featuring Kendrick Lamar, Aminé, Horsegirl, & MORE
An overwhelming amount of music is released daily, and we're here to help you weed through it all. Every week, we share select releases we are all looking forward to and personalized picks from a few of our editors.
Welcome to our New Releases to Check Out guide featuring the most notable music released the week of November 22.
And don't forget to check out our YouTube, where DeVán reports on the latest music news every Friday.
BLIGATORY Picks
Kendrick Lamar - GNX
West Coast Hip-Hop
via pgLang
Red Hot Org & Various Artists - TRAИƧA
Ambient, Singer-Songwriter, Pop, Contemporary Folk
via Red Hot Org
write-up by Atticus Deeny
Since 2021, the non-profit activism group Red Hot has been building this body of work TRANƧA, with the goal of “spotlighting the gifts of many of the most daring, imaginative trans and non-binary artists.” This ambitious project comprises 46 tracks split into eight discs, totaling nearly four hours of audio.
There are far too many notable artists contributing to the project to name them all, but some included are Faye Webster, Julien Baker, Yaeji, Sharon Van Etton, Adrianne Lenker, Bartees Strange, Clairo, and Sam Smith. There are some special appearances from seasoned greats such as Grouper, ANOHNI, Pharaoh Sanders, Perfume Genius, Fleet Foxes, Laura Jane Grace, Sade Adu, and even a 22-minute instrumental piece from André 3000. This is just scraping the surface as well, with many more artists providing beauty, honesty, and passion through their music.
This is not your typical album or a project that is very fit for traditional front-to-back listening. However, it is a masterclass in everything alternative in music, from pop to rock to electronic to jazz and whatever falls in between. TRANƧA succeeds in showing the undying support that music as an art form will forever have for trans and non-binary people, as well as the entire LGBTQ+ community, no matter what happens in the real world outside of the arts.
FKA twigs - "drums of death"
Deconstructed Club, UK Bass, Glitch Pop
via Young / Atlantic Records
The third single released in the run-up to the bound-to-be-stellar EUSEXUA shapes up as a brooding bout of glitchy, wonked-out pop.
EUSEXUA is described as: “A state of being. A feeling of momentary transcendence often evoked by art, music, sex, and unity(...) It was moments of Eusexua that birthed EUSEXUA the album, as Twigs cites her late nights in the underground techno scene of Prague while shooting The Crow as the main inspiration for the project.”
Keep your ears peeled.
EUSEXUA releases January 24 via Young and Atlantic.
Horsegirl - "2468"
Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Twee Pop
via Matador Records
write-up by Peter Doherty
Chicago three-piece Horsegirl return to the music scene with the announcement of their second studio album Phonetics On and On. Its lead single,"2468," is home to that playful seriousness that we have come to love from Horsegirl.
2468, who do we appreciate? Per a press release, “Phonetics On and On is an exploration of the lines between pop, minimalism, and playful experimentation.”
Horsegirl's sophomore album Phonetics On and On is out February 14 via Matador Records. Horsegirl will play a record release show at The Metro in Chicago on February 22 and head on an eight-date tour of the US in March with support from fellow Chicagoan Free Range.
Atticus' Picks
Pop Rap
via CLBN / 10k Projects
Aminé has followed up his random 2-pack of singles from October with a similarly packaged drop that now labels all four tracks as his .mp3s. While the Smino-assisted “Passenger Princess” and introspective solo cut “Adam” featured more soulful, sample-driven production, his new songs “s2wik” and “Wingz” with producer Cardo Got Wings lean into more electronic hip-hop and pop aesthetics.
The first track—whose acronym title stands for “sticking to what I know”—is in line with the melodic and bubbly sound of Aminé’s 2021 project TWOPOINTFIVE, as he delivers a sweet hook in heavy auto-tune over bouncy production that was apparently co-produced by the brotherly R&B duo Mulherin, alongside a few others. “Wings” is a straight-forward modern hip-hop banger, with heavy 808s and stretched-out synth chords. Aminé is very comfortable in this slightly slurred melodic delivery, making this song feel effortless. This might be the least notable out of the four “mp3s,” but it is not “bad” per se.
It is still unclear where exactly these drops are leading, but 2025 will mark the fourth year since a solo Aminé project has been released.
Michael Kiwanuka - Small Changes
Smooth Soul, Psychedelic Soul
via Polydor Records
Michi - Michi: Knxwledge Remixes (EP)
Electronic
via Stones Throw Records
Jadu Heart - "U"
Glitch Pop, Dream Pop, Alt. R&B
via LIVE FROM EARTH
Dominick's Picks
Cistern - New Standard (EP)
Post-Punk, Art Punk
via Meat Machine
In January, the Squamish, British Columbia-based band Cistern released their debut album Head Full of Questions. Made up of Noah Varley (Crack Cloud, N0V3L), Noah Wilson, McKinley Languedoc, and Chris Boys, the four-piece broadly make spry and scrappy post-punk. It’s a bite-sized project that shows a fair amount of range within its five tracks; take “Grief” for example, which is very reminiscent of a prime Modest Mouse.
Disgusting Sisters - "Killing It"
Dance-Punk
via Speedy Wunderground
Anglo-French sibling duo and self-appointed ‘Gucci Beavis and Butt-Head’ Disgusting Sisters (Julianna & Joséphine Hopkins) share their debut single “Killing It.” The latest release in the ever-consistent Speedy Wunderground Singles series, it’s one of the most infectious and grooviest songs of 2024. With boisterous irreverence for outside opinions, Disgusting Sisters are confident, witty, and absolutely exhilarating on “Killing It.”
In their own words, “Killing It is a song about owning your own life so completely that even if you chose to wreck it, you’re still in control - because in the end, the personal freedom to live on your own terms is what really matters."
“Killing It” will be available on 7” on November 29 including a dub remix B side by Dan Carey, “Dubbing It.”
Fat Dog - "Peace Song"
Dance-Punk, Art Rock
via Domino Recording Co.
After releasing their debut album, WOOF., in December, London’s Fat Dog shares the new single “Peace Song.” Noticeably less intense than much of that record, “Peace Song” allows for more breathing room amidst some pumping percussion, jubilant synths, and a refrain that sees frontman Joe Love proclaiming “And I'm in love with the world.”
“Peace Song” is out now via Domino.
Open Head - "N.Y. Frills"
Noise Rock, Exp. Rock, Post-Punk
via Wharf Cat Records
For starters, this rules. “N.Y Frills” is a noisy, punchy, no-wave-inspired cut from Kingston, NY’s Open Head. It’s the third single the band has shared from their upcoming sophomore record What Is Success.
The band offered plenty of additional information regarding the song. Here’s what they had to say:
“In a sort of homage to New York no wave, “N.Y. Frills” is an encounter with the monotone Goliath that is Manhattan. Our guitarist Brandon Minnervini sings the song, and together with bassist Jon McCarthy he wrote it while working for a fabrication business in Kingston, sanding designer aluminum shelving. Every so often, Brandon would be tasked with delivering the products to ultra-wealthy patrons in New York City.
A drive that started at a dusty Kingston warehouse would end in the alien opulence of a Manhattan penthouse, or a private AI sports betting clubs, or a “development workshop” full of untouched fabrication machines occupying prime Manhattan real estate, and then back again. Brandon brushed up against the type of wealth most never see. The song is a meditation on contact with those who live with such extravagance and their detachment from those who make it possible on physical and material level. From a similar perspective, the song describes Open Head’s relationship with New York City in general — one of both proximity and distance, where the city is always within reach, yet the band is always a visitor, an outsider to its tempo, its density, and its size.
Lyrically, the song is the return journey from a brush with the extravagant. It begins in the high-rise, amidst the luxury class, and with each verse drops “lower still,” until the narrator sinks to become the ground itself — no different than the physical earth that supports the weight of the city. “Heaven’s gate, sink and wait, object love, interest rates.”
What Is Success is out January 24 via Wharf Cat Records.
Peter's Picks
Blawan - "Fires"
Industrial Techno
via XL Recordings
The rather bonkers sounds of South Yorkshire producer Blawan rear their heads once again after 2023's ever-wobbly Dismantled Into Juice project. His latest single, "Fires," warms the way for his next short project, the BouQ EP. The BouQ EP will be Blawan's third on industry giants XL Recordings. Prepare your ears for warped, maniacal and of sound-bending ventures.
Blawan's upcoming BouQ EP releases December 6 via XL.
Courting - "Pause at You"
Dance-Punk, Post-Punk Revival
via Lower Third / Play It Again Sam Records
Courting are back at it with "Pause At You.” The Liverpool lads have also announced the eagerly awaited follow-up to 2024's New Last Name and we are now in full swing of Courting season. Courting will be looking to defeat the naysayers and once again scrape out their own lane—a lane which I felt they traversed pretty well on New Last Name.
“Somebody stop me.”
Lust For Life, Or: How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story is out March 14 via Lower Third."
KEG - "I'd Fly Tip For You"
Art Punk, Post-Punk
via Alcopop! Records
Brighton seven-piece KEG follow-up "Sate the Worm" with yet another excellently executed piece of quirky sonics in "I'll Fly Tip For You.” Alongside the single, the band have also announced their debut album Fun's Over.
KEG live life on the stranger side of the music spectrum; anyone who has heard their 2022 Girders EP will attest to this statement. And nyone that has heard their 2021 Assembly EP will further attest that these lads are somewhat off their musical rockers. We here at BLIGATORY are all for it.
KEG's debut full-length Fun's Over releases March 14 on Alcopop! Records.
The Murder Capital - "Words Lost Meaning"
Indie Rock, Punk Blues
via Human Season
Dublin's The Murder Capital release the second single, which also happens to be second in the tracklist for album number three, "Words Lost Meaning.” The band’s latest material seems to be taking on a more grunge-y demeanour—a stellar mix between the electrical wirings of Gigi's Recovery and the doom-and-gloom of When I Have Fears.
Frontman McGovern spoke on the album title with NME and had this to say: “I think blindness is endemic in the human condition, really. We're made of blind spots. We try to focus on things and meet each person, task and song with as true a heart as possible. But at the same time, it's powerful to be aware of how much you can't see.”
The Murder Capital's astounding 2023 album Gigi's Recovery would find itself at number 2 on my Top 50 Albums of 2023. The Murder Capital's third studio album Blindness is set for release February 21 via Human Seasons. The excitement is ever-so-tangible.
The Murder Capital will head on a tour of Australia and New Zealand in early April and the UK and Europe across the remainder of April and May.
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