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 projects from Taylor Swift, Sofia Kourtesis, the Mountain Goats, Ragana, Shabazz Palaces, Murda Beatz & Shordie Shordie, Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, María José Llergo, and New Age Doom & Tuvaband. 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.)
Taylor Swift: 1989 (Taylor’s Version) [Republic]
Amid what’s been a blockbuster year for the pop star, the latest installment of Taylor Swift’s series of re-recorded “Taylor’s Version” releases has arrived. The update of 1989 includes the previously unreleased “‘Slut!’,” “Say Don’t Go,” “Now That We Don’t Talk,” “Suburban Legends,” and “Is It Over Now?” It also includes new versions of the hit songs “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” “Style,” “Wildest Dreams,” and “Bad Blood.”
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Sofia Kourtesis: Madres [Ninja Tune]
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Sofia Kourtesis’ new album, Madres, comes from a personal place for the Peruvian producer. In an interview with Pitchfork, Kourtesis discussed the album’s themes of vulnerability and family. “I felt that I needed to break this stigma for other people who are going through similar feelings,” she said. “I was so sick of being in this techno world where everything seems so cool and perfect. ’Cause that’s not the truth.” Madres was led by the title song, “Si Te Portas Bonito,” “Vajkoczy,” and “How Music Makes You Feel Better.”
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The Mountain Goats: Jenny From Thebes [Merge]
The Mountain Goats’ latest album in their storied discography, Jenny From Thebes, is a direct sequel to the band’s 2002 album All Hail West Texas. It’s described as a rock opera about a woman who rides off on a Kawasaki to escape a town and its accompanying baggage. The album features contributions from Bully’s Alicia Bognanno, Matt Douglas, Matt Nathanson, and the Go-Go’s Kathy Valentine.
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Ragana: Desolation’s Flower [The Flenser]
Ragana, the Olympia and Oakland-based metal duo of Maria and Coley, have released their latest full-length. Desolation’s Flower was recorded at the Unknown, a century-old church that’s now a recording studio in Anacortes, Washington. The lead single and opening title track, “Desolation’s Flower,” was described by the duo as “a hymn of gratitude for queer and trans ancestors, known or unknown, by blood or affinity, whose joy and survival make our lives possible, and whose memory inspires and helps us resist the tide of increasingly visible hatred and oppression.”
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Shabazz Palaces: Robed in Rareness [Sub Pop]
Robed in Rareness is Ishmael Butler’s first Shabazz Palaces album since he put out The Don of Diamond Dreams in 2020. The new one features the previously shared opening track, “Binoculars,” plus contributions from Lavarr the Starr, Royce the Choice, Camp Lo’s Geechi Suede, Colorado Springs rapper O Finess, Seattle musician Porter Ray, and Butler’s son, Lil Tracy. Read Pitchfork’s track review of “Binoculars.”
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Murda Beatz & Shordie Shordie: Memory Lane 2 [Warner]
Baltimore rapper Shordie Shordie has once again teamed up with producer Murda Beatz. The artists’ new project, Memory Lane 2, features guest spots from Mozzy, Baby B, and Blakeiana. Revisit the review of 2021’s Memory Lane.
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Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band: Dancing on the Edge [Sophomore Lounge]
Ryan Davis, best known as a member of State Champion, has put out his first record as Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band. He recorded the album early this year with a team of collaborators after a period where he was unsure if he would make “another record of ‘song’ songs” ever again. “It felt virtually impossible to complete for a bulk of the time I spent trying to enter into it, but the process pulled me out of a strange place,” he said in a statement. “I was eventually able to live inside of the songs enough to understand the world within them—to ultimately help shape them into what I understood them to be.”
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María José Llergo: Ultrabelleza [Sony Music Spain]
Spanish singer María José Llergo, who melds traditional flamenco with contemporary rap and R&B, has released her debut album, Ultrabelleza. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Llergo discussed flamenco’s ability to blend with other genres and communicate emotion across borders. “Flamenco is like the blues,” she said. “The lyrics tell stories of survival—it’s always been a way for the most oppressed to escape.”
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New Age Doom & Tuvaband: There Is No End [We Are Busy Bodies]
New Age Doom—featuring drummer Eric J. Breitenbach and multi-instrumentalist Greg Valou—have released a new collaboration with Norwegian singer Tuva Hellum Marschhäuser, aka Tuvaband, on the new album There Is No End. Breitenbach said he first heard Tuvaband due to her collaboration with the late Lee “Scratch” Perry. Valou said, for the album, they “sought to strike a balance between serenity with chaos, and accessibility with experimentation.”
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