Peter Kimpton

New album: The Michigan bluegrass singer-songwriter William Lee Apostol uses this beautiful, stirring fifth album, produced by T Bone Burnett, to turn personal grief into 16 vivid, and yet life-affirming songs, with themes about losing his mother, confronting the complicated legacy of family and addiction, and finding a way to carry the past without being trapped by it

New album: The prolific and smooth-voiced west London singer-songwriter behind the many acclaimed Sault albums made alongside husband producer Inflo (Dean Josiah Cover), returns with a sixth strong LP, here particularly of retro 70s soul and pop, with a theme of finding that caring for others need not mean losing sight of yourself.

New album: The veteran Amherst, Massachusetts indie rock trio of J Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph recreate and rediscover the glorious messiness and reckless chemistry of their early years without sounding nostalgic, Mascis using the same vintage amplifier model – a 70s Mesa Boogie MK 1 – associated with the band's 1985 debut and that meaty, fuzzy shoegaze sound that has become so influential

Song of the Day: A pacy, catchy, pointed and caustic indie pop by the American superstar in a single named after the complex, emotionally suppressed, controlling character from Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale, out now on Interscope Records

Three decades into her career and 16 years since her last LP, the American singer-songwriter and actress returns with a striking, strange and experimental LP with the acclaimed US hip-hop producer, merging cosmic soul, underground hip-hop, jazz and dusty funk, and the thematic question: what do we hold onto when the world seems increasingly difficult to recognise in a life of doomscrolling? Badu's answer is characteristically elusive. Love, sex, humour, memory, individuality and human connection all become small acts of resistance against a culture of distraction and impending catastrophe.

By magicman In the recent days following Dolly Parton's death, aged 80, the entire world it seems has poured out eulogies, condolences, appraisals

New album: Beautiful melodies and brilliantly sharp, witty, insightful, clever and catchy indie-folk by the Montreal singer-songwriter Lauren Spear, who has a knack of lyrics that catch you off guard in this second album, one with a fuller sound and striking relationship candour

Song of the Day: “There's no business like showbusiness.” Oddball, wonky, infectious experimental exotica, dub and electro-pop from Liverpool's Ade Blackburn and Jonathan Hartley, with an ironic commentary on their chosen profession, and heralding their 10th album Wild In The Streets out on the 30 October via Domino Records

New album: The Manchester-raised musician and electronic composer Sam Shepherd returns with a powerful experimental and classical collaboration in ambitious 14-movement electroacoustic ballet score that reimagines the myth of Pandora through the contemporary anxieties and possibilities of artificial intelligence, combining sweeping orchestral writing with pulsing electronics

Pulsating, dark, deep-voiced electro-pop named after the dread and panic anxiety when seeing specific colours, a second single heralding the London band's debut album The Intermittent Signal , out on 25 September via The Leaf Label. To explore and enjoy more by The Sick Man of Europe, see also the other embedded links below.