With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services. This week’s batch includes new albums from Lady Gaga, Mustafa, the late SOPHIE, Alan Sparhawk, Rahim Redcar, Adeline Hotel, Merce Lemon, and Being Dead. Subscribe to Pitchfork’s New Music Friday newsletter to get our recommendations in your inbox every week. (All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our affiliate links, however, Pitchfork earns an affiliate commission.)
Lady Gaga: Harlequin [Interscope]
Lady Gaga has released a companion album to Todd Phillips’ new Joker movie, Joker: Folie à Deux, inspired by her character Harley Quinn. Harlequin features covers of classic songs like “Get Happy,” “World on a String,” and “That’s Life.” Upon announcing the project, Gaga shared a video of her running amok in the Louvre (in character, of course) to her version of “The Joker,” from the 1964 musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd. Gaga can also be heard on Joker: Folie à Deux (Music From the Motion Picture), which arrives October 4—the same day as the film.
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Mustafa: Dunya [Jagjaguwar]
Dunya is the studio debut from Sudanese Canadian artist Mustafa. The 12-song LP includes “Imaan,” “Name of God,” “Gaza Is Calling,” “SNL,” and “Old Life.” Co-produced by Simon Hessman, Rodaidh McDonald, and the National’s Aaron Dessner, Dunya features contributions from Rosalía, Nicolás Jaar, JID, Daniel Caesar, Clairo, and Ramy Youssef. The latter three were guest performers at Mustafa’s Artists for Aid benefit concert for Gaza and Sudan early this year. Dunya follows Mustafa’s 2021 project When Smoke Rises.
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SOPHIE: SOPHIE [Transgressive/Future Classic]
SOPHIE’s self-titled second album was nearly finished when, in 2021, she died in an accidental fall while trying to get a better view of a full moon. In the years since, as her legend and influence have grown, the beloved producer’s brother and studio engineer, Ben Long, reckoned with the impossible task of realizing the incomplete vision of a musical visionary. But Long had been present for years’ worth of his sister’s studio sessions, and wanted her work to be heard. Based on the pair’s many discussions about the songs, he worked with his siblings to present the music SOPHIE spent her final years preparing. Guests include Cecile Believe, Hannah Diamond, and Nina Kraviz.
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Alan Sparhawk: White Roses, My God [Sub Pop]
After soldiering on with a series of low-key concerts, Alan Sparhawk is back with a new album—his first since the death, in 2022, of his wife and Low bandmate, Mimi Parker. His solo album White Roses, My God bridges tones and styles, with electronics and prominent vocoder the constants against a turbulent backdrop of abrasive, frenetic, or droning electronics. The tone can be rapturous or elegiac, as confounding as the masterful final entries in Low’s own shapeshifting catalog.
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Rahim Redcar: Hopecore [Because Music]
Rahim Redcar, the artist formerly known as Christine and the Queens, has called his new album a project of “tears, blood, and mostly an unwavering faith in the raw, pure expression of the soul.” The album, Hopecore, sets high-stakes pop to a club pulse, as evidenced by his switch from the stage theatrics of last album Paranoïa, Angels, True Love for a series of nightclub live dates. The record, he added, is a single-minded affair—“an absolute quest where no one else came in to tamper with intentions. A call of the flesh, a prayer for justice and freedom.”
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Tommy Richman: Coyote [ISO Supremacy/Pulse]
Tommy Richman, the Virginia native and TikTok breakout, has released his debut album, Coyote. The 11-song record notably excludes his two breakout hits, “Million Dollar Baby” and “Devil Is a Lie,” but it does feature the more recent “Thought You Were the One” and “Whitney.” Richman layers his dramatic falsetto over beats that nod to 1990s R&B, 1880s synth-pop, funk, and disco. Despite his rapid rise to fame, complete with an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the singer is out to prove he’s not a one-hit-wonder. “This is a big record, but this s–t doesn’t define me,” he told Billboard in June. “This is the start of a run.”
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Adeline Hotel: Whodunnit [Ruination]
Dan Knishkowy brings back his gentle touch on acoustic guitar for his latest Adeline Hotel release: Whodunnit, released on his own Ruination Record Co. The follow-up to 2023’s Hot Fruit is smoky and slow by comparison, a record of stripped-back songs for evenings at home alone when the temperature starts to dip. From the heartening vocal harmonies that build across “I Will Let Your Flowers Grow” to the six-minute title track, Whodunnit suggests you let go of yourself in order to find yourself again—this time for real. Joining Knishkowy are drummer and keyboardist Sean Mullins, upright bassist Carmen Quill of Scree, pianist and Office Culture bandleader Winston Cook-Wilson, and vocalists Jackie West and Katie Von Schleicher.
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Merce Lemon: Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild [Darling]
Pittsburgh artist Merce Lemon took a break from music after her last album, 2020’s Moonth. Spending most of her time in nature—sleeping outside, learning about plants and farming—songs slowly started bubbling up again, resulting in Lemon’s new LP, Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild. The record teems with natural imagery, like nesting birds and bark-stripped trees. Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild lopes between hushed folk and blazing Americana ballads textured with pedal steel, wailing guitar, and subtle percussion simmering under Lemon’s silvery vocals.
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Being Dead: Eels [Bayonet]
Austin, Texas, indie-rockers Being Dead were a duo when they released their debut LP, When Horses Would Run, last year. Since then, core members Shmoofy and Falcon Bitch have welcomed bassist Nicole Roman-Johnston to their live performances, and to record on their sophomore album, Eels, which they tracked in Los Angeles with producer John Congleton. On Eels, they drew upon garage rock, surf twang, lo-fi psych, and bedroom pop.
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Source : Pitchfork
