50 albums to look forward to during the rest of 2018

1 August 2018

We’ve already been treated to lots of great albums so far this year, but 2018 is nowhere near over and there’s loads still to come that we can’t wait to hear.

As we pass the halfway mark for the year, let’s take a look at new records already in the release schedule (Anna Calvi, Spiritualized and Christine and the Queens among them) as well as the ones teased but not yet confirmed (including Childish Gambino, Chaka Khan, Vampire Weekend and more).

And don't forget to tune in to 6 Music daily for the latest – and greatest – new music.

AUGUST

Exploring sexuality and pushing "the laws of gender conformity", Anna Calvi’s Hunter is set to be her boldest album yet.

Not only is she expanding her lyrical content by tacking issues around identity, but musically she’s recruited an intriguing band to make her third record too, with Portishead’s Adrian Utley and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' Martyn Casey supplementing her mesmerising guitar playing, as new single Don’t Beat The Girl Out Of My Boy neatly demonstrates.

"It’s a song about the defiance of happiness," Calvi said of her album’s lead track, speaking to Matt Everitt. "It’s about being free to identify yourself in whichever way you please, without any restraints from society."

Release date: 31 August

While the title Joy As An Act Of Resistance might suggest IDLES are returning as rampant as ever, the Bristol band say they will be opening up their sensitive side for an imminent second album.

"This album is an attempt to be vulnerable to our audience and to encourage vulnerability," the group declared in a statement announcing their new release, the follow-up to 2017 debut Brutalism.

"A brave naked smile in this s***ty new world. We have stripped back the songs and lyrics to our bare flesh to allow each other to breathe, to celebrate our differences, and act as an ode to communities and the individuals that forge them. Because without our community, we’d be nothing.”

Brutalism was Steve Lamacq’s favourite album of 2017, with the 6 Music DJ describing it as "incredibly powerful; melodic; at times cynical; sarcastic, but very funny too". With an art project planned to accompany the release, this new record looks set to make a unique statement as well.

Release day: 31 August

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Launched with very un-Interpol like fanfare via a press conference in their "second home" in Mexico, Marauder is the New York band’s sixth album and second as a three-piece.

Marauder is also the group’s first record since 2007’s Our Love To Admire that involves an outside producer, having decided to go it alone for the last decade.

Indeed so keen were Interpol to work with The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev collaborator Dave Fridmann that they abandoned the creature comforts of the Big Apple and decamped to the Catskill Mountains in a blizzard for sessions in the sonic wizard's own studios.

While new song Real Life, debuted live at last year’s Turn On The Bright Lights anniversary dates, has not made the album, the album’s singles Number 10 and The Rover indicate that Interpol were definitely not short of options resulting from this fruitful collaboration.

Release date: 24 August

It’s not just a new album that Icelandic multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer Ólafur Arnalds (perhaps best known for his TV and film soundtracks, including the score to Broadchurch) is bringing us this year, but a new piece of technology too.

Re:member was created using the musician's own software Stratus, which transforms a piano into a "self-playing, semi-generative" instrument.

And if that’s not enough, an algorithm within the program that Arnalds created on with audio developer Halldór Eldjárn has even generated the artwork for the new record. The word is currently out on whether Stratus makes a decent cuppa too.

Mary Anne Hobbs' recent 6 Music Recommends show opened with a track from the album, titled Saman, which the musician previewed earlier this year at the Royal Albert Hall.

Release day: 24 August

Austin riff lords White Denim are coming back with the crackingly fresh Performance, the follow-up to 2016's Stiff, as well as a new-look band.

Having recruited keyboard player Michael Hunter and drummer Conrad Choucroun, who has enjoyed stints with an American rock institution NRBQ, group leader James Petralli promises that their new album is "a super-collaborative record".

Tracks will include Fine Slime, Sky Beaming and closing number Good News. Any news of a new album from White Denim - who graced the 6 Music Festival in 2016 - is good news indeed.

Release date: 24 August

• Animal Collective - Tangerine Reef (August 17)
• Big Red Machine - Big Red Machine (August 31)
• Blood Orange - Negro Swan (August 24)
• The Coral - Move Through the Dawn (August 17)
• Death Cab For Cutie - Thank You for Today (August 17)
• Justice - Woman Worldwide (August 24)
• The Lemon Twigs - Go To School (August 24)
• Mitski - Be the Cowboy (August 17)
• Oh Sees - Smote Reverser (August 17)
• Slaves - Acts of Fear and Love (August 17)

SEPTEMBER

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Héloïse Letissier's second album finds her delving deep into a world of alter-egos, while also upping her ability to make a connection with the wider world.

Entitled Chris, the record sees the French singer examining how her artistic shadow, as Christine and the Queens, has impacted her real life.

"When I started to write music, I desperately wanted to relate to people," Letissier said in an interview recently. "But when I became famous, I could relate less. I thought, 'Oh, am I trapped in my own creation?' I was really lonely."

Tracks Girlfriend and Doesn’t Matter certainly suggest that Chris will be a provocative, rewarding - and incredibly catchy - meditation upon self-exploration.

Release date: 21 September

Goldie has torn himself away from the yoga mat for a new collaborative album. Teaming with producer James Davidson to form Subjective, Act One: Music For Inanimate Objects promises a new look at dance music, ignoring the genre's conventions, while embracing a whole new language of samples.

"It was really exciting to have no boundaries on what we were writing, not restricted by the BPM or anything else," Goldie declared of the project. "We just went wherever the smiles were." And what a smile it is, after all.

Release date: 21 September

Fresh from their emphatic set at The Biggest Weekend in Belfast, the Hartnoll brothers have well and truly ended their five-year hiatus by making a new record. Though typically dancefloor friendly, Orbital insist new album Monsters Exist is a politically-charged affair.

"The album is a cautionary tale about the state of the world we’re currently in,” Paul Hartnoll said recently. "There’s a lot going on in the world and this album is definitely a road sign that says ‘watch out’ – monsters really do exist. Just take politics right now – there’s a lot of monsters there, and we need to be aware of them. That’s what this album’s about."

Release date: 14 September

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Though already known for their impressive scale, Spiritualized's upcoming eighth album might be one of the outfit's grandest efforts yet – which is all the more amazing considering And Nothing Hurt was made on a shoestring.

"Making this record on my own sent me more mad than anything I’ve done before," explains the group's de-facto leader Jason Pierce who recorded most of the album himself.

"We’d been playing these big shows and I really wanted to capture that sound we were making but, without the funds to do, I had to find a way to work within the constraints of what money I had. So I bought a laptop and made it all in a little room in my house." We cannot wait to hear the results.

Release date: 7 September

The final instalment of an album trilogy envisaged by Brett Anderson following Suede's restoration, The Blue Hour promises to bring to an end a path cut by 2013’s Bloodsports and 2016’s Night Thoughts.

Explaining the "progressive" and "expansive" record’s themes in a statement, the band have said: "The songs hint at a narrative but never quite reveal it and never quite explain. But as with any Suede album, it’s always about the songwriting. The band, the passion and the noise."

One thing we do know for sure though is when The Blue Hour actually is, with the group explaining it is "the time of day when the light is fading and night is closing in". Better get setting your alarms then.

Release date: 21 September

• Amber Arcades - European Heartbreak (September 28)
• Beak> - >>> (September 21)
• Jungle - For Ever (September 14)
• Low - Double Negative (September 14)
• Maribou State - Kingdoms In Colour (September 7)
• Menace Beach - Black Rainbow Sound (September 7)
• Paul McCartney - Egypt Station (September 7)
• Paul Weller - True Meaning (September 14)
• Prince - Piano and a Microphone 1983 (September 21)
• Villagers - The Art Of Pretending To Swim (September 21)

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER

Despite declaring she had an album finished last year, Cat Power is only now set to release her tenth studio album via her new home of Domino Records.

Written and recorded in Miami and Los Angeles over the past few years, the album is aptly called Wanderer and includes a collaboration called Woman with Chan Marshall's former tour mate Lana Del Rey.

Stating that the album’s 11 songs encompass her journey "so far", Marshall has also said that Wanderer is inspired by the itinerant life that comes with being a musician.

"The course my life has taken in this journey — going from town to town, with my guitar, telling my tale, with reverence to the people who did this generations before me: Folk singers, blues singers, and everything in between," she has explained. "They were all wanderers, and I am lucky to be among them."

Release Date: 5 October

Promising his most electronic record yet, John Grant's fourth album, Love Is Magic, has been made with synth expert/collector Benge, following on from the pair's collaboration with Cabaret Voltaire's Stephen Mallinder as Wrangler earlier this year.

While Grant is clearly pushing his musical boundaries on his latest record, he has also stretched his personal limits with the album's lyrics.

"Each record I make is more of an amalgamation of who I am," Grant has said of the album, which was recorded in Cornwall with Midlake’s Paul Alexander on bass.

"The more I do this, the more I trust myself, and the closer I get to making what I imagine in my head… the lyrics, of course, continue to be very important to me. They’re just snapshots of everyday life where myriad moods and every sort of horrible and hilarious occurrence one can imagine mix with the pedestrian resulting in the absurdity and beauty of life."

Release date: 12 October

Their first full length release since 2015's This Day Is My Enemy, The Prodigy are adopting the role of alternative-electro tour guides with new album, No Tourists.

"To us, No Tourists is ultimately about escapism and the want and need to be derailed," the band have said. "Don’t be a tourist - there is always more danger and excitement to be found if you stray from the set path."

To help you on your way, single Need Some1 is already out, coming equipped with the type of raucous, action-packed video we've come to expect from The Prodigy.

Release date: 2 November

ALSO COMING IN 2018 (HOPEFULLY...)

The "Queen Of Funk" continues her pioneering career - which has seen her go from 70s dance floor glory with her first band Rufus to creating some of disco's greatest anthems through her solo records – with her first album in over a decade.

Chaka Khan is looking to add to her canon of classics, including Ain't Nobody and Every Woman, via a new record she's making with Major Lazer producer Switch.

Recent single Like Sugar is the first track to be released from their collaboration, while the rest of the follow-up to 2007’s Funk This ought to be with us soon.

After the impact of single This Is America – and its instantly iconic video – the anticipation for Childish Gambino’s next record is close to fever pitch. Just this month, he's graced us with two sunshine-themed tunes too (Summertime Magic, Feels Like Summer).

Without a scheduled release day so far – suggesting a sudden drop might be on the cards – it's expected the follow-up to 2016’s Awaken, My Love! will be Donald Glover's last as Gambino (a name he originally got from an online Wu-Tang Clan name generator). "I think endings are good because they force things to get better," Glover recently affirmed.

Details about the rest of the album are scarse, but with This Is America, Glover has laid down an impressive marker for his artistic and political intentions.

Despite being a very in-demand collaborator as of late (working with Janelle Monáe earlier this year and with an Azealia Banks team-up still to come), Grimes has not forgotten about her own work.

Teasing a possible tracklisting via her Instagram account in May, Claire Boucher subsequently tweeted in June a playlist of "13 decent tracks" that could make her own record.

However, a release date remains some way off, it seems, as she warned the tracks she has so far are "just demos being recorded thru my phone". Hopefully we'll get to hear the finished product by the year's end.

Having paused his own efforts to make collaborative album Lotta Sea Lice with Courtney Barnett (one of 6 Music's Albums of 2017), Philadelphia troubadour Kurt Vile is getting back to his day job.

No firm release date has been set for the follow-up to 2015’s B’lieve I’m Goin’ Down so far, but it should surface before the year is out. How do we know? Well, Vile's record label Matador have been filling road side verges in the US with political-style "Vile 18" placards.

That's a pretty clear sign, and feels like one campaign promise you can rely on.

Having impressed with a series of EPs, mixtapes and breakout hits, Lizzo is currently working on her first major label LP, and what could mark her mainstream breakthrough.

Though endorsed by none other than Prince early in her career, the Minneapolis rapper has distinctively ploughed her own path with her releases thus far, and it seems this unique sound is something she's keen to expand on with her debut album.

"I definitely feel like an outsider," the rising star has said. "But I’m making cool shit! That’s all that matters."

While there are few details about what the follow-up to 2014’s rejuvenating Blank Project will hold, a new album from Neneh Cherry seems very possible.

The legendary Swede announced her touring plans earlier this year with a Facebook post declaring: "And yes... [I’ll have] some new music to share with you". Cherry included three new, and currently untitled, tracks in her set during a gig in Sao Paulo, Brazil in March.

Following her Biggest Weekend set in Belfast in May, we hope for more details – and songs – soon. Will the record again be produced by electronic maestro Four Tet? We'll soon find out hopefully!

New Jersey singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten has been particularly productive of late, acting, training as a mental councillor and becoming a mother - all while working on a follow-up to 2014's Are We There.

Van Etten has said that, unlike some of her previous records, her as-yet-untitled new album boasts a positive outlook... well, sort of.

"Past records have been heartbreak records or break-up records," the singer has explained. "This is still an album of love songs, but about the state of the world while trying to stay positive for another human being."

Sharon Van Etten plays a special New York-themed BBC Proms (Prom 35: New York - Sound of a City) on 8 August.

Vampire Weekend's first album since the departure of member Rostam has taken longer than some expected – a record under the working title Mitsubishi Macchiato was mooted for last year.

However, with the group making their live return this summer by playing a handful of US shows, it seems likely the follow-up to 2013’s Modern Vampires Of The City is coming soon.

In fact, the band may have leaked some of their own new lyrics via their merch. Fans shared on a messageboard that T shirts on sale at Vampire Weekend's recent shows sported the words: "We took a vow in summertime / Now we find ourselves in late December" on each sleeve.

Does that indicate a December release? Well, our fingers are crossed that Ezra Koenig and co's new record will be out in time for 6 Music's 2018 Band T Shirt Day this November.

• Chromatics
• FKA Twigs
• Ian Brown
• Ladytron
• Marissa Nadler
• Muse
• My Bloody Valentine
• Robyn
• William Doyle (formerly East India Youth)

• Listen to 6 Music Recommends for the best new music, curated by Lauren Laverne, Steve Lamacq, Mary Anne Hobbs and Tom Ravenscroft.

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