New Music Friday: This week’s essential new projects

Bambii has spent the last decade as a DJ motivated by reclamation and reassertion. Reclamation of the electronic music genres stripped of the Black origins and context, and the reassertion of their inherently futuristic modes. Her years spent in underground raves and on festival stages blending dancehall, jungle, house, techno, R&B, and pop help make her debut project Infinity Club an invigorating, impulse-driven celebration of the rave's vast potential. Listening to the project's eight songs in one go, you may feel the ground shift slightly beneath you, as though you were packed into a writhing basement party and blasted by a chrome-plated sound system. — Jordan Darville

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Iceboy Violet enlisted a heavy-hitting crew of underground producers to create their excellent debut mixtape, The Vanity Project, released at the start of 2022. 18 months later, Iceboy is back with their first fully self-produced project, Not A Dream but a Controlled Explosion. Unsurprisingly, it’s their most cohesive body of work yet. Their warped voice stretches out in the murky waters of their darkly pulsating production, floating languidly like a primordial reptile until the moment is right for a deadly strike — a strategy best exemplified in the glorious climax of the record’s closing track, “Pablo’s Cathedral.” — Raphael Helfand

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

The problem with most “vibe music” is that it’s boring by design, a kind of unobtrusive auditory wallpaper for dispassionate hookups or late-night cram sessions. Holy Wave’s new album exists in service of a vibe, too, but what sets the Austin four-piece apart is their dedication to distraction, packing spaced-out jams like “Bog Song” and “Nothing in the Dark” with enough interesting details that they never fully fade into the background. Five Of Cups sounds like the lo-fi beats girl and synthwave boy forming a Blonde Redhead covers band, and Lorena Quintanilla’s whispered vocals on “The Darkest Timeline” give us the Beach House in the Black Lodge moment that Twin Peaks: The Return never did. — Walden Green

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

If you are a fan of HBO's Industry then you may have already heard Nathan Micay's music as the score to uber tense multi-billion dollar stock trades filled with baffling financial jargon. The Berlin-based producer also scored Reality, the recent Sydney Sweeney movie about the FBI's interrogation of an intelligence leaker. This score work might make Micay sound self-serious but his new solo album To The God Named Dream is refreshingly good fun. The pulsating rave workout "Fangs" soars and drops in all the right places. "If Wishes Were Fishes Then We'd All Cast Nets," meanwhile, fizzes with forward momentum. Micay also knows his way around a track title, as "Death of FOMO" and "This Is Killing Your Gainz" go to show. And just to underscore the light-hearted nature of the album, vinyl copies of To The God Named Dream come with packaging containing an original board game designed to accompany the album. Fun for all the family. — David Renshaw

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

On Stolen Jars’ fifth album, bandleader Cody Fitzgerald and co-lead vocalist Sarah Coffey either want to leave New York immediately (“Somewhere Else,” “South”) or get back to New York right away (“Austin,” “Won’t Stay Gone Forever”.) That contradiction comes off more as wistfulness than tension on these nine carefully restrained indie-pop songs that never rise to ecstasy and never succumb to melodrama — despite flirting with both. The restraint works best when Coffey, a versatile and quietly captivating singer, is at the center of things. And the wistfulness works best when they land (with help from Frankie Cosmos’ Greta Klein) at their inevitable conclusion: New York is perfect and they never want to leave. — Alex Robert Ross

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

If Girl Ray weren’t already a very good indie band, they’d be an excellent pop group. On the North London trio’s third album, Prestige, the group fully lean into retro pop maximalism by way of ‘70s disco funk, and it’s filled with the kind of catchy pop choruses that stay with you long after abandoning the dance floor. Girl Ray toggled with ‘90s twee pop on their debut before leaning into Ariana Grande-influenced ‘80s pop on their follow-up, so it’s only natural that their latest release gets the full disco treatment. The whole record is a shot of sonic sunshine; there’s the bubbly “Hold Tight” that brims with a bright George Michael feel, while “True Love” could very well have been included in Mark Ronson’s Barbie soundtrack. Disco’s back, haven’t you heard? — Cady Siregar

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Congress just confirmed aliens are real, but Daedelus's Xenopocene — which literally translates to "alien age" — seems more unbelievable. The California native makes traditional sounds feel otherworldly by creating a cacophony of Venutian synths blended with classical strings. The album feels more like a score, its cinematic storytelling aggressively tongue-in-cheek as it reaches its climax in "Day 100" and taking a breather in "Intermission" before leading you with a cliffhanger in "Six Thousand Years To Go." Daedalus's cheeky approach nears over-the-top, however, there are few albums as complete as this one. — Arielle Lana LeJarde

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp