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 projects from Father John Misty, Kim Deal, Red Hot Organization, Bibio, Michael Kiwanuka, Tashi Dorji, Wizkid, Lifted, Rogê, Boldy James & Harry Fraud, Djrum. 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.)
Father John Misty: Mahashmashana [Sub Pop]
Since rising to acclaim (and a little infamy) with 2015’s I Love You, Honeybear, Josh Tillman has alternately indulged and rejected his status as indie-rock’s leading provocateur. Mahashmashana, his sixth Father John Misty album, returns to the romantic symphonies and sardonic alt-rock of that breakout LP, as previewed on “Screamland,” a seven-minute epic with Low’s Alan Sparhawk on guitar, and the classic Tillmanian monologue of “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All.” As Anna Gaca writes in her review, “The mood swings are wilder, the logic more tangential; the songwriting might be the best it’s ever been.”
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Kim Deal: Nobody Loves You More [4AD]
Despite releasing a handful of solo singles a decade ago, the Breeders singer and guitarist Kim Deal had never actually released a full solo album—until now, that is. Nobody Loves You More is her long-awaited exploration of brooding indie-rock (“Crystal Breath”), cascading horns (“Coast”), and charming ballads (“Nobody Loves You More”). Guiding her through as an engineer is her close friend and longtime collaborator the late Steve Albini, whom she credits as having an audible impact on the final product.
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Red Hot Org: Transa [Red Hot Organization]
Red Hot Organization benefit compilation Transa is a massive, 46-song record divided into eight chapters, the whole of which is intended to represent a “spiritual journey celebrating trans people.” Trans and nonbinary musicians were invited to contribute to the album, and organizers connected them with their musical heroes to bring their original songs, covers, and compositions to life. Transa includes the first Sade Adu song in years, Moses Sumney covering SOPHIE, a 30-minute piece by André 3000, and dozens of other tracks, by Fleet Foxes, Pharoah Sanders, Yaeji, Perfume Genius, Adrianne Lenker, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, and Clairo, among others.
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Bibio: Phantom Brickworks (LP II) [Warp]
Warp mainstay and English producer Bibio returns with the sequel to 2017’s Phantom Brickworks and the follow-up to 2022’s Bib10. Phantom Brickworks (LP II) continues his ongoing ambient project with an emphasis on the varying atmospheres of places depending on their history and how they’re viewed: natural landscapes in person, photographs uncovered years later, grand legends passed down by word of mouth. Bibio primarily uses improvised music to both capture and react to those sites, letting his instruments guide him intuitively.
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Michael Kiwanuka: Small Changes [Geffen]
Michael Kiwanuka teamed up with coveted producers Danger Mouse and Inflo for Small Changes, the follow-up to the album that made him a critical and commercial star in the United Kingdom, 2019’s Kiwanuka. His core trio has expanded for the LP, bringing in Pino Palladino and Jimmy Jam. He previewed the record with a psychedelic soul suite, “Lowdown (Part I)” and “Lowdown (Part II).”
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Tashi Dorji: We Will Be Wherever the Fires Are Lit [Drag City]
Tashi Dorji turns mesmeric guitar improvisations into a soundtrack to political resistance on We Will Be Wherever the Fires Are Lit, the follow-up to the Butanese musician’s 2020 LP Stateless. It was preceded by the single “Begin From Here,” which came with a music video directed by Helado Negro.
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Wizkid: Morayo [Starboy/RCA]
Wizkid has dedicated his sixth album, whose title means “I Am Joy” in Yoruba, to his late mother. The Nigerian superstar enlisted Jazmine Sullivan, Brent Faiyaz, Asake, Anaïse, and Tiakola as guests on the More Love, Less Ego follow-up.
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Lifted: Trellis [Peak Oil]
Following releases on forward labels Future Times and Pan, Lifted debut on Los Angeles imprint Peak Oil with Trellis. The outré jazz group conjures music that ranges from raucous fusion to bewitching ambient and something like minimalist post-rock, often occurring at exactly the same time. Joan of Arc’s Tim Kinsella, Jordan GCZ, Motion Graphics, and Earthen Sea’s Jacob Long contribute.
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Rogê: Curyman II [Diamond West]
Since moving from his Rio de Janeiro hometown to Los Angeles, Rogê has been on a mission to bring the MPB canon—and his expansive spin on it—to North America. The songwriter and Seu Jorge collaborator’s follow-up to the 2023 album Curyman is alternately sleek and rowdy, pairing soul largesse and samba rhythms in a sound, he says, that represents the “colorful palette of Brazilian Popular Music.”
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Boldy James & Harry Fraud: The Bricktionary [Boldy James/Srfschl]
Boldy James had already released two projecs in 2024 when he teed up The Bricktionary, his first collaborative record with producer Harry Fraud, with the Tee Grizzley–featuring single “Cecil Fielder.” Another track features James’ fellow Detroit rapper Babyface Ray, and Griselda mainstay Benny the Butcher pops up to exchange bars over a prog guitar loop on “Rabies.”
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Djrum: Meaning’s Edge EP [Houndstooth]
Meaning’s Edge is Djrum’s first release since 2019, after an interim period attracting steady acclaim for his inventive, intercontinental DJing. The UK producer adds a new bow to his quiver on the new EP, namely his own flute playing, unifying beats that variously draw from his ethnomusicological studies to bridge eras and geographies of electronic music.
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Source : Pitchfork
