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 albums from Mitski, Alan Palomo, Tomb Mold, Kipp Stone, Vagabon, Sarah Mary Chadwick, Piotr Kurek, Subsonic Eye, and Eli Escobar. 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.)
Mitski: The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We [Dead Oceans]
Around the release of last album Laurel Hell, Mitski looked set to retire from music. Just 18 months later, to a resounding sigh of relief, she announced a follow-up. There is a lot “about working in the music industry, and about being in the public eye, that feels like it goes against my nature,” she said in a newsletter. “Ultimately, I recognized that I really want to keep making music, and I’m willing to take the difficult stuff with the wonderful stuff.” Led by the gospel-tinged “Bug Like an Angel,” The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We heralds the singer-songwriter’s return with orchestral swirls and folk threads wrapped around her typically acerbic, self-scrutinizing lyrics.
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Alan Palomo: World of Hassle [Mom+Pop]
World of Hassle is the debut from singer-songwriter and producer Alan Palomo (better known as Neon Indian) under his own name. The record is an ambitious jazz-funk caper, a Pynchonesque world of eccentric scenes and characters: a faded pop star, a band of freedom fighters, and a “Leisure Suit Larry-does-Ibiza fantasy” among them, as the press release notes. Mac DeMarco features on the single “Nudista Mundial ’89.”
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Tomb Mold: The Enduring Spirit [20 Buck Spin]
Tomb Mold follow their incendiary 2019 album, Planetary Clairvoyance, with more pinwheeling riffs, death-metal growls, alt-rock flourishes, and helter-skelter rhythms on The Enduring Spirit. The Toronto band cast light on the album’s inception with a statement in keeping with its chthonic spirit: “After three years spent spiraling in the cycle reincarnate necessity, a myriad of consciousness have now become one. Prolong the final death spiral of nature and dive into the gnashing current of ‘The Enduring Spirit of Calamity.’” What are you waiting for? Prolong the final death spiral below.
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Kipp Stone: 66689 Blvd Prequel [Closed Sessions]
Cleveland rapper Kipp Stone is back with his first new project since 2021’s Faygo Baby EP. 66689 Blvd Prequel features the single “18 the Hard Way.” He explained that the single was an attempt to balance out the full album: “I knew that before I really dug in and got deep on the album that I had to make a slap to brighten things up a little bit, and what better way to do it than just cutting loose and just sliding on a song.”
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Vagabon: Sorry I Haven’t Called [Nonesuch]
Lætitia Tamko’s latest Vagabon album, Sorry I Haven’t Called, was written through a period of grief following the death of a close friend. “Once I gave myself permission to make a record that’s full of life and energy, I realized that’s the point of this album,” she said in a statement. “In the midst of going through all of these tough things, it became a record because of the vitality that these songs had.” The album features “Can I Talk My Shit?” and “Carpenter.”
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Sarah Mary Chadwick: Messages to God [Kill Rock Stars]
Sarah Mary Chadwick is a New Zealand–born and Melbourne-based singer-songwriter whose songs are defined by her shaky voice and darkly funny lyrics. It features songs called “Shitty Town,” “Sometimes I Just Wanna Feel Bad,” “Angry and Violent,” and “Only Bad Memories Last.” They’re the sort of songs that have prompted fans to approach her after concerts to discuss their tears. “I have got better at not engaging in really long conversations about people’s trauma after every single show,” she said.
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Piotr Kurek: Smartwoods [Unsound]
Warsaw-based producer Piotr Kurek hops through music history centuries at a time on Smartwoods, incorporating classical and jazz elements into compositions that play like baroque takes on contemporary computer music. Electric and acoustic parts—ranging from harp to ringtone-like noise—chime together in a way that is abstract but resonant, juxtaposing outlandish emotional cues that cohere into a digital dreamscape.
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Subsonic Eye: All Around You [Topshelf]
Subsonic Eye are a five-piece indie rock band from Singapore. All Around You is the follow-up to 2021’s Nature of Things, and, according to the band’s singer Nur Wahidah, the album is partially a reflection on her relationship with nature. “I felt like as I learnt more about my relationship with nature, the love I felt for my loved ones grew deeper (and vice versa),” she said in a statement. “Every day I thank all the trees around me for reminding me of the love I am capable of receiving and giving. Some days it is particularly beautiful out and it cocoons me in a familiar warmth.”
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Eli Escobar: The Beach Album [Off Track]
Eli Escobar is a house and disco DJ mainstay from New York who throws parties and puts out music at a clip. The Beach Album was a pandemic creation that he held back because the vibe was all wrong. “It didn’t feel like the right time to release dance music,” he said. But today is the day—it’s Beach Album time.
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Source: pitchfork.com
