New Music Friday: Stream projects from Amber Mark, U, LEYA, and more

In 2022, Amber Mark released Three Dimensions Deep and cemented herself as an ambitious new voice to watch with her tight vision of futurist R&B. She branches out of that box on Loosies, her new EP that sees her dipping into disco, deep funk, trap pop, and bossa nova, perhaps as a way to help guide the creation of her next record. The thing is, after cycling through her seven new songs, every style she tries hits the mark (no pun intended): She exudes Donna Summers-like dancefloor muse-ness on “Won’t Cry”; navigates the stuttered, lush bossa instrumentation with elegance on “Sink In”; effortlessly rides a nasty bassline on “City Starlight.” If Loosies was meant to quell the impatience of waiting for Mark’s next record, I’m afraid it’s only done the opposite. —Steffanee Wang

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

I've been on a bit of an epic collage tip recently, and while the new EP from the Bristol-based producer U doesn't quite play in the same arena as Chino Amobi and DJ E, the turf is similarly patched together. The impressionistic haze cast by Life Isn't A Fountain? tests techno's limits: Sometimes it's a dancefloor abstraction — an Actress-style techno cloud the color of old parchment — or drumless pseudo-ambient excursion. No matter the sonic, it's buoyed by a defiant approach to sampling, especially with its vocals. There's a real, rare sense on Life Isn't A Fountain? of limitless possibilities, and that listening to the songs in different contexts (in the club, alone in a dark room, in secret at class) can grant you access to some of them. — Jordan Darville

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

LEYA’s first non-collaborative effort since 2020 is a subtle evolution for the Brooklyn duo of harpist Marilu Donovan and violinist/vocalist Adam Markiewicz. Similar in bleak, eerie mood to their past efforts, the world of I Forget Everything is as fleshed out as any they’ve created, despite its sub-20 minute run time. Part of this is due to production choices; whereas their past solo projects (as a duo) have been completely acoustic, Everything contains creeping, unobtrusive hisses and quietly gleaming electronic backdrops that would be hard to pick out if you weren’t listening for them already. After the appropriately idyllic and cloudy “Eden of Haze” and “Corners,” an instant LEYA classic, comes “Weaving,” in which Donovan’s detuned harp is the sinister foil to Markiewicz’s largely homophonic voice and violin. Immediately afterward, “Baited” compresses Donavan’s disturbed harpeggio from “Weaving” into a single, decaying chord. “Walk like heaven, but walk like heat / All along I’ve been so baited,” Markiewicz monotones above the quicksand. Rising from the fugue, Donovan plucks dissonant chords into her harp on “Fake,” Markiewicz’s voice evaporating like morning dew behind them. And the soaringly strange closing track, “Mia,” rounds out LEYA’s tightest, most cohesive vision to date. — Raphael Helfand

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

TRAИƧA is a rarity, a charity album that features work from artists that adds depth and clarity to their own catalogs. The untimely death of SOPHIE in 2021 prompted producers Dust Reid and Massima Bell to create a compilation that celebrates trans musicians and pays tribute to their pioneering work. The finished project is huge, clocking in at nearly four hours and featuring contributions from over 50 artists such as André 3000, Adrianne Lenker, Clairo, and Kelela. Trans artists including Beverly Glenn-Copeland, ANOHNI, and Claire Rousay all contribute a mix of cover versions and original material, while Sade Adu's "Young Lion" is a touching tribute to her son (as well as her first new music in 6 years). — David Renshaw

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

This collection of solo piano compositions from Partisan Records subsidiary section1 (home to FADER favorites Hildegard and Fazerdaze) is very intentionally meditative and glacial. Press materials accompanying the release highlight research showing that slow and minimal music can reduce stress, release endorphins, and create a “more balanced and centered state of mind.” I’m biased here: I rely on at least one ambient album every morning to get my head straight and solo piano projects from Keith Jarret’s Koln Concert through to Gia Margaret’s Romantic Piano are go-tos. But for all of its calming elegance, there are little surprises on piano1, unexpected textures, not least on Laraaji’s gently experimental “Waltz Life,” ML Buch’s muffled “Getting To Know Each Other,” and the almost symphonic Youth Lagoon contribution “The Harvest.” Apparently it’s the first in a series, too. A consistent endorphin rush like that couldn’t come at a better time. — Alex Robert Ross

Buy it: Bandcamp

Swedish-Australian twin-sister duo Say Lou Lou belong to a different era. Listen to Dust, their third album and first in six years, on repeat for long enough and you’ll start hallucinating in Motorola Razrs, mouse pads, and crop tops; it’s filtered through the sort of ultra-sleek studio production that characterized mid-era Madonna, All Saints, and early Robyn. It’s whip-smart pop, slow and sultry in parts (“Above Love,” “Waiting for a Boy”) but at its very best when it leans into big choruses, like on the piano ballad “No One” or the widescreen title track. And it helps that the first track, “Blue Ruin,” is the best of the lot, the type of song that would have gone to No. 1 for weeks if it had been given to a Mickey Mouse Club graduate at the turn of the millennium. — ARR

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music