Nail biter: This week at South

Kim Gordon returns with PLAY ME, her third solo album and a sharp, distilled continuation of the art-noise vision she’s been refining for decades. Short, beat-driven and rhythm-focused, it finds Gordon leaning further into hypnotic grooves and motorik momentum. James Blake’s Trying Times arrives as a limited Dinked Edition, a deeply reflective record exploring love, identity and modern anxiety. Written between London and Los Angeles, it pairs Blake’s fragile songwriting with lush production and guests including Dave and Monica Martin.

Elsewhere, Nigerian guitar hero Mdou Moctar’s Ilana (The Creator) returns, capturing the explosive desert-rock sound that would later define the band’s global rise.

Also new: Rough Trade signees The Sophs unleash their wildly unpredictable debut GOLDSTAR, a record that veers between pop-punk, funk, blues and indie rock with fearless energy and sharp lyrical honesty. It’s chaotic, ambitious and full of sudden left turns - the sound of a band refusing to stay in its lane. Numero Group’s Great Lakes Gospel Vol. 2 digs deep into ecstatic Detroit church recordings, while Roy Ayers’ classic soundtrack to Coffy returns - heavy funk and soul jazz all present and correct.

→ Recommended

All three parts of Gong’s Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy are in the racks right now: Flying Teapot, Angel’s Egg and You. Together they form one of the strangest and most joyful runs in 70s psychedelic music, blending prog, jazz, space rock and Daevid Allen’s surreal cosmic mythology. Playful, inventive and brilliantly performed, the trilogy charts Gong at their most imaginative, from the whimsical storytelling of Flying Teapot through to the expansive, cosmic grooves of You.. These are part of a bigger Gong collection we have in at the moment.