New Music Friday: Stream projects from Navy Blue, Rabit, Hotline TNT, and more

Navy Blue's new album Memoirs in Armour finds the pensive rapper born Sage Elsesser wrestling with life's transitory nature; within fractals of introspection, painted between guileless confessions of his childhood and current doldrums, the rapper creates the path forward for himself. Self-actualization, he raps throughout the record, is a work in process beset from all sides. “Cancerous antics that lead me to the crypts” (“Low Threshold”); “Progression was my sentence, my reflection was my opp” (Running Sand”); “Depression was the birth of Navy Blue” ("Time Slips"). The 25-minute album is a collection of modern fables each made distinct thanks to range of collaborators — including Budgie Beats, Graymatter, and Child Actor — creating the soundscapes for Navy Blue’s solemn-turned-jaded tone. Memoirs is the ultimate Gordian knot — releasing the album is Navy Blue's act of cutting. — Hannah Sung

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

Though Hotline TNT are often written about in the context of shoegaze's new wave, the songs on Will Anderson's 2023 album Cartwheel work just as well as pop songs as they do an exercise in overwhelming volume. Somersault is a new EP of remixes of songs from that album created by outside producers who bring that to the fore, underlining Cartwheel's powerful melodies and emotional core. Sabrina The Teenage DJ reimagines "I Thought You'd Change" as a sugary bloghouse anthem with synths that propel the song towards the stars. Poisonfrog, meanwhile, turns "Spot Me 100" into a ghostly drum and bass track haunted by Anderson's tales of squad cars and screaming bodies. This largely electronic-orientated EP also takes on UK garage (TAGABOW's version of "Son In Law") and a downtempo ambient reworking of "Protocol." Like any great remix project, it not only flips perceptions of its source material but opens up possibilities for what could come next. — David Renshaw

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

When I spoke with Rabit back in 2019 about his series of chopped-and-screwed-inspired tapes, the Houston-based producer was deferential to the legacy of DJ Screw, the genre’s creator. To stay true to the roots, he reasoned, he had to experiment beyond people’s perceptions of what the sound was capable of. “A lot of people didn’t know that [Screw] would play [with] other kinds of music [besides rap],” he pointed out. In the nearly five years since then, Rabit has continued his respectful, personal series. “What if DJ Screw had continued what he was doing?” Rabit remembers thinking during the creation of 2019’s Star Belly. “What direction would he go?” Lil Boy, his latest installment, is perhaps Rabit’s deepest exploration of that hypothesis, veering away from Screw’s direct sonic influence. Ivorian Doll’s “Big Booty” and “Rumours” verses get reimagined as distorted drill (the latter features a flip of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl,” and even if you’re sick of hearing Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s version, this new one feels fresh), and the most addictive track by far is “Come To Mommy,” a bonkers edit of Aphex Twin’s “Come To Daddy” that matches the pace of Queen Key’s barrelling bars. The spirit of Texas is still strong here, thanks to several appearances from S3nsi Molly and Lil Brook, who represent their home state to the fullest. “If you not from Texas, you taking our flow,” Lil Brook raps in her verse from 2019’s “Big Boss,” and it still feels true here. — Jordan Darville

Buy: Bandcamp

Justin R Cruz Gallego’s second album away from noise-psych band Dreamdecay and under his own initials comes with an exhaustive set of musical influences: Rudimentary Peni, Talking Heads, Oneohtrix Point Never, WAR, Wire, Miles Davis. He also namechecks the British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis, and after a few disorienting listens to G.R.I.M., that seems like the best way to read Gallego’s work. It’s explosive and expulsive, gnarled by Gallego’s roots in the Pacific Northwest’s punk scene and twisted by his years of experimenting. Tracks like “Dogear” are insistent and confrontational, all swagger and gristle, while “Junk Corrido” is a full-on mescaline trip, a symphony of freeform synths and blissed-out digressions and voices on the verge of dissonance. That’s to say nothing of the closer, “World i,” a screwed-up krautrock jam that builds into a chaotic mountain of guitar noise. The press release from Sub Pop says that track hints at what it’s like to see Gallego live. Good sales pitch. — Alex Robert Ross

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Despite releasing a steady stream of self-released EPs and an entire album as Teen Daze over the past four years, Jamison Isaak’s main focus was Elegant Rhythms, an intimate full-length release about the ups-and-downs of his life. A more refined and grown-up version of his early sun-bleached chillwave sound, there’s still that sense of beachy nostalgic, bolstered by its blend of slick ‘80s synths and slinky ‘70s-style bass grooves. But Elegant Rhythms is far from what you’d call another vapid summer anthem, which becomes audible once the introspection and quiet doubt begin to creep into his voice. With Elegant Rhythms, Isaack bares all, giving us a brief glimpse into the grief, disappointment, and bitterness encroaching into his life. It just may not be immediately evident behind a curtain of suave sophistipop production. — Sandra Song

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

The second LP from beloved director David Lynch and his longtime collaborator Chrystabell is a tidepool of a record, each song ebbing as another flows in. Across a decade of recording and “experimental editing” sessions, the pair let their minds leak into one another and arrived at opposite poles of the same astral plane, where Chrystabell’s inclinations toward the bright and fantastical found a foil in Lynch’s dark strain of magical realism. The album opens with four almost-ambient cuts, all but one built entirely on languid synth swells. Amid these elements, Chrystabell is a cooing choir, circling her own tunes in halting harmony. Her approach shifts, if only slightly, in the two guitar tracks that follow: Over the James Hurley arpeggios of “Two Lovers Kiss” and the slowed Roadhouse shuffle of “The Answers to the Questions,” her vocal lines are more direct, though still containing their own, quieter convolutions. Things take a turn toward the sinister on “Reflections in a Blade,” where a Black Lodge filter renders Chrystabell’s increasingly urgent moans mostly incomprehensible above an ominous drone. “Dance of Light” hovers for a while in the interzone between angst and reverie, but the shadows clear on closing track “Sublime Eternal Love,” where we find ourselves in a wooded dreamscape, early morning sunlight poking through the trees. — Raphael Helfand

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp