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 and mixtapes from Yves Tumor, Yaeji, Empress Of, Thundercat, Melkbelly, and Rod Wave. 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.)
Yves Tumor: Heaven to a Tortured Mind [Warp]
The new album from Yves Tumor, their second for Warp, sees the enigmatic artist take up the mantle of rock music, infusing it with the sort of shape-shifting brilliance that informed their 2018 album Safe in the Hands of Love. In his Best New Music review, Kevin Lozano writes, “Yves Tumor is fascinated with blending disgust and pleasure, beauty and abjection.” Revisit the Best New Track review of “Gospel for a New Century.”
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Buy at Rough Trade
Yaeji: WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던 [XL]
Yaeji makes her XL debut with her first-ever mixtape. WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던 is the Korean American producer/DJ’s follow-up to her 2017 EPs (Yaeji and EP2). Check out Pitchfork’s track review of the lead single “WAKING UP DOWN.”
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Buy at Rough Trade
Empress Of: I’m Your Empress Of [Terrible]
Lorely Rodriguez wrote her third Empress Of album in Los Angeles during a two-month break from touring. “This record is a very cathartic record,” she recently told Uproxx’s Caitlin White of her Us follow-up. “I lived in that space of writing very groove-centered beats and then saying embarrassing, vulnerable shit over it.”
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Thundercat: It Is What It Is [Brainfeeder]
It Is What It Is is Thundercat’s fourth LP, arriving three years after Drunk. The bassist/singer produced the album with Flying Lotus. There are also a ton of guests on It Is What It Is, including: Kamasi Washington, Steve Lacy, Childish Gambino, Lil B, Louis Cole, and Thundercat’s older brother Ronald Bruner, Jr.
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Melkbelly: PITH [Wax Nine/Carpark]
Chicago’s Melkbelly—led by vocalist/guitarist Miranda Winters and her husband/guitarist Bart—worked on their sophomore album after the death of a close friend. “Nostalgia always acts as a helpful tool for me in navigating difficult times,” Winters said in a statement. “Revisiting emotionally challenging moments or significant social interactions helps shed light on confusing feelings for me.”
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Rod Wave: Pray 4 Love [Alamo/Geffen]
Pray 4 Love is the third release from Florida rapper/singer Rod Wave in under a year: He issued PTSD in June 2019, following the mixtape with his debut album Ghetto Gospel in November. Rod Wave has shared music videos for the new album’s “Dark Clouds,” “Thug Motivation,” “Thief in the Night,” “Pray 4 Love,” and “The Greatest.”
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