Train on the Island

On her spellbinding fifth album, Aldous Harding steps closer than ever to the camera lens without coming into focus. It’s an oblique character study of herself, and the best album of her career so far.

Poem 1

The ambient musician’s new album is a tremendous leap in scale, a quiet conjuring of vast, prayerlike yearning.

LIVING TYPE DANGEROUS Vol. 1

Retro but never dusty, the rapper’s brilliantly bugged-out new tape sounds like a New York that hardly exists anymore.

My New Band Believe

Former Black Midi bassist Cameron Picton’s dazzlingly complicated solo debut is a tangle of baroque melodies, chamber-punk arrangements, and garden-path lyrics.

Wendy Eisenberg

On a daring new album, the singer-songwriter and guitar virtuoso examines happiness, love, and memory with a forensic curiosity.

WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA

Smelling like burnt rubber and mall body mist, the pop provocateur’s loud, wild new album swerves hard into club antagonism.

An Undying Love for a Burning World

On their surprise-released first album in 10 years, the psychedelic Bay Area metal veterans launch a vital and affirming second act with new vocalist Aaron Turner.

U

The former electro-pop enfant terrible swings big on her latest album, compressing all her split personalities and eclectic tastes into a high-gloss, high-stakes gamble to remake pop on her own terms.

Girlfriend

The reigning champ of indie pop returns with a razor-sharp, refreshingly self-serious album that plays like a travelogue from disarray to recovery.

TIGRAY FUNK

The Tigray-born, DMV-raised rapper’s latest album is a dazed survey of personal highs and lows, his stream-of-consciousness flow riding roughshod over his producers’ strangest beats.

Still Right Here

The Maryland rapper taps some of SoundCloud’s coolest producers for a full-length solo debut of atmospheric, cybernetic avant-trap. His punch-ins fill more pockets than a tactical vest.

Blame the Clown

The New Orleans punk duo channels American country and folk music for a raw, righteous, and impressively original sound. Their second record is Southern garage rock at its best.

As of Now

The Charlotte rapper’s latest album is the height of his ability. The vignettes of heartbreak and hustling come with absurdist wit and an outstanding selection of beats.

Singin’ to an Empty Chair

Bringing their country-tinted indie rock to boundless new landscapes, the Chicago band returns with their most emotionally affecting and compositionally advanced songs to date.

URGH

The noise-rock band’s second album is a breakthrough: insidiously catchy, incomprehensibly groovy, and fueled by righteous fury.

Xavier

The New York rapper’s debut is a cult rap record with big ambition. Cool, chaotic, and hyper-curious, Xav blows up his sound without losing his style.

Peanut

The New York musician’s latest album, his first with vocals, is a gently psychedelic tour of his mind, pairing surrealistic lyrics with watery pop-ambient soundscaping.

Marty Supreme (Original Soundtrack)

The electronic composer meets the larger-than-life film on its level, building the palette he’s honed over the years into a totalizing prism of sound.

I Tried to Tell You

Embellishing DMV drill with retro R&B, Southern-style storytelling, and striking moments of vulnerability, the DC rapper’s album is simultaneously regional and singular.

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.