It’s been five years since singer Jorja Smith released her beloved and acclaimed debut album, Lost & Found. She returns this week with a long-awaited followup, Falling or Flying, a wide-reaching album of solitude and quiet confidence, as Smith explores new rhythms in both her music and life. We open this week’s show with a listen and talk about the …
All Songs Considered | The best releases out Sept. 22
The music of Singaporean artist and producer yeule often sounds like it was made from turn-of-the-century home electronics — dial up modems, simple keypad tones or a broken VCR. But, in deceptively disarming moments, it’s also warm and beautifully organic, just before erupting in thunderous sheets of guitar noise and primal screaming. As we discuss on this week’s show, their …
All Songs Considered | The best releases out on Sept. 15
Our picks for the best albums out this week refuse to be one thing — they shape-shift and warp any rules around genre and conventions, with hairpin turns and sometimes strange sonic shifts that, despite upending expectations, are seamless and often breathtaking. We start with Corinne Bailey Rae‘s Black Rainbows, an album inspired by the English singer’s visit to Chicago’s …
All Songs Considered | The best releases out on Sept. 8
On her new (and wildly anticipated album) GUTS, Olivia Rodrigo dives deep into comical wordplay, deadpan lyricism and a whole lot of guitar noise. We kick this week’s show off with a listen, talk about the ways Rodrigo deftly walks the line between intimate beauty and gut-punch rock — with a bonkers amount of hooks — and all the ways …
All Songs Considered | The best releases out on Aug. 18
After beating out Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and others for the 2022 album of the year Grammy — and after stepping down as the bandleader for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Jon Batiste is back with a new album this week called World Music Radio. As the name suggests, it’s a sprawling exploration of what global music can …
New Music Friday | The best releases out on July 21
NewJeans has only been putting out music for about a year, but is already taking a serious run at K-pop domination, partly by subverting the genre’s conventions. On the group’s second EP, Get Up, the songs do lean heavily into cute, sugary sweet dance pop, but leave the edges a bit more ragged with a warmer, more genuine sound. On …
New Music Friday: The best releases out on July 7
Electro-pop singer Aluna Francis first made her name as one-half of the hit-making duo Aluna George. Now, her second album as just Aluna, MYCELiUM, finds her working with the worldwide artistic community she’s built in the last few years. With an emphasis on queer and/or Black artists from many different countries, she’s built a powerful statement about claiming your power …
New Music Friday: The best releases out on June 16
We’ve got two big releases this week from artists who’ve returned after long breaks from their own work: Killer Mike has his first new solo album in more than a decade and Iceland’s Sigur Rós is back with the band’s first new studio album since 2013. Killer Mike’s Michael is steeped in gospel and deeply personal stories that reflect on …
New Music Friday | The best releases out on June 9
When Amaarae began work on her latest project, Fountain Baby, she knew she wanted it to defy labels. On one hand, it’s defiantly pop, but it’s persistently kaleidoscopic, built on a consistently surprising world of sound that draws from alternative Afrobeats to punk rock, R&B, bubblegum pop and more. As NPR Music editor Sheldon Pearce says on this week’s show, …
New Music Friday | The best releases out on June 2
It’s a big release day for veteran artists who’ve been putting out great music for decades, from Bob Dylan and Foo Fighters to Tanya Tucker, Cowboy Junkies and more. We can’t get to all of them on this week’s show, but we do spend some time with What Matters Most, the first new solo album from Ben Folds in 15 …
