Tranquilizer
Drawing on a cache of commercial sample CDs, Daniel Lopatin assembles an impossibly dense and transportive electronic album that takes impermanence as its inspiration.
Out the Blue
On their breakout album, the Baton Rouge rappers wear the championship belt for best duo out of the city, churning out big trash-talking tunes with fat-ass basslines made to set the clubs off.
LUX
The Spanish singer’s fourth record is a heartfelt offering of avant-garde classical pop that roars through genre, romance, and religion.
Rhythm Immortal
The Brussels-based producer fled the strictures of techno and drum’n’bass in search of a freer sound. On his astonishing debut LP under a new alias, he seems to rewrite the laws of physics.
The BPM
Brittney Parks’ tense and virtuosic new album documents a life in motion, blending breakups and rebounds, dancefloor euphoria and everyday anxiety.
Goodness
The London singer embraces the darkness on her quiet and ominous full-length debut—it’s one of the most breathtakingly beautiful albums of the year.
Through the Wall
The Toronto singer returns with a sleek, perfectly executed club record for the late-night crew. Her restrained vocals and velvet hooks are top class.
Getting Killed
The recent metamorphosis of the New York band, led by singer-songwriter Cameron Winter, has produced one of the best, strangest, and most compelling rock records of the year.
Sysivalo
On a posthumous album from the pioneering Finnish electronic artist, Mika Vainio’s enduring interest in capturing the vastness of sound is distilled into pieces that feel both atmospheric and tactile.
Blurrr
The UK singer-songwriter’s sixth album is spectral and breathtaking. It’s a mood record of immense solitude, beauty, and free expression—with a crucial assist from the cellist Oliver Coates.
Bleeds
Karly Hartzman leads her North Carolina band in another triumph. The careful songwriting and coiled performances wrestle with the many fiascos of life and love.
Trying Not to Have a Thought
Philly’s emo-revival heroes are back to show us how it’s done. The band’s first new album in 14 years threads their finger-tapped riffs with familiar camaraderie and new social consciousness.
A Danger to Ourselves
The Colombian musician trades her typically fantastical subject matter for an album steeped in the immediacy of desire. The theme may be universal, but her sounds are as thrillingly out there as ever.
Burnover
The Vermont singer’s pretty great second album has got wit, romance, and sublime songwriting. It’s an unassuming collection of tunes that belongs in the heartland slacker rock canon.
RA.1000
Terre Thaemlitz’s new Resident Advisor mix, echoing a performance in Brooklyn this month, interrogates Israeli genocide, American complicity, and dance music’s ability to seed change.
Live Laugh Love
Earl is on another level. The way he deploys his skill, humor, and encyclopedic knowledge of hip-hop has made him one of the most effortlessly deep and cool rappers alive.
The Passionate Ones
Marcus Brown’s remarkable new album beefs up his airy, omnivorous R&B, searching for a sound tough enough to sustain the daily grind and big enough to keep the dream alive.
It’s a Beautiful Place
Nate Amos and Rachel Brown’s latest knotty LP is super chill and totally destabilizing. To call it their “guitar record” would be an injustice to the range and the humor they find in it.
Baby
The Los Angeles singer’s second album is a spectacular new vision of soul, pop, and R&B. His surrealist, collagist approach to songwriting stretches the bounds of sound and feeling.
Bugland
With Fire-Toolz’s Angel Marcloid, Jasamine White-Gluz pumps her shoegazing fifth album full of more textures, more ambiance, more chunky ’90s guitar. It crushes like a giant box of Gushers.
Black Star
The Ghanaian American singer’s latest album is a celebration of Black diasporic dance music—and a hedonistic, pleasure-soaked victory lap for a star at the peak of her powers.
New Threats From the Soul
The rich and dazzling album from the singer-songwriter is filled with rambling, gambling characters looking for hope. It’s the late arrival of an essential new voice in American indie rock.
REST IN BASS
The Atlanta rapper’s second album is the platonic ideal of rage rap—diced-up lines and constant distortion, with enough vulnerability to balance the outrageous hedonism.
Headlights
Alex Giannascoli upgrades to hi-fi dad rock and sails home with a major label debut worthy of the all-time indie graduations.
Neighborhood Gods Unlimited
On his sly, artful new album, the Los Angeles-based rapper confronts an inhumane information society with determination to claw back a sense of self.
A Tropical Entropy
The exceptional debut album from the Miami producer captures the lively, menacing, and sensual sounds of his home—a dembow pop record made for those muggy, electric nights.
Tether
On a striking debut LP, the Los Angeles musician’s intricate acoustic arrangements and intimate lyrics attest to the strength of her vision; the nuances of her singing speak to the singularity of her voice.
I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away
On his most majestic and sincere record yet, the Texas guitarist plays with grace and power, evoking the gentle emptiness of the American West.
caroline 2
With a suite of mini-symphonies that boasts no shortage of surprising, mesmerizing epiphanies, the London musicians fully embrace their role as UK post-rock’s preeminent sentimentalists.
Big city life
The Norwegian duo’s slinky postmodern pop album approaches you at a party and whispers: Want to go somewhere even cooler?
