Ultimate Love Forever

Earnest and disaffected, ironic and confrontational, the Brooklyn songwriter’s Sub Pop debut channels trans rage into scrappy DIY punk with no patience left.

Punching the Clown

Kurt Wagner reinvents his band yet again, this time slimming down to a bare-bones acoustic setup and stripping away the studio artifice. But his storytelling remains as expansive as ever.

fata morgana

The experimental Brooklyn project returns with a serene and spectral new album, using an ever-shifting musical backdrop to explore themes of illusion and doubt.

Lost Weekend

For her third solo album, Phoebe Bridgers expands and contracts, capturing experiences that are strange, solitary, and hers alone. It is the quietest, most cohesive record in her discography.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

There are many rappers out there who dig deep into their lives for heavy stories of pain and sorrow. The DMV rapper does this too, but he elevates the art form to a whole new level.

Uuuuuuuu

Natal Zaks brings dub techno to a higher level on an energetic and atmospheric 2x12", another pin in the lapel of the new and outstanding Short Span label.

Music, Fashion, Film

On the follow-up to BRAT, the pop auteur pivots to a referential, proudly tossed-off rock sound that offers mystifying glances behind the curtain of stardom.

My Skyscraper

The longtime Arthur Russell collaborator finally gets a solo exhibition: a gorgeously realized and fundamentally incomplete work of sensual art-folk, leftfield disco, and experimental synth-pop. It’s at once an archival triumph and one of the...

Spontaneous Music Live

The L.A. improv quintet made its first two LPs by remixing key moments from its gigs; now, on a pair of astonishing unedited live takes, the group proves that performance is the heart of its music.

you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love

The pop star’s third album is a heartbreaking account of an intense romance and its demise. Its mood is perfectly reflected in the music, and her evolution as a songwriter is a sight to behold.

EXIT 2B

The Miami duo’s electrifying, boundary-bending combination of Haitian kompa, underground rap, reggaeton, electro-pop, and baile funk is loud as hell and rich in egalitarian spirit.

Inferno

Laced with occult imagery and enigmatic samples, the Scottish duo’s immersive new album—their first in 13 years—offers some of the most captivating music of their career.

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.