With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services. This week’s batch includes new albums from Saya Gray, Youth Lagoon, Tate McRae, Nao, Baths, Pissgrave, Anxious, and Eem Triplin. Subscribe to Pitchfork’s New Music Friday newsletter to get our recommendations in your inbox every week. (All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our affiliate links, however, Pitchfork earns an affiliate commission.)
Saya Gray: Saya [Dirty Hit]
There comes a point in Saya Gray’s trick-mirror music where it’s best to accept that you can’t predict what’s coming next. On Saya, which follows the Qwerty EPs and 19 Masters, the Japanese Canadian singer-songwriter traverses alt-rock, off-kilter pop, and smirking R&B, processesing the dissolution of a romantic relationship to the tune of chilly harpsichord (“Shell ( Of a Man )”) and slow-motion bass beats (“H.B.W.”), among much more. “I’ve been hyper-intuitive—extrasensory perception—from the moment I was cognitive,” she once told Pitchfork. The musical precision and range of Saya puts those observations into sound.
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Youth Lagoon: Rarely Do I Dream [Fat Possum]
Youth Lagoon’s fifth album, Rarely Do I Dream, feels like being caught in the memory of a dream: hazy, removed, and slightly disorienting. Trevor Powers’ follow-up to Heaven Is a Junkyard is also ripe with trickling textures, from the delicate piano runs sprinkled across “Football” to the jazzy drumming on “Gumshoe (Dracula From Arkansas).” Powers keeps Youth Lagoon’s latest sounding emotionally familiar and musically alluring.
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Tate McRae: So Close to What [RCA]
Tate McRae returns with her third album, So Close to What, following the radio success of older hits “Greedy” and “You Broke Me First.” The pop star walks in the footsteps of aughts-era Britney Spears with the snappy single “Sports Car,” co-written by Ryan Tedder, Julia Michaels, and Grant Boutin. Other songs from the Think Later follow-up, like “2 Hands” and “It’s OK I’m OK,” intersect with dance-pop territory—an offering to the TikTok portion of her fanbase who already associate McRae’s music with memorable dance moves.
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Nao: Jupiter [RCA]
On her fourth studio album, Nao doesn’t want to mope anymore, not even when heartbreak gets her down. The soul singer amplifies her sugary pop impulses for Jupiter, drawing together textured backing vocals, wholesome melodies, and joyful guitar hooks for a burst of sunshine, as introduced by album opener “Wildflowers.” Previewed by four other songs—“Elevate,” “Happy People,” “Light Years,” “All of Me”—Jupiter reformulates the organic sounds of 2021’s And Then Life Was Beautiful, with an extra dash of hope.
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Baths: Gut [Basement’s Basement]
There’s more behind the title of Baths’ new album, Gut, than a nod to human instinct. Will Wiesenfeld returns to explore what “stomach music” is all about: the ecstasy and harm of sex, the physical toll of our psyche, and the way we roll with the punches in pursuit of desire—even when we don’t want to. Held up by lively indie-rock and the shimmering dance singles “Sea of Men” and “Eden,” Gut invites live drums into the mix to capture the reverberation of these things on our bodies. Wiesenfeld said that he wrote the album with “no regard to personal embarrassment or relatability.” That absence of fear or outside influence is immediate upon listen. “Carnal is a normal mode,” he sings, with Gut serving as proof of that new normal.
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Pissgrave: Malignant Worthlessness [Profound Lore]
If you read metal forums or periodically check in on extremely online music circles, you already know Pissgrave are disgusting—in sound and cover artwork. The NSFW photo gracing their sophomore album crossed a line that even horror and gore aficionados couldn’t stomach. Six years after their last album, Pissgrave return with Malignant Worthlessness, thus completing the trilogy that began with 2015’s Suicide Euphoria and its successor, Posthumous Humiliation. The Philadelphia death metal band’s new album dives into the squealing, fuming, and pressurized metal for which the group is known.
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Anxious: Bambi [Run for Cover]
Connecticut emo band Anxious throw their whole bodies into their songs, even when they opt for more melodic hooks. On their sophomore album, Bambi, they return not knock-kneed and nervous, but confident and intentional, bridging their post-hardcore, emo, and pop-punk influences. Opener “Never Said” sets the stage with delicate guitar picking and singer Grady Allen’s gentle vocals before he shifts into a louder holler for the chorus and doesn’t turn back. Be it “Counting Sheep” or the speedier “Head & Spine,” Anxious go bigger and bolder than on their 2022 debut, Little Green House, with their sights set far ahead.
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Eem Triplin: Melody of a Memory [RCA]
“You are a special gift, and you are taking the gift that God has given you and you are using that gift,” says a motherly voice to open Melody of a Memory, Eem Triplin’s debut album. To prove his own glow-up, the rapper and singer pushes his bedroom beats into a bigger, more exploratory sound across the entire record, as influenced by role models Pharrell Williams and Tyler, the Creator. Executive-produced by Triplin and DJ Dahi, Melody of a Memory uses just over half an hour—and one Ty Dolla $ign feature, on “Out Miami”—to infuse the artist’s creative ideas with his onstage energy.
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