9 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: Drake, Sufjan Stevens, and More

Music

9 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: Drake, Sufjan Stevens, and More

Also stream new releases from Pangaea, Adeline Hotel, Slauson Malone 1, Maiya the Don, Mutual Benefit, Leo Takami, and Meernaa

Drake

Drake, photo courtesy of Universal Music Group

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 full-length releases from Drake, Sufjan Stevens, Pangaea, Adeline Hotel, Slauson Malone 1, Maiya the Don, Mutual Benefit, Leo Takami, and Meernaa. 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.)

Drake: For All the Dogs [OVO Sound/Republic]

Bright and early this morning, Drake finally unleashed For All the Dogs. With Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant providing A&R, the 22-song album includes the SZA-featuring track “Slime You Out” and yesterday’s “8am in Charlotte.” The rapper’s first solo full-length since Honestly, Nevermind opens with a track that samples Frank Ocean’s “Wise Man.” The album also has samples of Chief Keef, Pet Shop Boys, and Azimuth, as well as guest spots from Lil Yachty, Yeat, Bad Bunny, Sexyy Red, PartyNextDoor, and more.

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Sufjan Stevens: Javelin [Asthmatic Kitty]

Sufjan Stevens wrote, recorded, and produced most of Javelin alone, inviting a small choir and the National’s Bryce Dessner for only fleeting moments. As Sam Sodomsky writes in his review, “Javelin is Stevens’ first proper album in a long time that seems designed with no grand concept to unify the material or inspire theatrical adaptations; no autobiographical insight to make you reconsider everything you thought you knew about him; no jarring musical change-ups to remind you he is a proud member of the Beyhive.” Instead, the record “strives to lead us somewhere divine, an altitude where our lives might appear more beautiful and still.” The singles “So You Are Tired,” “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?,” and “A Running Start” preceded the LP.

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Pangaea: Changing Channels [Hessle Audio]

Hessle Audio co-founder Kevin McAuley follows In Drum Play, his 2016 debut as Pangaea, with Changing Channels, a set of antic, club-ready tracks. The south London producer introduced the record with the title track’s perky techno and “Installation,” the fidgety, frantically fun album opener. Elsewhere, “Bad Lines” induces rave delirium and highlight “If” propels a cut-up vocal from a nervous drum loop through to a euphoric finale.

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Adeline Hotel: Hot Fruit [Ruination]

Dan Knishkowy’s songs as Adeline Hotel veer between folk, jazz, and chamber music, evoking the spangly guitar compositions of artists like Jim O’Rourke and William Tyler. For Hot Fruit, the Brooklyn-based songwriter brought seven solo guitar pieces to a band comprising his longtime collaborator Winston Cook-Wilson, of Office Culture, and the Brooklyn trio Scree. The partly improvised results were ornamented with strings, harp, and woodwinds arranged by Scree’s Ryan El-Solh.

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Slauson Malone 1: Excelsior [Warp]

Slauson Malone 1 has been touring with King Krule in advance of new album Excelsior, the multi-disciplinary artist Jasper Marsalis’ Warp debut and follow-up to Vergangenheitsbewältigung (Crater Speak) and A Quiet Farwell, 2016–2018 (Crater Speak). Marsalis drew inspiration from a range of sources, including composer Wendy Carlos and “the similarities between falling out of love and a nuclear half-life,” according to press materials.

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Maiya the Don: Hot Commodity [RCA]

Hot Commodity may be Maiya the Don’s debut mixtape, but the 21-year-old Brooklyn rapper has already collected a standout list of credits. There’s the recent single sampling Mariah Carey’s “Touch My Body,” an opening slot on Flo Milli’s Thanks for Coming Here, Ho Tour, and recent collaborations with Shawny Binladen and Lola Brooke. Read about the new mixtape’s “Telfy” and “Dusties” in the Ones.

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Mutual Benefit: Growing at the Edges [Transgressive]

Jordan Lee’s latest Mutual Benefit album, Growing at the Edges, was made in collaboration with co-producer Gabriel Birnbaum; violinist Concetta Abbate was behind string arrangements. The album, which includes the single “Untying a Knot,” is an exploration of the spaces capitalism leaves behind. “I was thinking about the growth that’s happening right on the edge of that wasteland, and how that, to me, is the most beautiful and interesting area,” Lee explained in a statement. “That’s where important things are going to happen.”

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Leo Takami: Next Door [Unseen Worlds]

Leo Takami conjures a fantasia of jazz, prog rock, and Japanese environmental music on his follow-up to 2020 breakthrough LP Felis Catus & Silence. The Tokyo composer and guitarist riffs on themes of real and imagined memories and the passage of time in plangent compositions replete with airy tones, childlike melodies, and molasses-thick smears of resonant harmony.

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Meernaa: So Far So Good [Keeled Scales]

The Los Angeles–based producer and songwriter Carly Bond has shared her latest album under the name Meernaa, So Far So Good. The follow-up to 2019’s Heart Hunger includes “Bhuta Kala,” which was inspired by the “demon/evil spirit” figure from Balinese Hinduism. “It’s about acknowledging spirits and the nature of man, but managing and prioritizing balance,” Bond said in a statement.

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