Not even a Pitchfork staffer can listen to every new album that comes out—but we’ve all heard a few lately that we’d hate for you to miss. So every few months, our writers and editors round up a list of generally overlooked recent releases that deserve some more attention. None of these albums were named Best New Music, and some weren’t reviewed on Pitchfork at all, but we think they’re all worth a listen.
(All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our retail links, however, Pitchfork may earn an affiliate commission.)
AKAI SOLO: True Sky
Even when AKAI SOLO’s voice is submerged in the mix, lost in the ebb-and-flow of Navy Blue’s shimmering production, True Sky isn’t a passive listen. The Brooklyn rapper delivers stream-of-consciousness raps with a witty, understated sense of humor, moderating life’s crueler lessons with references to anime and role-playing games. “Keep My Poise!!!” and “Ocean Hue Hours” contain the fragments to some of the album’s only choruses, but they feel more like mantras AKAI is still learning to incorporate—the kind you repeat to build your own confidence. –Brandon Callender
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Barker: BARKER002
BARKER002 extends the euphoric, anti-kick drum dance music mission laid out in Berlin techno producer’s Sam Barker’s 2019 debut Utility. Opener “E7-E5” (a seeming homage to Manuel Göttsching’s E2-E4) offers an irresistible twinkling pulse, and “Polytely” represents his latest frenetic study in how to make beat-agnostic dance music. On “Bent,” his synth-forward composition begins to resemble a traditional breakbeat—a small but important distinction for the drop skeptic, and a hint at how this project could evolve. –Evan Minsker
BIG|BRAVE: Vital
BIG|BRAVE fuse noise rock and doom metal into scorched ecstasy. The loud Montreal trio of Robin Wattie, Mathieu Ball, and Tasy Hudson have long been one of the most compelling bands in heavy music. But their songs have never sounded as dynamic, or more rooted in purpose (one entire track is a quotation of Alexander Chee’s 2018 essay collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel), as on their fourth record, Vital. Through brooding drums, titanic drones, and chiming bells, BIG|BRAVE push into the red and beyond. –Jenn Pelly
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Big Jade: Pressure
If you transported Big Jade back to the heyday of Swishahouse, she would fit right in. The Beaumont, Texas rapper grew up immersed in Southern rap (particularly from Atlanta, Memphis, New Orleans, and Houston), and you can tell from her dirty, rapidfire flow. But as much as Big Jade’s style pays homage to the past, she’s not a throwback. Her aggressive, no-frills flow breathes new air into David Banner’s “Like a Pimp” on the fun Beatking-produced “Dem Girlz.” Inconsistent beat selection is the only thing holding her back on Pressure—other than that, she’s relentless. –Alphonse Pierre
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Bruiser Wolf: Dope Game Stupid
Bruiser Wolf sounds like he’s cracking wise even when he’s playing it straight. The Detroit rapper—who’s appeared on all of Danny Brown’s 2021 Bruiser Brigade releases—lifts his voice to end his verses, giving the impression that he’s an exasperated comedian, the storied funny man who’s seen it all and lived through enough sticky situations that even his darkest quips will make you giggle. Held together by Wolf’s signature timbre (a little high and soft like E-40’s), Dope Game Stupid is a revelry of wordplay and storytelling that puts the craft first. –Matthew Strauss
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify
Car Culture: Dead Rock
Most of the time, NYC dance mainstay Daniel Fisher (aka Physical Therapy) can be spotted in dark, sweaty nightclubs, playing slammers from behind the decks. But the producer and Allergy Season boss isn’t always dealing in kick drums, or any drums at all. Under his alias Car Culture, Fisher collects the incompatible daylight impulses that strike during his night job as a techno DJ and pours them into the electro-acoustic soundbaths that make up Dead Rock. Hypnagogic ambient moments twirl into Reichian piano loops and fragmented melodies that are perfect for the morning after a night out. –Noah Yoo
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Cerebral Rot: Excretion of Mortality
Seattle death metal band Cerebral Rot is trying to gross you out. Summarized in titles like “Drowned in Malodor” and “Vile Yolk of Contagion,” this instinct can also be heard in the very sound of their music. While some bands in the genre embrace the studio for pristine acts of technical prowess, Cerebral Rot embodies decay. Liquidy guitar solos spill out from their hands, while the amelodic and often inhuman vocal delivery worms its way through the speakers from low in the mix. The drums during the doomy second half of “Bowels of Decrepitude” seem to lumber increasingly off-rhythm, as if trying to make the act of headbanging feel a little more dangerous. It’s a masterful mess. –Sam Sodomsky
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
For Those I Love: For Those I Love
Irish poet David Balfe, aka For Those I Love, recorded his self-titled debut as a way to process the death of his best friend, fellow poet Paul Curran. Originally he intended it only to be heard by family and close friends, but songs this harrowing were destined to reach more ears. Balfe’s intricately detailed spoken-word ruminations on growing up in the underbelly of Dublin and his eternal bond with Curran are paired with sample-heavy electronic tracks informed by classic rave, early dubstep, and grime. Balfe references the Streets a couple of times, and the album sounds something like Mike Skinner engaged in a cathartic therapy session on the Fabric dancefloor. It’s a gift to be able to listen in. –Amy Phillips
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
G Herbo: 25
As Chicago’s G Herbo has gotten older, his music has become more urgent. Last year’s PTSD was an honest and mature look back at the trauma that made him grow up too fast. In a way, 25 is a celebration of reaching an age that so many of his friends and family didn’t get a chance to experience; he sounds like he’s broken a curse that’s haunted him for years. Nothing speaks to this quite like intro “I Don’t Wanna Die,” which starts off with children’s choir-like vocals chanting the title before Herb runs through the life-and-death scenarios he survived with his wits and a bit of luck. It’s a necessary sigh of relief. –Alphonse Pierre
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Hide: Interior Terror
Chicago experimentalists HIDE like to hold their listeners hostage. The electronic duo of Heather Gabel and Seth Sher write music that burrows beneath the skin, transmitting a glorious current of unease. Their latest album, Interior Terror, is raw and claustrophobic, built on a jagged surface of eerie field recordings, distorted drones, and hissing percussion. Gabel’s half-spoken dispatches only escalate the tension: “I can’t take this, covered in blood,” they wail on “Price of Life,” their voice countered by the squeal of shattered glass. It sounds like the room is crumbling around them—wooden beams hitting the ground and plaster sloughing off the walls. The collapse is cathartic, but there’s no escaping it. –Madison Bloom
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Tidal
John FM: American Spirit EP
Combining R&B, hip-hop, and classic techno, John FM’s American Spirit EP is far deeper than its 16-minute runtime suggests. This music is big enough to fill a club, intimate enough to leave you reeling. Album opener “February” demonstrates both qualities: Its resonant bass feels like it could shake down the walls of Jericho, yet John FM sings so earnestly that it sounds as if his voice could break at any moment. It’s a triumphant meditation. –Hubert Adjei-Kontoh
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Juan Wauters: Real Life Situations
In 2019, Uruguayan American singer-songwriter and Queens resident Juan Wauters released a pair of albums, La Onda de Juan Pablo and Introducing Juan Pablo, documenting his international travels through songs, field recordings, and snatches of spoken word. This spring’s Real Life Situations takes the same warm, curious approach to the singular circumstances of 2020-2021, constructing a loose scrapbook of life before and during the pandemic in New York. Leaning into psych pop and the occasional weird synth interlude, the album immortalizes facets of daily life with a Spanish-language lockdown diary (“Locura”), a personalized theme song, and a conversation recorded at a Greenpoint doughnut shop. Friends like Mac DeMarco, Nick Hakim, Cola Boyy, and Tall Juan make guest appearances, while recorded clips of speech and film dialogue gesture obliquely towards topics like justice, resilience, hardship, and community. Until you can catch a live show—the definitive Juan Wauters experience requires in-person attendance—this is the next best thing. –Anna Gaca
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Kajsa Lindgren: Momentary Harmony
Swedish composer Kajsa Lindgren frequently works on a macro scale, investigating modes of listening and states of mind by reworking field recordings into longform shapes. But on her third album, she turns her attention to shorter pieces written for acoustic instruments like cello, koto, piano, and lute. Assisted by a small ensemble of collaborators including Åsa Forsberg, Maxwell August Croy, and Sean McCann, Lindgren sketches hushed pieces with minimalist outlines, emphasizing tactile textures and the subtle interplay of consonance and dissonance. Despite their short lengths, the pieces contribute to an overarching experience of deep listening in which stillness reigns. Taken together, they amount to an album of blurry snapshots charged with nostalgia, at once familiar and strange. –Philip Sherburne
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Lambchop: Showtunes
Kurt Wagner has referred to the latest album from Lambchop, the shapeshifting Nashville band he’s led for three decades, as a collection of “showtunes for people who don’t like showtunes.” But the abstract and elusive Showtunes is even stranger than that: It’s more like a remix album for a tragic one-man show, as heard on hallucinogens. You sometimes key into a stray refrain from a pivotal scene (“Like somebody’s mother, you sang the blues”) or a comic aside with no context (“Let’s say that writer was an asshole—let’s just say that asshole wasn’t me”), while at other times, you hear only the sound of the band: autumnal, understated, and unaccompanied by Wagner’s lyrics so they can more accurately soundtrack whatever strange visions pop into your head. –Sam Sodomsky
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Leo Bhanji: Birth Videos EP
Guided by memories of fleeting interactions, Leo Bhanji’s Birth Videos EP builds a map of the inner workings of his mind. Each hazy electronic pop song is an amalgam of “a million stunning first impressions”—the image of his friend asleep on the couch, the memory of getting high around his sister for the first time, a stranger’s white Margielas—woven together by Bhanji’s own murmured existential questions. He wonders if he’s let someone down, ponders how he wants to be remembered, and sleeps with his eyes open, “[dreaming] thе black around my lids.” He soundtracks these ruminations with a bright choral sample, a steel drum, or an indigo synth tune, approaching each texture with curiosity and care. –Vrinda Jagota
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Lily Konigsberg: The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now
Across five albums with New York trio Palberta, singer and multi-instrumentalist Lily Konigsberg honed wiry art-punk into a delightfully kooky mixture of contemporary indie rock and pop. She’s also found time for a handful of solo releases that aim straight for the heart of bedroom pop, especially last year’s It’s Just Like All the Clouds EP, with its dreamy, Auto-Tuned title track and the Elephant 6-style kitchen-sink catchiness of “I Said.” The cheekily named The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now includes both of those songs, plus other buried gems from her past solo records, a couple of scrappy demos, and the previously unreleased Robyn-gone-meta synth-pop juggernaut “Owe Me.” Konigsberg’s best right now is pretty good. –Marc Hogan
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés: CLAMOR
Departing from the contemporary folk captured on their debut, Catalan duo Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés showcase their electronic prowess on their second album, CLAMOR. Arnal protests the current moment by detailing stories of destruction, rebirth, and insurrection with her tremendous voice. Opening track “Milagro” crescendos with a structure akin to Rosalía’s El Mal Querer, which may fool you into thinking this is just another pop record, but what follows are songs filled with intricate harmonies and volcanic compositions. “Jaque,” a standout collaboration with Kronos Quartet, is a skittering dramatic spectacle that highlights the duo’s ability to take elements of the past and propel them through to the future. –Gio Santiago
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
The Narcotix: Mommy Issues EP
The Brooklyn-based group the Narcotix are fronted by longtime best friends Esther Quansah and Becky Foinchas, who synthesize rigorous choral training with the Afrobeat music they grew up on. Their debut Mommy Issues EP is steeped in mythological imagery, and its songs unfurl like dulcet fables. Foinchas and Quansah braid their melodies around guitarist Adam Turay’s bright, lean riffs, as they sing about the Ancient Ones, Mars, and Adonai—a Hebrew name for God. These references serve an evocative function rather than one of piety; the Narcotix are interested in their own mythmaking, spawned from a shared history and their boundless voices. –Madison Bloom
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
PDP III: Pilled Up on a Couple of Doves
In 2018, the New York composer Britton Powell went into the studio with cellist/composer Lucy Railton and electronic musician Brian Leeds (Huerco S.); equipped with a sheaf of loose compositional sketches, the trio layered a series of improvisations—sometimes combining as many as eight takes on one track—for electronics, cello, voice, samples, cymbal, and gong. Over the next two years, Powell reworked their collaborative sessions into Pilled Up on a Couple of Doves, an album of gauzy ambient textures whose title offers some indication of the wide-eyed bliss contained within. As ambient music goes, however, it’s frequently as physical as it is heady: “Channel 3” crackles like a film projector that’s caught fire, while the 20-minute closer “49 Days” descends into a vast, cavernous expanse of earth-shaking drone. –Philip Sherburne
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Rodeola: Arlene
With rippling notes of guitar and pedal steel that give way to Kate Long’s cool, reassuring voice, Rodeola’s Arlene opens like a good dream. The latest record from the Bloomington, Indiana singer-songwriter is a guitar-driven slow burner wrapped in fuzz and reverb, from the gnarl of “We Can Go Diving” to the light strums of “Three Things” and the restless tumble of “Teenage Situation.” Alternately knotty and radiant—and occasionally wistful—Long’s warm tunes seem to get richer with every listen. –Allison Hussey
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify
Rosali: No Medium
Rosali’s frayed, folk-touched No Medium landed in May on the same woman-run independent label that delivered Yasmin Williams’ Urban Driftwood in January. After hitting it off with Omaha’s shaggy David Nance Group while on tour with her ferocious trio Long Hots, the singer-songwriter recruited the former for her follow-up to 2018’s Trouble Anyway. It’s a smart match: Rosali delivers her most assured vocal performances yet, and the band’s serrated edges strikingly contrast her world-weary but open-hearted narratives of self-determination, vice, and vulnerability. –Allison Hussey
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Rosie Tucker: Sucker Supreme
L.A.-based musician Rosie Tucker’s third release, Sucker Supreme, is both brighter and louder than its predecessors—a supercharged indie-pop record with an edge. With surging pop hooks and sharp lyricism, Tucker fuses together eclectic ideas about romance, reptiles, used cars, and more. Fragile whispers give way to soaring choruses and surprising crescendos on “Ambrosia,” the album’s climactic centerpiece, as Tucker shrewdly ties the literal image of the fruity dessert to larger concepts about desire and contemplation. Much like ambrosia salad, Sucker Supreme is full of unexpected ingredients. –Katie Philo
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Scotch Rolex: TEWARI
For over 15 years, Japanese electronic producer Shigeru Ishihara has made dark, gabber-infused chiptune as DJ Scotch Egg. But after he was invited to the Nyege Nyege headquarters in Kampala, Uganda in 2019, Ishihara linked with some of the East African artists on the Hakuna Kulala roster. Their shared creative spark led to his latest project, TEWARI, the first album under his new alias Scotch Rolex. Combining heavy bass, trap, and techno rhythms with his usual hardcore intensity, Ishihara’s latest productions evoke bleakness, chaos, and the small of burning tar. Fiery turns by collaborators like Duma’s Lord Spikeheart and Nyege Nyege’s MC Yallah make this project unforgettable. –Noah Yoo
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Shelley FKA DRAM: Shelley FKA DRAM
In 2016, Big Baby D.R.A.M. swerved between hip-hop and R&B with mischievous delight while spawning such irrepressible hits as “Broccoli” and “Cha Cha.” Five years later, returning under his given name to mark a personal reinvention, Shelley FKA DRAM remains boundlessly charming in the grown-up, postmodern R&B setting of his eponymous second album, a collection of slantwise boudoir serenades as spacey as it is sultry. Shelley FKA DRAM may not roll off the tongue like his previous moniker, but does that matter if he can croon like this? –Marc Hogan
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
System Olympia: Always on Time
The songs on the most recent release from Italian-born, London-based artist System Olympia feel almost intended to overwhelm you. Hi-hats that could grace a deep house track bond with clipped bass from a boogie number, only to be surrounded by wave upon wave of synth. Olympia croons and deadpans through Auto-Tune in English and Italian, never wavering from her melancholy tone. Clips of soundtracks and speaking voices split up the project, adding to the oneiric sound. The album opens with one such sample: “I want to play music, I want to play it my way.” Always on Time achieves that goal. –Hubert Adjei-Kontoh
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Taqbir: Victory Belongs to Those Who Fight for a Right Cause
Taqbir are a punk band with roots in Tangier, Morocco, their identities are anonymous for safety reasons, and their ripping lo-fi buzzsaw of a debut EP is a biting denouncement of misogyny. The cover artwork illustrates a wrecking ball striking the Kabah: “The representation of authority in Islam and Mecca—for me—is the representation of capitalism,” one Taqbir member has said. A translation of the Moroccan Arabic lyrics reveals a band screaming “fuck you” and “mind your own business” at dudes telling them what to do and how to behave. The final song combats criticisms of the hijab while celebrating the power of wearing tight jeans: “My ass, my ass is big! Oi!” –Evan Minsker
Listen: Bandcamp
Toyomansi: No More Sorry
Toyomansi is a product of Baltimore’s DIY scene: The Bell Foundry alumnus cut his teeth as Sneaks’ touring DJ and moonlights as a chef with Calasag, his Pinoy cuisine pop-up. No More Sorry is the most complete distillation of his sound to date, a swirling mix of hip-hop and R&B peppered with kitchen interludes. It’s a Baltimore affair from top to bottom, featuring guest spots from Butch Dawson, Joy Postell, and Al Rogers Jr., with production from JPEGMAFIA and Ghostie. The brooding standout “Hypeman” is equal parts Danny Brown and the Weeknd, evocative of No More Sorry’s themes of depressive braggadocio blasted through clouds of kush smoke. –Matthew Ismael Ruiz
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Various Artists: Habibi Funk 015: An eclectic selection of music from the Arab world, part 2
Habibi Funk is German imprint that focuses on reissues of music from the Middle East and North Africa from the 1960s-1980s; it’s also the DJ name of co-founder Jannis Stürtz. The label’s second compilation is a collection of tunes favored by its founders. Floating from Moroccan disco to Egyptian organ funk, Libyan reggae, and Algerian film soundtracks, the collection largely avoids well-established names. Habibi Funk 015 plays like a mixtape from an obsessive friend with a new hobby, eager to point out the missing links between the popular music of the East and West. –Matthew Ismael Ruiz
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp
Yung Baby Tate: After the Rain (Deluxe)
Yung Baby Tate didn’t make a breakup album to cry. Now signed to Issa Rae’s label and newly cast on Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta, she’s poised for a career glow-up and acting accordingly. The deluxe release of 2020’s After the Rain turns a seven-song EP into a complete statement in vocally delicate yet bass-forward R&B, expanding on earlier highlights—like vacation-sex fantasy “Baecation” and the Flo Milli-featuring viral affirmation anthem “I Am”—with the irresistibly slinky hook of “Oochie” and an ode to video intimacy on “FaceTime.” (Tate is not one to let a pandemic stop her from getting in on the action: “If it wasn’t for corona I’d pack this club,” she raps at one point.) She’s keeping her priorities straight (“Me First”), and her stories of emotional and financial growth are laced with humor and personality: “I feel like taking gum out in public, everybody want a piece of Tate.” –Anna Gaca
Listen: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
