Feature

From Madlib & Four Tet’s hook-up to Dodie’s debut, Michael Sumsion looks ahead to the great new music due to be unleashed in the new year. 2020 was a tense, anxious and challenging year. Covid has exerted an influence upon the cycle of new music releases, yet we’ve still been inundated with a plethora of challenging and interesting sounds across a multiplicity of genres. … [Read more...] about The Best New Music Releases Coming In 2021

Happy New Year from all of us at Vinyl Chapters! 2021 starts with a Friday so we're here to provide you with four new tracks to break you into the new year. We've gone for some gentle, reflective tracks this week that take in the pains, gains, and everything we've all gone through recently, as well as some warm melodies and bright words aw we look forward to a Covid-free … [Read more...] about New Music Fridays – 1st January 2021

Michael Sumsion selects the stand-out tracks that defined this year, featuring missives from The Avalanches, SAULT, Angel Olsen and Phoebe Bridgers. As we consign 2020 to the past, here is my audit of the best songs of the year, those which provided succour from the turmoil and catastrophe unfurling outside our windows. With gigs, festivals and tours on pause, these artists … [Read more...] about 10 Songs That Helped Define 2020

Michael Sumsion casts his beady eye over the finest albums to grace this most precarious of years.  2020 has been a challenging and gruelling year, no doubt about it. For some, keeping up to date with new releases has been eschewed in favour of retreating to the tried and tested, the nostalgic and the already known. The comforting certainties of yesteryear have consoled … [Read more...] about Twenty-Five Albums Of 2020 You Must Check Out

As the curtains slowly close on 2020 and our staff writers look forward to 2021, Matthew Wand takes a retrospective look back thirty years to 1991, the year 90s music truly broke and the rock scene flourished.  To some, the 80s was a true shining light in music, to others it was a decade to forget. Music in the nineties is still long revered by the globe Populus, but this … [Read more...] about 1991: The Year Rock Diversified and Shone

Michael Sumsion examines the reissue LPs and compilations that shaped a tumultuous 2020. A discerning, pristine and well-chosen reissue can invite erudite discussion, shine fresh light on hitherto unexplored or discarded areas, scenes and artists of musical history and elicit overdue recognition for musicians who were unlucky or just out of shape with their times. The most … [Read more...] about Best Reissues and Compilations of 2020