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 Popcaan, Meg Baird, Lil Yachty, Mark William Lewis, Ruhail Qaisar, Popstar Benny, the Tubs, Oozing Wound, and George. 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.)
Popcaan: Great Is He [OVO Sound]
Dancehall superstar Popcaan is back with his first full-length since 2020’s Fixtape. Great Is He spans 17 tracks and includes guest spots from Drake (“We Caa Done”), Burna Boy (“Aboboyaa”), Toni-Ann Singh (“Next to Me”), and Chronic Law (“St. Thomas Native”). Popcaan and Drake dropped their joint single earlier this month, along with a music video directed by Theo Skudra that was shot in Turks and Caicos.
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music
Meg Baird: Furling [Drag City]
Furling is the fourth solo album from singer and multi-instrumentalist Meg Baird, who played hypnotic guitar in Philadelphia’s free-flowing Espers and brought thunderous drums to the psych-rock supergroups Heron Oblivion and Watery Love. Working closely with her Heron Oblivion bandmate and partner, Charlie Saufley, Baird delivers nine entrancing songs fleshed out with percussion and piano, starting with the breezy sweep of “Ashes, Ashes.” Furling arrives eight years after 2015’s Don’t Weigh Down the Light; Baird and Saufley had recorded most of the material before the onset of the pandemic, but production delays prolonged its release.
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music
Listen/Buy at Bandcamp
Buy at Rough Trade
Lil Yachty: Let’s Start Here. [Quality Control/Motown]
Lil Yachty turns to psychedelic rock for his new album, Let’s Start Here, executive produced by SadPony (aka Jeremiah Raisen). The rapper teased the record with an eerie trailer titled “Department of Mental Tranquility.” Contributors to Let’s Start Here include Justin Raisen, Alex G, Mac DeMarco, Nick Hakim, Benjamin Goldwasser (of MGMT), Jam City, Jacob Portrait (of Unknown Mortal Orchestra), Magdalena Bay, former Chairlift musician Patrick Wimberly, and vocalists Diana Gordon, Justine Skye, Teezo Touchdown, Daniel Caesar, and Fousheé.
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music
Mark William Lewis: Living [self-released]
London-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Mark William Lewis released his debut EP, Pleasure Is Everything, in late 2021. He followed it with the four-song God Complex EP last year, and returns now with Living—a minimal, meditative album crafted with guitar, harmonica, double bass, electronics, and percussion. Lewis performs the majority of the instruments on the LP, save for the double bass, which was laid down by Otto Willberg.
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music
Listen/Buy at Bandcamp
Ruhail Qaisar: Fatima [Danse Noire]
Ruhail Qaisar is a self-taught artist and producer from Leh, the joint capital of Ladakh (a union territory of India). His debut album, Fatima, is inspired by the harsh setting of his home, the ongoing conflict between nation states, riots, unemployment, colonization, PTSD, and self-abuse. The LP was recorded between Leh, the remote agrarian villages of Ladakh, and Qaisar’s DIY home studio in New Delhi; it merges harsh electronics with field recordings and found sounds. For Fatima, Qaisar got contributions from Elvin Brandhi, Dis Fig, Iben Lavinia Kasjer, and Rohit Gupta.
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music
Listen/Buy at Bandcamp
Popstar Benny: University! [True Panther]
University! is Buffalo-born, Atlanta-based producer Popstar Benny’s first album for True Panther Sounds. The 20-track effort includes contributions from regular collaborators like Tony Shhnow, Bear1Boss, Duwap Kaine, and Nolanberollin. Read Pitchfork’s review of the single “All the Girls <3.”
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music
Listen/Buy at Bandcamp
The Tubs: Dead Meat [Trouble in Mind]
The Tubs are a Welsh guitar-pop band based in London. The quartet contains members of Joanna Gruesome, Sniffany & the Nits, and Ex-Voïd. The debut Tubs album, Dead Meat, was led by “Sniveller,” “Wretched Lie,” and the title track, which is about “living in a rubbish filthy flat, wearing a horrible smelly beanie, and running out of steroid cream for the rash that’s spreading up your perineum,” as lead singer and guitarist Owen “O” Williams put it in press materials.
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music
Listen/Buy at Bandcamp
Buy at Rough Trade
Oozing Wound: We Cater to Cowards [Thrill Jockey]
Chicago metal trio Oozing Wound released their last full-length, High Anxiety, in 2019. Now, they’ve returned with We Cater to Cowards—a 10-track album with song titles like “Old Sludge,” “Midlife Crisis Actor,” and “Chudly.” Prior to dropping the LP, Oozing Wound shared the singles “Hypnic Jerk” and “The Good Times (I Don’t Miss ’Em).” The latter cut addresses the mainstream music industry’s use of nostalgia in its marketing strategies.
Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Amazon Music
Listen/Buy at Bandcamp
Buy at Rough Trade
George: Letters to George [Out of Your Head]
George is a new improvisational jazz project from drummer and composer John Hollenbeck; flutist, saxophonist, and composer Anna Webber; saxophonist and vocalist Aurora Nealand; and pianist and vocalist Chiquita Magic. The group’s debut LP, Letters to George, was recorded in Montreal in January of 2022, marking the first time the quartet members had been in the same room together.
Listen on Amazon Music
Listen/Buy at Bandcamp
