Carmella de Keyser is at her most persuasive when in freefall: plummeting through the ‘cyan blue’ with Icarean abandon and crossing borders of the senses as though synaesthetic apprehension were a most natural condition of understanding, the poet promulgates a new aesthetic, subordinating all formal considerations to the moment of pure invigoration.

Her playing is fluent throughout, her agility impressive and her rhythmic precision unerring, while soloist and orchestra alike embrace the full Romantic sweep of these scores. Period instruments are often sold as a corrective to excess; here they serve the opposite purpose, lending these concertos a warmth and freshness that makes a persuasive case for all three.

There is a particular kind of disc that asks you to switch off the radio, put the phone in a drawer and simply listen. Toby Carr's debut solo recording for Delphian is one of them, and it repays the effort many times over. Carr will already be familiar to many from Battle Cry, his duo album with the mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, which collected both Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine awards in 2023. Here he steps out alone, and the result is an atmospheric, quietly absorbing recital.

Henry is a writer, playwright and photographer. Originally from Lancashire, he is now based in London. In 2025 and 2026, he was longlisted for The Observer Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism. Henry’s plays have been performed at Theatre503, Riverside Studios, Camden People's Theatre and other theatres in London and Edinburgh.

There is something fitting about calling your third album Walt Disco. After two records spent pushing, pulling and occasionally losing themselves in different directions, the Glasgow band have arrived at a record that feels less like a reinvention than an acceptance of everything they have already been. It is a statement of identity, certainly, but not one delivered with the certainty of a band who have finally solved themselves. Instead, Walt Disco finds its strength in the messiness of becoming.

Lucy is pregnant after a one-night stand with Sam from Brooklyn. The thing is that’s all she knows about him even if she does still feel that the spark between them was real. The novel opens with a somewhat rebellious Lucy (real name Lucia) working in a bar in Brooklyn, having travelled from Italy, to try to find Sam.

Some recordings politely ask for your attention. This one pulls up a stool at the bar, loosens its tie and calls for another round. For anyone who loves Gershwin and the jazz idiom, Lucas Debargue's Gershwin Variations is a double album to treasure: it fizzes, it swings and it oozes panache from first bar to last. The first disc, recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris, pairs Debargue with the Orchestre de Paris under Elim Chan. The Piano Concerto in F skips along with real clarity, the orchestration crisp, the syncopations relished and the percussion crackling with rhythmic fervour.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has a gift for turning musical archaeology into pure pleasure. In this second volume of The Beethoven Connection he has unearthed some lovely pieces, and he plays them with passion and a beautiful tone from his Yamaha piano. His sensitivity, expressiveness and virtuosity shine throughout the recital.

Following the Fannies’ 2023 Nothing Lasts Forever and last year’s side-project Butler, Blake & Grant, Blake and (day job) co. return with Teenage Fanclub’s 13th full-length album. Opening with There Was You, a playful, folksy and upbeat song about how magical surprises can interrupt otherwise predetermined lives, Do Not Dare To Dream gets off to an engaging start. There’s an easy warmth to the song, but also a sense that the album might be setting its ambitions rather lower than some of the band’s finest work.