Lana Del Rey. Photo by Neil Krug.
Lana Del Rey, Blue Banisters
Not long after sharing her seventh studio album Chemtrails Over the Country Club, Lana Del Rey announced her follow-up. Blue Banisters is co-produced by Del Rey and features the singles "Arcadia," "Textbook," "Wildfire," and of course, the title track.
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Parquet Courts, Sympathy For Life
The New York City post-punk band take a dancier direction on their seventh studio album Symapthy For Life, produced by Rodaidh McDonald and John Parish. "The purest expression of Parquet Courts is when we are improvising,” says co-lead vocalist and guitarist Austin Brown.
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Grouper, Shade
The soundscapes Liz Harris creates as Grouper have an everlasting quality to them, as weighty as hymns but with its own individual spirituality. The music of Shade was recorded over 15 years, and features "Unclean mind," a favorite when it was released in July.
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Helado Negro, Far In
Experimental singer-songwriter Roberto Carlos Lange's project Helado Negro exploded in 2019 with This Is How You Smile. Far In, its follow-up, was written during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Escape is never out there, you have to go inward,” Lange says. "Gemini and Leo," the project's lead single, dropped in June and was a fixture on our stereos over the summer.
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Tonstartssbandht, Petunia
Petunia is the 19th Tonstartssbandht album from Florida-based experimental duo (and siblings!) Andy and Edwin White. And wouldn't you know it, the trippy luster of their compositions hasn't even started to lose its shine. We premiered the album's lead single "What Has Happened" back in August.
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Wet, Letter Blue
It's been six years and one major label split since Wet covered The FADER ahead of their debut album Don't You. The band took some time to regroup after 2018's Still Run and return this year with Letter Blue and its Blood Orange-featuring single "Bound."
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Black Marble, Fast Idol
Chris Stewart's cold wave project returns with a new album just as the synth-driven subgenre finds a new audience with Gen Z TikTok fiends. "Fast Idol goes back to the songwriting on my early records," Stewart says in a press statement, "where the themes were guided by intuition and instinct – often, their meanings only become clear to me after they're written."
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Ouri, Frame Of A Fauna
Montreal-based composer Ouri's new solo album comes after Hildegard, her great 2021 album with Helena Deland. Frame of a Fauna contains the excellent lead single "Shape Of It" as well as "High & Choking, Pt. 1" and "Chains."
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Jacques Greene, ANTH01
The latest full length from Montreal's Jacques Greene collects previously released tracks and hard-to-find 12" releases from early on in his career. The anthology follows his 2019 LP Dawn Chorus, and you can read all about that one here.
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Bedouine, Waysides
We dubbed Bedouine's 2017 self-album "a modern folk masterpiece," so you know we're excited for Azniv Korkejian to run it back. She co-produced the entire album with Gus Seyffert.
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Strange Ranger, No Light In Heaven
If you want to get a sense of the stark tonal experiments the Philly band engage in on No Light In Heaven, play "Leona," the first track from their 2019 album Remembering the Rockets, followed by No Light In Heaven's opening track "In Hell." Jangle pop vs Black Dresses-esque death throes! The rest of the project embraces a new electronic sound, produced entirely by the band themselves.
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Good Morning, Barnyard
A confession: almost any band that has an album with a song title as funny to me as "Yng_Shldn" will automatically get a spot on this album's roundup. Fortunately for everyone involved, the Australian bedroom-indie duo's sixth project also offers a rare and particular loveliness: raw yet considered, with an accessible intimacy.
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music
