Notable Releases of the Week (6/20)

It’s been a busy week in the music world. Since we last spoke, Outbreak Fest went down in the UK with guest-filled headlining sets from Turnstile and Knocked Loose, the NYC election got underway with lots of music-related connections (like Indecision/Most Precious Blood guitarist Justin Brannan and former rapper Zohran Mamdani), Nine Inch Nails have been breaking out rarities on tour, Wednesday announced their anticipated new album, and more–all of which Dave and I discuss on the new episode of our BV Weekly podcast.

As for this week’s new albums, I highlight eight below, and Bill tackles more in Indie Basement, including U.S. Girls, Tropical Fuck Storm, Tan Cologne, and Liam Finn. This week’s honorable mentions include Matmos’ “metal” album (but not that kind of metal), HAIM, Hotline TNT, Karol G, Che Noir, Death Pill, Bambii, Skinhead, Aitch, Loyle Carner, Mugshot, James McMurtry, Cryptopsy, Nefarious (Exodus, Death Angel, Hirax, etc), Bas & The Hics, The Farm, GoGo Penguin, L’Eclair, Matthew Shipp, Cocojoey, Facta, Elijah Johnston, Little Mazarn, University, Willie Nile, Meggie Lennon, Neggy Gemmy, Eric Hilton, Edna Vazquez, OSKA, ScarLip, Kenny Muney, Lukas Nelson, Yungblud, The Bones of J.R. Jones, Benson Boone, the Unknown Mortal Orchestra EP, the Ric Wilson EP, the Nikki Nair EP, the En Masse EP, the Sinister Feeling / Blood Stained Concrete split, the Mount Kimbie live album, the reworked version of Anthony Green’s Avalon, The Wandering Hearts’ cover of CSNY’s Déjà Vu album, and the reissue of Soft Cell’s groundbreaking 1982 remix album Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing.

Read on for my picks. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Yaya Bey – Do It Afraid (drink sum wtr)
The DIY R&B/hip hop auteur embraces joy and casually defies genre on the latest in a string of impressive albums.

Yaya Bey was tired of being pigeonholed as an artist whose work revolves around trauma, so instead she made an album overtly inspired by joy and fun and love and humor and dancing–all the ways we uplift ourselves and each other, no matter how bad things get. The result is Do It Afraid, the latest in a string of great albums that find her casually defying musical expectations. Largely self-produced, with contributions from BADBADNOTGOOD, Butcher Brown, Exaktly, and a few others, Do It Again nimbly moves between ’70s soul, ’80s synth-funk, ’90s rap and R&B, and the music of her family’s Caribbean roots. She comes off as both an old soul and a fresh new voice, and she’s also a DIY auteur. Without much outside assistance (and her own budget), she created an album whose scope rivals that of major label R&B superstars.

do it afraid by yaya bey

Samara Cyn – Backroads EP (VANTA)
The rising LA artist offers up a brief-but-strong offering of alt-rap and neo-soul.

When it comes to the crossroads between alt-rap and neo-soul, the one to watch right now is Samara Cyn. She’s been co-signed by some of her most formative influences, like Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu, and she quickly found herself immersed in the modern-rap world–recent collabs with (current tourmate) Smino and Ovrkast included. (Other artists who have sung her praises reportedly include Doechii, Doja Cat, Nas, Rapsody, and more.) The music on Backroads (which includes the Smino collab “Brand New Teeth”) is fun, but the playful tone is often matched by serious subject matter like LA wildfires and senseless killings. Even on this brief six-song EP, she shows off a knack for bars, melody, and lyricism that puts her two steps ahead of artists with far larger catalogs. It’s very easy to see why she’s catching on as quickly as she is.

Maxo – Mars Is Electric (Smileforme)
The LA rapper’s latest project is his most spontaneous yet, more a collage of sketches than a “traditional” rap album.

Maxo has been getting increasingly experimental, and Mars Is Electric is his most freewheeling project yet. Like collaborator and fellow LA rapper Earl Sweatshirt’s Some Rap Songs, Mars Is Electric feels more like a collage of sketches than a “traditional” rap album. Even if these aren’t actually spontaneous first takes, they often sound that way; they feel more like being dropped right into the creative process than being given a shrink-wrapped product. Rumblings of vintage jazz and soul collide with glitchy electronics. Drums clatter like they’re being tried out right in front of you. Maxo swerves between singing and rapping in a way that’s both seamless and unpredictable. Having already shown off a knack for introspective storytelling on his earlier records, he now proves to be just as effective on a project where the vibes hit before the lyrics do.

Joliette – Pérdidas Variables (Persistent Vision)
The Mexico City screamo band return with a majestic concept album about their home city.

Mexico City screamo band Joliette’s first full-length album since 2019 is a concept album about their home city, an album where each song looks at a different aspect of living there: from the “very real fears” like earthquakes, collapse, and failing systems to “the quiet, daily sense of disconnection and mourning that urban life can bring.” The lyrics are entirely in Spanish, so you might not pick up on the story if you don’t speak the language, but as is so often the case with screamo, the passion in Gastón Prado’s screams is universal. The style of screamo that Pérdidas Variables embraces recalls anything from Italian band Raein to Japanese band Envy–it’s as aggressive as it is beautiful and melodic, and like Envy in particular, it has a towering post-metal side. It’s music that’s too powerful and emotional to ever fall into the background; I’d imagine that even people who aren’t usually screamo fans could be won over by its sheer grandeur.

Pérdidas Variables by joliette

Sport – In Waves (Dog Knights/La Tête d’Ampoule/Adagio830)
The French emo revivalists pick up right where they left off on their first album in nearly a decade.

The type of music known as “Midwest emo” spread all over the world throughout the past 15+ years, and one of my personal favorite bands in that style came from a band who lives about 4,000 miles away from the American Football House: Lyon, France’s Sport. Their 2014 album Bon Voyage is one of the true gems of the emo revival era, and its 2016 followup Slow is nothing to scoff at either. Sport quieted down after that album, but now they’re back with their first album in nearly a decade, and In Waves makes it feel like no time has passed at all. Like with Algernon, Snowing, Grown Ups, and all the great US bands of their ilk, Sport tune out contemporary trends and make the music they want to make, which very much sounds like it could’ve come out of Champaign-Urbana in 1997–it’s got the bright, mathy guitar melodies, the throat-shredding hooks, the fidgety rhythms, the works. And even while staying true to a sound and aesthetic that was created three decades ago, and now being another decade removed from their own initial LPs, Sport still possess all the urgency that this kind of music thrives on. In Waves captures the feeling of being pressed up against a sweaty band in a basement, with sweet melodies and unfiltered emotion weaved into all the noise.

GJDK013: Sport – In Waves LP by Sport

Kelsey Waldon – Every Ghost (Oh Boy Records)
The John Prine-approved, Kentucky-born country singer delivers some of her most personal songwriting to date.

After an album of interpretations of other people’s songs, Kentucky-born country singer Kelsey Waldon returns with some of her most personal songwriting yet on Every Ghost. Co-produced by Justin Francis and Kelsey herself, and recorded in Memphis with Kelsey’s touring band The Muleskinners, the album finds Kelsey looking at her younger self and all the growth she’s undergone since. She does this across a batch of country songs that–like her late label founder John Prine–exist just on the outskirts of mainstream country. Genre prefixes like “progressive” and “cosmic” come to mind, and Every Ghost matches its haunting title and black-and-white cover art with songs that fall on the slower, bluesy rock side of things. Genre aside, anyone who gravitates towards somber, personal, introspective songwriting should find a lot to like here.

Every Ghost by Kelsey Waldon

S.G. Goodman – Planting by the Signs (Slough Water/Thirty Tigers)
Vivid and haunting tales from Appalachia populate the Americana artist’s compelling third album

As the daughter of a Kentucky farmer, Appalachia is in S.G. Goodman’s bones, and her solo career over the last five years has delved ever deeper into those roots, most recently on 2022’s fantastic Teeth Marks. She’s still telling the unheard stories of the land and the people who inhabit it on Planting by the Signs, and grappling with the deaths of a beloved mentor and dog. It’s a spare and sometimes dark listen, but she meets pathos with compassion on songs like “Snapping Turtle,” making an account of feral children tormenting a turtle into something moving. Goodman’s distinctive twang is alternately ruminative and soaring, especially on the delicate “Solitaire” and in harmony with collaborator Matthew Rowan on the title track. “Nature’s Child,” a duet with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, is another standout — their voices together are haunting as they put a mournful spin on that iconic cowboy cry, “yippie yi yo kayah.” Goodman’s country is no bucolic paradise, but it is a place made compelling by her care and vivid storytelling, which is as sharp as ever on this album. [Amanda Hatfield]

Planting by the Signs by S.G. Goodman

My Point of You – This Is My First Heist EP (Rite Field)
A very promising debut EP from this DIY Texas emo band.

I’ll be honest: I hadn’t heard of Texas emo band My Point of You until a press release for their debut EP This Is My First Heist caught my eye this morning–it cites Mineral, Everyone Asked About You, and Carissa’s Wierd as influences; and points out the band have shared the stage with Camping In Alaska and Your Arms Are My Cocoon and collaborated with bulletbetweentongues–so I clicked play and I’m instantly a fan. It sounds like a pretty perfect cross between those melodic ’90s influences and the raw, lo-fi vibes of modern bands like YAAMC, and these songs are refreshing and hooky in a way that stands out on first listen.

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including U.S. Girls, Tropical Fuck Storm, Tan Cologne, and Liam Finn.

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our new podcast BV Weekly.

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