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 projects from Sprints; Khadija Al Hanafi; Pile; Luis R Conriquez; Ñengo Flow; Park Jiha, Oliver Coates & Agnes Obel; and Johnny Cinco. 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.)
Sprints: Letter to Self [City Slang]
Sprints thrash through garage-punk riffs and mantras of social dread on their debut album, Letter to Self. Led by Karla Chubb and working with Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox, the Dublin four-piece draws inspiration from Savages, Bauhaus, and LCD Soundsystem, degrading nervous hooks with distortion and sludge but never losing sight of the dancefloor.
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Khadija Al Hanafi: Slime Patrol 2 [Fada]
Slime Patrol 2 is the sequel to Tunisian footwork producer Khadija Al Hanifa’s 2020 debut, Slime Patrol. The 10-track follow-up merges the Chicago genre with lo-fi rap, soul, and R&B samples, plus traces of jazz, house, and juke, all of which move at Al Hanifa’s characteristically playful, delirious fast pace.
Pile: Hot Air Balloon EP [Exploding in Sound]
Pile continue their swerve from DIY rock into cinematic synth fantasias and eerily off-kilter psychedelia on the Hot Air Balloon EP. Billed as a companion to last year’s All Fiction, the five-song collection spins out the Boston trio’s shapeshifting reputation once again, 16 years into its career, with songs like the jaundiced, nightmarish waltz “The Birds Attacked My Hot Air Balloon.”
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Luis R Conriquez: Corridos Bélicos, Vol. IV [Kartel Music]
Mexican singer-songwriter Luis R Conriquez continues his Corridos Bélicos series with a fourth edition that proves to be his most ambitious yet. Stretching to 23 tracks featuring a stacked guest list (including Peso Pluma, Fuerza Régida, Junior H, and many more), Vol. IV fleshes out even further his modern take on corrido and banda music.
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Ñengo Flow: RealG4Life Vol. 4 [Rimas]
Puerto Rican rapper and singer Ñengo Flow is back with the latest entry in the RealG4Life series he started in 2011. The Bad Bunny forebear and collaborator enlists collaborators from across party-starting reggaetón and rap on the new tape—including Bad Bunny himself on “Gato de Noche.”
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Park Jiha, Oliver Coates & Agnes Obel: Foe (Original Motion Picture Score) [Amazon Content Services LLC]
In Foe, a film adaptation of Iain Reid’s dystopian 2018 novel now available on Prime Video, a married couple (played by Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal) are faced with a moral dilemma when one of them is replaced with an android. The science fiction tale is set to a hushed score composed by Park Jiha, Oliver Coates, and Agnes Obel, who assemble pensive strings and whispering woodwinds to complement the film’s quiet drama.
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Johnny Cinco: North 2 [Sak Religious]
Atlanta rap veteran Johnny Cinco returned on New Year’s Day with the sequel to 2021 project North. A mix of trap and melodic rap addressing the minutiae of his lifestyle, North 2 coasts through quick, anxious beats with typically laidback bars from Cinco and featured artists Young Funeral and PopLord.
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