New Music Friday: Stream new projects from doin’ fine, Richard Reed Perry, Li Daiguo, and more

The title of the new full-length project from doin' fine, a member of the experimental pop collective Rural Internet, suggests an embrace of every wrinkle, flaw, and contradiction. Appropriately, I Will Always Love Me isn't interested in staid consistency: the project cycles through big band-backed ballads (on opening track "Like Blood"), art-rock jams ("Paper Planes") and manic confessional hip-hop that ties everything together. Sometimes all these sounds happen at the same time, but it never feels like a mess. At least, no more so than actual life frequently is. — Jordan Darville

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Apparently trained in every instrument from upright bass to bawu and every style from bluegrass to Chinese classical, Li Daiguo is a rare talent. Born in Oklahoma but based in China now, his compositions often demonstrate — whether intentionally or not — the limitations of Western tonality and tempo, dealing in microtones, polyrhythms, and open spaces. He’s professed a penchant for acoustic noises that “sound electronic,” and, indeed, he makes sounds that predate modern instrumentation feel almost futuristic. This achievement is made possible by his astonishing precision as a producer, a skill that’s made gorgeously clear on his new album, Book of Prayers. Here, his songs follow strict rhythmic regimens, and each instrument glimmers with its own unique life force, never wandering off into the haze of melancholic drone that hangs over some of his darker work. The record comprises eight “prayers” — “for the cute and fragile,” “for those lost in dementia,” “of gratitude to a dead loved one,” “of submission to the inevitability of death,” “to help resistance to addiction,” et al. — bookended by two “meditations”: “in praise of all quantum possibilities” and “on purity.” It contains elements of several religions’ ritual musics (most notably Hinduism’s Carnatic music), but given Li’s historic propensity for existential dread, it feels unlikely that Book of Prayers is meant for any god in particular. More likely, these prayers are meant to echo out into the universe, hopefully reverberating into the ears of someone who needs them. — Raphael Helfand

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

Orchestral tragedy meets cheesed-up '80s soundtrack in Richard Reed Parry’s score for A24’s latest drop, The Iron Claw. As if finding sonic middle ground between Top Gun and Minari, Parry’s musical drama shadows the movie’s Von Erich brothers (Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White), the true story of one family’s fraught quest for glory in the world of 1980s competitive wrestling. The Arcade Fire composer’s score veers from electric athletic anthems to doleful ambiance to string arrangements fit for a funeral procession, muted horns for the march into battle, and more eerie, minimalistic soundscapes, reminiscent of an empty gym’s soft clangs and creaks. — Lila Dubois

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music