New Music Friday: Stream projects from Kamasi Washington, Jessica Pratt, Hana Vu, and more

A Kamasi Washington album is life itself, expertly tussled with while retaining a deeply humbled appreciation for some greater power existing perpetually in the corners of our eyes and on the tips of our tongues. Fearless Movement, the Los Angeles artist's third full-length project, takes his existential talents to new heights with exuberant configurations of his four-dimensional sound. His formal training as a jazz saxophonist and bandleader of the genre-traversing collective West Coast Get Down have always worked in tandem, but a new joy is tapped on Fearless Movement. You can hear it in the triumphant opening track "Lesanu," on the deep techno-tinged transcendence of the André 3000-featuring "Dream State," and even in the cover of Zapp's electro-funk classic "Computer Love," its slinky sexiness made bitingly ironic thanks to our panopticon of algorithms and catfishing. Backed by a roster of incredible musicians including Terrace Martin, Thundercat, and George Clinton, Kamasi Washington has shared an album to be savored and cherished — you don't know what you have till it's gone. — Jordan Darville

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Across her first three albums, Jessica Pratt became known as a paragon of quiet intimacy, crafting consummately gentle acoustic numbers that spotlit her stunning voice. There’s plenty of that on Here in the Pitch — only the record’s opening track boasts an arrangement that’s significantly larger than what we’re used to — but the upbeat irony of “Life Is,” a joyful-sounding song about the way life passes us by, casts a shadow over the rest of the project. For the first time in Pratt’s catalog, we’re confronted with a narrator we can’t always trust, tracks too uncanny to sink into with complete comfort. Take “World on a String,” which undermines the candy coating implied by the title it shares with a particularly cheesy jazz standard within its first lyrics (“She’s got the world on a string / ‘Bout the time she comes around here anyway / And it’s only lasted for awhile / And it’s only luster for the tide”), or “By Hook or By Crook,”’ where a breezy bossa rhythm belies themes of “evil innocence” and, again, irrevocably lost time. According to press materials, the “pitch” of the album’s title refers to “both pitch darkness and bitumen, the black viscous substance that forms deep below the surface of the earth.” Even in their bottomless blackness, though, it’s hard to listen to Pratt’s gorgeous tunes and not feel a sense of hope for the beauty of the moments we still have left. — Raphael Helfand

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Grime has had a difficult few years since the genre's high-energy resurgence a decade ago. While many U.K. rappers in 2024 favor drill and afrobeats over the traditional 140 BPM productions, there are still artists like Jawnino keeping grime alive. The east Londoner wears his influences with a deft touch and is as likely to collaborate with New York rappers like MIKE ("Short Stories") as he is to tap into the spirit of pirate radio and the era's breathless flows. The hard-boiled "Lost My Brain" shows Jawnino's ability to capture that early 2000s period, while on "Westfield" he weaves gentrification and failing relationships into a neat metaphor involving a popular local shopping center [mall?]. A version of "3style" produced by Evilgiane maintains the transatlantic spirit of the mixtape but make no mistake, this is London to the core. Who else could rap "Bring me a fix /Got enough spare for a chicken and chips /Half a pint and maybe a Twix,” and make it sound good? — David Renshaw

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Artemisia Gentileschi was 20 when she painted Judith Slaying Holofernes, her famed depiction of two brazen Biblical women, dominating the canvas with intense passion and unbridled rage. It’s a bold, emotional, and, at times, frightening display, but one that’s been praised for allowing its female subjects to experience even the most “unfeminine” of human emotions. And perhaps that’s why Hana Vu decided to directly reference Gentileschi’s masterpiece in the album art for Romanticism, a painfully honest and deeply human record built upon fierce rage, raw confusion, unrestrained angst, and glassy-eyed grief. The L.A.-based artist’s fourth studio record is a series of complicated emotional confessions expressed through melancholic pop hooks and cinematic strings with heavy guitar work that brings to mind early aughts emo. Romanticism may roll its eyes at the over-romanticization of youth, but it's a loathing completely rooted in a disappointment with its own naïvéte. It’s the sound of existential exhaustion, embarrassed outbursts, and intimidating bouts of fury, but its raw candor is the very thing that makes Romanticism so deeply affecting. Like a page ripped straight out of a diary and shared with zero inhibitions. — Sandra Song

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp