop-rocky ‘Pls Cheat on Me,’ I loved her voice on the more sultry ‘Sunday Morning’ – and quite happy to have added her into my own rotation.
