10 New Albums to Stream Now: Rolling Stone Editors’ Picks
Wizkid, Sounds From the Other Side
Wizkid is one of the biggest name in afrobeats, the pan-Continental dance-pop-electronica hybrid whose profile in North America has been slowly simmering thanks to fans like Drake and Wale. His major label debut features no shortage of high-profile guests – Drake, Major Lazer, Chris Brown, Ty Dolla $ign – and no shortage of hard beats and funky squiggles, playing like a heavier (but no less grinding) rhythmic complement to pop music’s current dancehall obsession. Christopher R. Weingarten
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Waxahatchee, Out in the Storm
“[T]he sharpest set of songs [Katie] Crutchfield has come up with,” writes Jon Dolan, “from the big-drinking, scene-causing country of ‘8 Ball’ to the Nineties guitar churn of ‘Silver’ to the ruggedly pretty ballad ‘Sparks Fly,’ each song is as grueling as it is thrilling.”
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Shabazz Palaces, Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star and Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines
Ishmael Butler’s wise, inspiring meta-rap project hits warp speed with two puzzle-piece LPs involving a space traveller parsing the “United States of Amurderca.” Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines is the trippier set, a partially-encrypted synth-funk interrogation of trap rap vacancy, and that of digital culture more broadly. Born on a Gangster Star, with help from Kendrick Lamar bass cohort Thundercat, is more straight ahead, but only just slightly. “At the mirage we meet the squad/Holograms sift ‘bots, like God,” Butler spits on “Eel Dreams,” illuminating what might – or might not – be alternate reality. Can’t wait for the VR edition. Will Hermes
Read Our Feature: Shabazz Palaces on Navigating the Social Media Age, Sending “Sonic Beacons” to Indie Rockers
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Mura Masa, Mura Masa
The genre-spanning debut from the British producer/songwriter features cameos from Damon Albarn, Charli XCX, Desiigner and a slew of other big names. “I chose not to restrict myself in any way when making the record, to take influence from wherever I saw fit, to try and include people from all over,” Crossan told Rolling Stone. “What I try to do as Mura Masa involves any kind of voice. I wouldn’t limit myself to any one genre or person.”
Read Our Feature: Mura Masa: How “Geographical Isolation” Spawned a Singular EDM Producer
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Sheer Mag, Need to Feel Your Love
These Philly-based DIY darlings smash together glam’s swagger, power-pop’s sugary choruses and arena-rock’s ear-bending riffage on their rough-and-tumble, curveball-heavy debut. “We felt like this was a chance for us to do some more adventurous stuff while also keeping the sound very much in our wheelhouse,” guitarist and songwriter Kyle Seely told Rolling Stone. “And I’ll be interested to hear the reactions we get for this album. I feel like if it’s just nothing but people saying ‘Thin Lizzy,’ I’ll be pretty surprised.”
Read Our Feature: Inside Sheer Mag’s Grassroots Rock & Roll Takeover
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Alan Vega, IT
Alan Vega, who co-founded the electro-noise duo Suicide in New York City in 1970, died last year and did not go gentle into that good night – and this posthumous LP, recorded over five years with his wife Liz Lamere, is proof. Knowing he was crafting a farewell, Vega leaves as he arrived, raging over industrial grinds. “We can see it/The red white and blue is destroyed/Destroyed!” he snarls on “Screamin Jesus,” which begins and ends with dizzying, throat-shredding shrieks. He was our Colonel Kurtz, staring into the horror and reporting it back, uncensored. R.I.P., man. Will Hermes
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Offa Rex, The Queen of Hearts
This collaboration between the Decemberists and British singer-songwriter Olivia Chaney is a dream project for fans of Olde English folk-rock circa Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and their kin. Colored with electric harpsichord, accordion, fiddles, recorders, majestic electric guitars and a dram of distortion, the set centers around Chaney’s elegant voice and explores traditional songs with studied mastery and fresh vision. Standouts include their takes on the Pentangle/John Renbourne signature “Willie O’ Winsbury,” the June Tabor signature “Flash Company” and the Peggy Seeger/Roberta Flack/Lauryn Hill signature “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” – the latter channeling both Sandy Denny and Nico with nothing but Chaney’s gorgeous vocals and a harmonium incense-cloud. Will Hermes
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Japanese Breakfast, Soft Sounds From Another Planet
Michelle Zauner’s spun-sugar melodies ascend to the cosmos on her second full-length. Not only does she look to science fiction for ways to refract heavy emotions (“All the times I felt so plugged in/You were tuning out/A muted channel, a cold ship, a hologram, an abyss,” she whispers on the dimestore synthpop-turned-saxwave lament “Machinist”), the production expands on Japanese Breakfast’s bedroom-pop beginnings and allows songs like the spectral “Jimmy Fallon Big!” and the gently neurotic “Till Death” to sound like they’re bound for the moon. Maura Johnston
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Siobhan Wilson, There Are No Saints
This Scottish-born prodigy’s debut opens with a fever-dream where her voice, sylphlike and airy, is multiplied into a choir, a loping piano guiding along her harmonic cascades and flights of countermelody. There Are No Saints goes on to pair Wilson’s acrobatic soprano with minimal accompaniment, allowing her quixotic melodies to shine – “Whatever Helps” is a distortion-smeared lullaby for the beaten down, a spaced-out take on the French standard “J’attendrai” introduces a theremin to the mix, and the lurking string drones (which Wilson plays) on “Disaster and Grace” turn Wilson’s eventual octave-leap into one of the album’s many arresting moments. Maura Johnston
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