Lily Allen, Sheezus (Regal) Sheezus is the first album from English pop singer Lily Allen since 2009’s It’s Not Me, It’s You, where she moved away from the retro ska and dancehall production of her 2006 debut Alright, Still, to dive headfirst into high-gloss electro-pop. It’s also her first album since becoming a wife and mother—and the woman who made her name flaunting a don’t-give-a-fuck attitude and swearing like a sailor is now singing about the joys of feeding babies and staying in at night. These subjects are anything but edgy or interesting, and the lyrics are sometimes cringe-inducingly sappy, but Allen still oozes with charm, which makes most of the tracks super fun anyway. Sheezus uses simple, synth-heavy electronic production with the occasional modern radio-pop trick or layer of Auto-Tune, and its songs (like much of Allen’s earlier material) are so glued-to-your-brain catchy that it’s almost annoying. —Luca Cimarusti
Dawn Golden, Still Life (Downtown/Mad Decent) It’s been more than three years since Diplo’s label, Mad Decent, signed Dawn Golden & Rosy Cross, aka the solo electronic project of Dexter Tortoriello from Houses, on the strength of the six-song Bandcamp release Blow. In 2013 Tortoriello put out another beautiful, dreamy Houses album (A Quiet Darkness), and this month Dawn Golden (no more Rosy Cross) finally dropped its debut full-length. At its best the tantalizingly outre electro-pop on Still Life is achingly romantic, with a drowsy-sounding Tortoriello singing sweetly about fractured love—he’ll occasionally provide his own backing vocals, processed to sound like he’s sucked on a helium balloon. His singing, the delicate synths, and the stacks of percussion that shift throughout each song make for an album that will gets its hooks into your heart; I’ve had “I Won’t Bend” on repeat, charmed by its sputtering synths and demented take on the Ronettes’ classic “Be My Baby” drumbeat. The ingredients are simple, but Tortoriello’s alchemical wizardry helps them take off and light up like a fireworks display. —Leor Galil
Probcause, Waves (Bonafyde Media) Evanston-reared Chicago rapper Probcause recently wrapped up a tour with Nashville electro-pop outfit Cherub, and on his new Waves EP many of the instrumentals have the razzle-dazzle of a danceable electro-pop number aimed at the charts. The lanky MC’s vocal gymnastics have an elastic flow, and his performances on “Neon Dreams” and “Breezy” are positively playful—he raps like a fan in the crowd hollering at the DJ to pump up the volume. For the most part Waves is sleek and shimmering, but it departs from that aesthetic on “Chicago Style,” which mutates into a lean juke track halfway through, then hits you with a sinister synth melody and an aggressive drop from Twista—but it’s as lively and high-energy as the rest of the EP, even when it sounds a bit more raw. —Leor Galil
Leslie Winer, Witch (Superior Viaduct) In the late 70s, Leslie Winer’s contrarian wit helped her build a friendship with William S. Burroughs, and in 1986 her androgynous looks landed her on the cover of UK fashion magazine The Face. Since ditching modeling for music, she’s worked with artists as disparate as Grace Jones and CM von Hausswolff. In the early 90s, performing as © (yes, a copyright symbol), she released a white-label record of scathing musings spoken or sung over roots-reggae samples and echoing beats, and in the intervening years it’s been recognized as an ur-document of trip-hop. Witch has just been reissued on vinyl, and what makes it compelling in 2014 are the hybrid vigor of the backing tracks and the flinty intelligence of Winer’s still-pertinent observations about sexual politics. Her deft way with a mixing desk can turn her voice, fragments of Nyabinghi drumming, and a riff from Captain Beefheart’s “Clear Spot” into a compulsively playable groove excursion. —Bill Meyer
