New Music Friday: Stream projects from Orion Sun, Spresso, and more

Stream every standout album released this Friday with The FADER’s weekly roundup.

September 20, 2024
New Music Friday: Stream projects from Orion Sun, Spresso, and more Orion Sun. Photo by Linus Johnson.  

Every Friday, The FADER's writers dive into the most exciting new projects released that week. Today, read our thoughts on Orion Sun's Orion, Spresso's Pretty Penny Slur, Honeyglaze's Real Deal, and more.

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Orion Sun: Orion
New Music Friday: Stream projects from Orion Sun, Spresso, and more

Discussing her then-new EP Getaway with The FADER in 2022, Orion Sun called it a “stepping stone” to where she wanted to take her polysonic songwriting in the future. Two years later, her new full-length Orion shows us what that looks like. The new record nods at the contemporary sound of post-Frank Ocean R&B (melodies coated in lysergic-neon trails, starkly personal lyrics, and a holistic approach to genre) without getting lost in it. Orion Sun’s ambition is grander, her identity more confident on Orion: on “Mary Jane,” she crafts a blues-via-Liz Phair’s Girlysound era ode to herb, the scattered plunderphonic-reminscent production of the lovelorn “Nights Like This.” “These Days,” another personal favorite, glides on bossa nova guitar and cinematic strings as Orion Sun sings of surrender and the myth of Icarus. It’s the song where she sings of struggling to “keep my head above water,” the same losing battle depicted on the album’s cover. Orion Sun is consistently looking for escape throughout the project: from her circumstances, from her state of mind, from herself. The songs themselves feel like keys she’s crafted in a desperate attempt to escape some prison; they may not unlock that door, but they have helped release one of the year’s most engaging R&B projects. — Jordan Darville

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

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Spresso: Pretty Penny Slur
New Music Friday: Stream projects from Orion Sun, Spresso, and more

Pretty Penny Slur is easily Spresso’s most fully realized universe yet, but it provides little in the way of resolution. It can feel at times like an incomplete thought or a half-baked plan, one that comes tantalizingly close to locking into place but never quite gets there. In the context of Mica Levi’s oeuvre, though, this frustrating effect feels less like the result of laziness or light trolling than the machinations of a master sculptor, one whose steps are illegible to anyone outside their mind, but whose final work will be unmistakable in the end. — Raphael Helfand. Read our full review here.

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Honeyglaze: Real Deal
New Music Friday: Stream projects from Orion Sun, Spresso, and more

London band Honeyglaze's second album is a lively and spiky collection of songs that hang off Anouska Sokolow's fevered vocals. She is coiled and seething on "Don't," laying down the law to an unruly partner and making space for herself by force ("I'm a person too you know I've got things to say I've got fucking feelings" she sings with venom on her tongue). This energy can be found elsewhere on the album, released via Fat Possum, with her bandmates putting muscle behind "Hide"'s fierce jabs and ensuring the swooning back half of the record soars in melancholy fashion. Real Deal sits comfortably alongside similarly thoughtful and punchy recent albums by fellow Brits English Teacher and The Last Dinner Party, but Honeyglaze stand out from the pack with their sharply-drawn character studies. The loneliness epidemic is explored through the role of a telemarketer on "Cold Caller," while "Pretty Girls" is a painfully accurate reconstruction of feeling awkward at a party. Sokolow's attention to detail, alongside her vulnerability, make for a jolting and thought-provoking listen. — David Renshaw

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Bright Eyes: Five Dice, All Threes
New Music Friday: Stream projects from Orion Sun, Spresso, and more

Conor Oberst released his first Bright Eyes record at 15, writing and recording contemplative songs about adolescent yearning, teenage heartbreak, and suburban angst from his parents’ basement in Omaha. Some of the songs were performed on a guitar with a palpable fury, while others used sweeping cinematic samples to convey a sense of urgency and melodrama. Far from the melancholy Americana indie he’d become famous for in his twenties, his debut was a curiosity-driven experiment inspired by Omaha’s indie scene and the rambunctious ‘80s pop-punk of bands like The Replacements. And with the help of The So So Glos’ Alex Orange Drink, Oberst has returned to his hooky, garage punk roots with the raw and raucous Five Dice, All Threes, an earnest and fun-loving album that pays homage to his lesser-known past. — Sandra Song

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

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Lutalo: The Academy
New Music Friday: Stream projects from Orion Sun, Spresso, and more

Lutalo’s debut record, The Academy, finds the Minnesota-raised, Vermont-based singer-songwriter searching for peace through songwriting and auto-fiction, set to fuzzy post-punk and folk. Combining elements of truth with their imagination as they process the memories of their family losing their house during the 2008 financial crash, The Academy is their way of processing what they couldn't understand as a kid. It's full of Bloc Party-era indie rock and some weirder experimental post-punk and Scott Pilgrim-influenced slacker; "3," which evokes the image of being asphyxiated by a noose as they lament about being "all tied up," is an album standout. — Cady Siregar. Read our full profile with the musician.

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Joan As Policewoman: Lemons, Limes, and Orchids
New Music Friday: Stream projects from Orion Sun, Spresso, and more

For the past two decades, Joan Wasser has released music that is sophisticated in tone and sturdy in its craft. Lemons, Limes, and Orchids, the tenth Joan As Policewoman album, continues this impressive body of work with a collection of late-night songs that begins with sparkly jazz-funk ("Back Again") before slowly dissolving into ambient textures ("Safe To Say"). Lyrically, Wasser zooms in and out of subjects close to her heart. On "Remember the Voice" she gets personal, rubbing blurry-eyed memories of New York until they take shape. "Long For Ruin," meanwhile, is a bird's eye view of an isolationist society slowly separating itself from compassion. In recent years, Wasser has worked largely in collaboration with others, releasing music with afrobeat drummer Tony Allen and joining Iggy Pop's live band. Lemons, Limes, and Orchids is the sound of her returning to a more direct form of communication, it's a comforting and soulful homecoming. — DR

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Other projects out today that you should listen to

Alan Licht: Havens
The Alchemist: The Genuine Articulate
Astrid Sonne: Edits
Blackstarkids: Saturn Dayz
Blu & Exile: Love (the) Ominous World
Bob Dylan & The Band: The 1974 Live Recordings
Bright Eyes: Five Dice, All Threes
Cher: Forever
claire rousay: sentiment remixes
Dialect: Atlas of Green
DJ Stingray 313: Industry 4.0 EP
Fleetwood Mac: Mirage Tour ’82 (Live)
FIDLAR: Surviving The Dream
Future: Mixtape Pluto
Galaxie 500: Uncollected Noise New York ’88-’90
Indigo De Souza: Wholesome Evil Fantasy
Jamie xx: In Waves
Jesse Malin: Silver Patron Saints
John Zorn: Hannigan Sings Zorn Vol. 2
Johnny Marr: Boomslang
Katy J Pearson: Someday, Now
Katy Perry: 143
Kito: BIMYOU EP
Lil Tecca: Plan A
Manu Chao: Viva Tu
MC Lyte: 1 of 1
Merzbow: Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance Vol. 2
more eaze: Lacuna and Parlor
Nelly Furtado: 7
Nubya Garcia: Odyssey
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Chain of Light
OT The Reak & Nickel Plated: Cost of Living
Pale Waves: Smitten
Panda Bear, Sonic Boom, and Mariachi Tenochtitlán de Heriberto Aceves: Reset Mariachi EP
Pearl & The Oysters: Planet Pearl
Pink Siifu: Got Food At The Crib’!!! Vol. 4
Regional Justice Center: Freedom Sweet Freedom
Sha EK: No Love
Starcleaner Reunion: Café Life
Sunset Rubdown: Always Happy to Explode
Tanukichan: Circles EP
Tasha: All This and So Much More
Thurston Moore: Flow Critical Lucidity
Tim Reaper & Kloke: In Full Effect
The Voidz: Like All Before You
The Waeve: City Lights
Uniform: Nightmare City
White Poppy: Ataraxia
Yseult: Mental

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New Music Friday: Stream projects from Orion Sun, Spresso, and more