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 Kesha, Nilüfer Yanya, Lazer Dim 700, Double Virgo, Rival Consoles, and the Reds, Pinks and Purples. 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.)
Kesha: . [Kesha]
Pronounced “period,” Kesha’s latest album is the first to be released on her new label, Kesha Records. The follow-up to 2023’s minimalist, Rick Rubin–produced Gag Order is a return to bright, bawdy, and blissfully dumb pop. Last year’s viral hit “Joyride” appears on the tracklist, as do 2024 single “Delusional,” country-fried T-Pain duet “Yippee-Ki-Yay.” (here in its solo version), and the hyperactively horny “Boy Crazy.” Kesha worked on . with Zhone, Madison Love, Nova Wav, and Pink Slip.
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Nilüfer Yanya: Dancing Shoes EP [Ninja Tune]
Nilüfer Yanya’s last album, the lush and laidback My Method Actor, came out just last year. Her new Dancing Shoes EP, made with longtime creative partner Wilma Archer, can be seen as a companion piece; Yanya wrote and recorded most of the new set of songs when she returned home from touring the LP. The four songs here include “Cold Heart” and “Where to Look,” both colored with the London singer-songwriter’s signature smoky voice and searing guitar riffs.
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Lazer Dim 700: Sins Aloud [self-released]
Atlanta rapper Lazer Dim 700 is back with his second project in less than a year: Sins Aloud follows Keepin’ It Cloudy from late 2024. Production-wise, the 18-track release is a bit more relaxed than we’ve come to expect from the artist. But one thing that Lazer Dim 700 maintains is his slightly delirious, tongue-twisted flow, which he deploys with full force on tracks like “Fukk Goin On,” “Upfye,” and “Opps N Kamole.”
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Double Virgo: Shakedown [Year0001]
Aside from sharing the single “Cowbella” last month, the members of Bar Italia seem to be keeping busy with their respective side projects. Singer-guitarists Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton, in particular, have lately maintained a prolific output as Double Virgo, sharing the 36-track Hardrive Heat Seeking in 2023 and compilation Greatest Hits in 2024. Shakedown—the duo’s first album for Swedish label Year0001—taps into aughts indie stalwarts like Franz Ferdinand and Interpol for a collection of shout-alongs where, per the album bio, “stark truths are revealed in what seems to be frivolous throw-away statements.”
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Rival Consoles: Landscape From Memory [Erased Tapes]
Landscape From Memory is the ninth studio album from Ryan Lee West, the London electronic musician better known as Rival Consoles. Following a period of creative stasis, West’s new album took shape when he rediscovered some discarded audio snippets, eventually settling them amid artful synthesizer vistas, layered guitar work, and club-influenced rhythms. The follow-up to 2022’s Now Is includes the euphoric “Catherine” (dedicated to West’s partner) and the shapeshifting “Coda.”
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The Reds, Pinks and Purples: The Past Is a Garden I Never Fed [Fire]
The Past Is a Garden I Never Fed, the new album from Glenn Donaldson’s indie-rock project the Reds, Pinks and Purples, is just a taste of what the songwriter has been creating over the last six years. The LP spans 14 songs, but Donaldson has penned over 200 in the period. The album includes dour jangle- and dream-pop ballads with excellent titles like “The World Doesn’t Need Another Band,” “I Only Ever Wanted to See You Fail,” and “Slow Torture of an Hourly Wage.” “What about those childhood dreams/Crushed by indie label pyramid schemes?” Donaldson sings on that last single. Fans of the Cure and Morrissey take note.
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