10 New Albums to Stream Now: Jason Aldean, Tinashe and More Editors’ Picks

John Prine, The Tree of Forgiveness
“Prine’s plainspoken tenor creaks like an wide-plank old floor in winter” on his first album of originals in more than a decade, writes Will Hermes. “It amplifies the poignancy of ‘Summer’s End,’ an open-armed invitation home to a grown child, perhaps, amidst images of inevitable loss, penned with Prine’s longtime co-writing partner Pat McLaughlin. The voice adds wizened gravitas to the class-conscious ‘Caravan of Fools’ (‘Late at night you see them/Decked out in shiny jewels’). And of course, it nails the death meditation ‘When I Get To Heaven,’ a mix of punchlines, sweet sentimentality and looming void.”
Read Our Review: John Prine Keeps Finding Fresh Revelations on Tree of Forgiveness
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

Jason Aldean, Rearview Town
The country superstar and his backing band are pushing their limits on his eighth album, he tells Rolling Stone Country. “There’s a lot of different things on this record,” he says. “On the last two albums we’ve gotten a little – I don’t want to say complacent, because I don’t think that’s the right word – but I think we kind of played it safe a little bit. The songs we were recording were good songs, but they weren’t really those songs that really were way different, things that allowed us to make our mark early on – songs like ‘Dirt Road [Anthem]’ and ‘Burnin’ It Down,’ songs that when you heard them you were like, ‘Hmm, that’s interesting.’ I feel like there’s songs on this record that are like that, that allowed us to step out of the box a little bit and not just keep serving up fastballs down the middle.”
Read Our Feature: Jason Aldean on New Album, Post-Vegas Struggles: “I Went Through a Lot of Stuff”
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

Tinashe, Joyride
The R&B singer’s long-awaited third album features the simmering single “No Drama” and the spiritual “2 On” sequel “Faded Love.”
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

Princess Nokia, A Girl Cried Red
New York MC Princess Nokia puts her own spin on the emo-rap movement with this surprise-release EP, which presents her bummed-out vocals in ways that recall sad pop from all over the radio dial, from K Records-brand lo-fi (“Look Up Kid”) to 808s and Heartbreak-style Auto-Tune (“For the Night”).
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

Autechre, NTS Session 2
These forward-thinking veterans of electronic music are starting to feel like the world’s most cerebral jam band. Their NTS Radio series – four huge blocks of music unrolling all month until the release of an 8-CD or 12 LP set – showcase their recent move towards longform pieces that still contain their trademark brain-boggle: seemingly inhuman sounds, melodies and rhythms built through programming code. It’s up for debate exactly what exact combination of this nearly two-hour looped session is live, composed, improvised or artificial intelligence run amok, but it’s a diverse set that runs from heavy squelches and a little bit of headknock to a moody, ambient morass. A burbling, cinematic, 21-minute space dystopia landscape (“Turbile Epic Casual, Stpl Idle”) is a highlight. Christopher R. Weingarten
Hear: NTS Radio

Juliana Hatfield, Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John
Pop supernova Olivia Newton-John and alt-pop heroine Juliana Hatfield both possess winsome sopranos, and this delightful album filters Newton-John’s biggest hits through Hatfield’s slightly grungier sensibility. Hatfield’s obvious affinity for the source material is evident throughout, with her coy take on the late-Seventies smash “A Little More Love” and her heartfelt version of the Grease showstopper “Hopelessly Devoted to You” being particular highlights. Hatfield has been on a creative tear in the past few years – she’s collaborated with Matthew Caws in the moody Minor Alps, released 2017’s pointedly political Pussycat, and reunited her old bands Blake Babies and the Juliana Hatfield Three – and this reverent, yet loose-limbed tribute continues that streak. Maura Johnston
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal

The Nels Cline 4, Currents, Constellations
Nels Cline went full-on conceptual with his 2016 Blue Note debut Lovers, a chamber-orchestra-backed riff on Fifties mood music. For his second release on the label, the Wilco guitarist is back on more familiar ground, playing the sort of skronky yet swinging small-group jazz he’s been honing for decades. But the strength of Cline’s newly formed quartet – which includes improv aces Scott Colley and Tom Rainey on bass and drums, respectively, and guitarist Julian Lage – and the richness of the compositions ensures that there’s nothing rote about this session. Cline originals like the twisty “Swing Ghost ’59” and the raga-like “River Mouth (Parts 1 & 2)” come off more as ambitious suites than mere jam vehicles. And while there’s plenty of tasty dual shredding to be found here (see “Imperfect 10” and “Amenette”), the quartet dazzles even more with its delicate melodicism, as on vintage Carla Bley piece “Temporarily” and Cline’s own exquisitely moody “As Close as That.” For listeners who mainly know Cline from the rock world, Currents, Constellations is a perfect portal to his wider musical universe. Hank Shteamer
Hear: Amazon Music Unlimited | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

Mr. Fingers, Cerebral Hemispheres
Chicago’s Larry Heard, a.k.a., Mr. Fingers, became a founding father of deep house music in 1986 with “Can You Feel It,” a trampolining jam-cum-remix Rorschach test that, in its greatest iteration, ecstatically enlisted oratory by Martin Luther King Jr. Heard’s first LP in over a decade reboots his old moniker with a broadened soundscape – soul, dub fusion, lubricious techno, boutique-hotel-lobby downtempo and assorted shades of house – all branded with tingling sensuality. It’s a chill soundtrack for a stay-at-home dance party. Will Hermes
Hear: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

Mouse on Mars, Dimensional People
Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner have been experimenting with the boundaries of electronic music for a quarter-century, and on their latest full-length they invite others, including Beirut leader Zach Condon and Irish folkie Lisa Hannigan, into their lab. The compositions and fragments that make up Dimensional People operate in far-flung styles, thanks to Toma and St. Werner allowing their collaborators to take the lead. Yet the album retains a coherence because of the curiosity animating each individual segment and the all-enveloping sonics; its hyperdetailed use of sonic space makes it a powerful listen on headphones and in giant, empty rooms alike. The title suite, a three-track collaboration with Bon Iver leader Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner of the National, sustains its tension through perpetual-motion elements (insistent percussion, low-level flutters) that rise and fall in the mix as saxophones drone and Vernon wails. “Aviation,” which teams Condon with Baltimore club luminaries Spank Rock and Amanda Blank, loops a spindly guitar lick and chops up a choir to provide context for Spank Rock’s toasting and Blank’s gritted-teeth taunts. Maura Johnston
Hear: Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify

L.A. Salami, The City of Bootmakers
The second album from Brit troubadour Lookman Adekunle Salami couches its chronicles of the world’s ills in sticky-sweet hooks. “Generation L(ost)” is one part Pavement and one part “Hand in My Pocket,” combining fuzzed-out guitars with Salami picking apart his internal contradictions. A giddily pounded piano and acerbic down-with-love aphorisms animate the breakup-blues chronicle “You’re Better Off Alone.” Salami’s deft collage of the many forms rock has taken over the years – snarling folk poetry, gently funky mood music, sparkling power pop – allow his sardonic, yet deeply felt lyrics to sink in even more fully. Maura Johnston
Hear: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal