Records of the Week (March 20, 2026)

‍What we're spinning at VF HQ.

Scientific discoveries in the fields of perception, Tumblr nostalgia and James Blake going doo-wop.

Contributions from VF's Kelly Doherty and Alex Flowers.

Avalon Emerson

Written Into Changes

(Dead Oceans)

Following her 2023 debut, Written Into Changes is a return to the alternative anthems many of us grew up through Tumblr dashboards and indie dance floors. The album sits at an intersection of energetic pop-rock and dreamy disco electronics. There are shimmering guitar riffs, warm synths and beneath them there’s always a pulsing groove and bright chords lifting the mood. Emerson sings with a cool, detached tone and allows the colour of the songs to shift easily between melancholia and euphoria.

Rather than cosplaying the past, she seems to treat this style as another tool for the same question that runs through much of her work as a DJ and producer: how can music make people feel joy? Emerson treats nostalgia as a present day, living vehicle for movement and feeling. Alex Flowers

Geinoh Yamashirogumi

Ecophony Rinne

(The Vinyl Factory / Time Capsule Records)

Originally released in 1986, Ecophony Rinne is a four-part symphony of “ecological music” that married ancient tradition with technological innovation. Recorded by Geinoh Yamashirogumi – a group of over 200 amateur musicians under the lead of Shoji Yamashiro – it led to Yamashiro's “Hypersonic Effect” theory, proposing that ultra-high frequencies above 20kHz can influence perception even if inaudible.

Whilst the lore around Ecophony Rinne is compelling, so too is the music. A deeply cinematic record that swerves genre, through its run-time you encounter throat-singing, gamelan, Tibetan horns, spiritual choruses of drone, and a swathe of different cultural influences (Hungarian, Japanese and more). With a careful attention to sound placement, and an astute management of elements that prevents it from becoming bogged down by its own ambitions, Ecophony Rinne is an epic that sounds little like anything else. Kelly Doherty

Order a copy now via The Vinyl Factory and Time Capsule records.

James Blake

Trying Times

(Self-released)

James Blake transforms his post-dubstep roots into crooning balladry, where ghostly choirs introduce a distinctly hauntological atmosphere. Many of his signature motifs remain: melancholy verses, slow half-time drum patterns, and the sound of those dark, bass-heavy club nights — crushed sub frequencies, pitch-shifted vocals and off-kilter rhythms — all carrying his soft, aching voice.

New ideas emerge on Blake's latest. The lyrics circle love, resilience and emotional endurance, while elements of mid-century crooning and doo-wop harmonies sit beside minimal wave and 80s synth-pop melancholy. Vocal choirs gather behind him like an approaching storm, placing the earnest romanticism of the 1940s against the distant introspection of the 1980s.

The album feels like a convergence of the worlds Blake has moved through: the experimental production of London’s electronic underground, the intimacy of singer-songwriters, and the sonic vocabulary of modern hip-hop instrumentals. By the closing stretch the record circles back toward the James Blake we know best.

On the album’s closing track Blake sings: “Everyone's getting different information / So how can we get on the same side?” Beneath lies a question about what kind of future are we moving toward when people inhabit entirely different realities, unable to agree on what’s even true. In a fractured world, Blake suggests that empathy may be the only thing left holding us together. Alex Flowers

Masahiro Takahashi

In Another

(Telephone Explosion)

On his sixth LP, Toronto-based, Japanese-born composer Masahiro Takahashi trades Ableton for a rotating ten-piece ensemble from Toronto's music community and the result is an esoteric, cross-genre outing that's full of charm.

Inspired by the vignette structure of Kurosawa's Dreams and the parables of Zhuangzi, the record unfurls across viscous jazz-funk, wistful ambience, languid balladry and touches of tropical pop but it never feels it's bitten off more than it can chew. Whilst many genres are dabbled in, they move in and out of the record in a dream like state, contributing patches of sound to an otherwise mostly ambient record.

In Another is oddly soothing and contains lightness and fluidity that somewhat obfuscates how much is actually going on. Little twists and quirks – a surprise instrument here, an offbeat melody there – creates colour that would lend itself well to a score for a wondrous, otherworldly video game.

Light listening that isn't afraid of experimentation. Kelly Doherty