New Music Friday: The best new albums out today

Nobody talk to me for the next hour or so: it's new Weyes Blood day. The fifth studio album from Natalie Laura Mering's baroque pop project is the second in a three-part series that began with 2019's Titanic Rising. You can hear her talk all about it with The FADER's Raphael Helfand in this week's episode of The FADER Interview.

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Earlier this month, R&B crooner Rod Wave revealed his plan to release a new EP a few months after sharing his full-length project Beautiful Mind. He may have claimed that he's done making "sad music," but the songs prove that there's still gas left in that tank.

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After a year that’s seen him catapult to underground rap stardom as one of the hottest signees to Playboi Carti’s label Opium, Destroy Lonely is expanding on his breakout project No Stylist with a new deluxe edition. Five new songs are spread out across the new release.

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Yesterday, BROCKHAMPTON shared their final album The Family one day early. That release came with another surprising announcement: a new album called TM, out today. The project was recorded over a two-week stint in California in 2021, though its songs were not completed during those sessions. Founding BROCKHAMPTON member Matt Champion decided to finish it himself, and the project is out today as a "parting gift" to the boy band's fans.

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Founding Drain Gang member Thaiboy Digital was forced to make a new life for himself in Thailand after he was deported from Sweden in 2015. While he's kept up with the old crew (a Drain Gang tour of the United States sold out everywhere), he's also gotten married and had a kid. All these experiences inform Back 2 Life, his sophomore album. Bladee and Yung Lean feature on the new project.

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The veteran experimental group follow up their formidable 2022 album Time Skiffs with a score for an upcoming drama film. The Inspection is a film based on the experiences of its writer and director Elegance Bratton, who joined the Marines and faced discrimination and hardship for his sexual identity.

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Roddy Ricch secured one of the biggest hits of the century with "The Box, released in 2019 ahead of his debut album Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial. His follow-up, Live Life Fast, came and went without much impact, so for his new project he's returning to the mixtape series that made him a star. Feed Tha Streets 3 features Lil Durk on the single "Twin" and Ty Dolla $ign on "#1 Freak."

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Los Angeles rapper YUNGMORPHEUS has already had a prolific 2022 with the EPs Slang Casino (a collaboration with producer Obijuan) and Up Against the Wall; A Degree of Lunacy (with beats from Theraveda) as well as a deluxe edition of Bag Talk, his full-length project with Pink Siifu. He enlists a number of producers on the six-song Burnished Sums including Joe Armon-Jones, Creme, and DMH.

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Acclaimed DJ and producer Honey Dijon returns with her sophomore album Black Girl Magic, a celebration of enlivening club music of all stripes. Across the album you'll hear collaborations with Channel Tres, Pabllo Vittar, Kameelah Waheed, Mike Dunn, Hadiya George, and many more. “This album is dedicated to love," Honey Dijon writes. "Love of music, community, but most of all the love of self. Being true to who you are in spite of everything else and having the courage to love fearlessly.”

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You might recognize Fousheé's from "Deep End," which was sampled by Sleepy Hallow into a TikTok hit, or perhaps for her appearances on albums from Steve Lacy, Vince Staples, Ravyn Lenae, and at least three LPs by Pink Siifu. That slate of names should give you an idea of the formidable songwriting talents that Fousheé is working with, and on softCORE she's gloriously restless in between genre and mood.

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Need cheering up? This album might not be for you. Experimental composer Daniel Bachman was inspired by the sedentary pace of our impending global extinction via climate change on his new album. "The hiss of fire, the crack of thunder, and the silence of blackout," he said back in September. "Howling wind, hard rain, and the force of moving water. Sounds which are inherently familiar to everyone on Earth experiencing climate breakdown and its effect on their communities. This is the music of Almanac Behind."

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Malibu's new EP Palaces of Pity comes after the French ambient musician's acclaimed One Life EP, a 2019 effort that was eventually remixed by Julianna Barwick, Evian Christ, Kelly Moran, and John Beltran. “Where One Life was born of anger and raging seas, Palaces of Pity is calm,” Malibu said in a press statement contrasting the two works.

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Richard Dawson’s camp was tight-lipped about The Ruby Cord in the months, weeks, and days leading up to the new album’s release. The public’s only taste of the record was a one-minute trailer of the visual treatment for its 40-minute opening track (you read that correctly), “The Hermit.” The album tells a story set in the near future, following the inevitable collapse of society. “So many of us are moving into these fantasy worlds,” Dawson expounds, “whether it’s actual constructed virtual realities, computer worlds, or retreating into even more fantastical realms…. conspiracy theories, nationalism, amateur football punditry. People construct their own world because this one is so flawed.”

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Khalede Russell, Jonathan Kennedy Rogers and Aaron Watkins are notfortheo, a Toronto chillwave pop band with their debut EP out today. half life sports the single "just a little bit," which was playlisted for Songs You Need in August.

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Described as "a pandemic symphony in rap and avant-pop," isomonstrosity's debut album was conceived by Ellen Reid, Johan Lenox, and Yuga Cohler. Working in isolation during lockdown, the three acclaimed artists commissioned new works by a number of composers, including The National's Bryce Dessner, with the music recorded by the International Contemporary Ensemble. Then, artists like Danny Brown, Tommy Genesis, Vic Mensa, Danny L Harle, and Zacari recorded their vocal features. To finish it off, isomonstrosity cut everything up into fragments and rearranged them into the album out today. Its single "careful what you wish for" featuring Danny Brown and 645AR was a Song You Need in September.

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