REC 01
Standing on the Corner
Gimmie My Gun
♪ experimental hip-hop / avant-soul collageOff Standing on the Corner II, Gio Escobar's outfit oscillates between gospel keys and blistering guitar solos, part of a heat check that trades accessibility for creative entropy. Their distorted mix of jazz, hip-hop, soul, funk, and spoken word delivers dispatches from a crumbling society where Black and Brown folks pick up the pieces, moving through samples like expert collagists.
REC 02
Benny Blanco + Bb trickz
"Joven y Salvaje"
A simple repeating melodic figure sits over a house-inspired beat while Trickz (last seen on Charli XCX's Brat remix album) delivers verses on the recklessness of youth: "Young and wild / I haven't slept, and it's a Tuesday." Jake Schreier's video moves her through minimalist white space into racing gear before the room erupts in fireworks. A preview of Blanco's fourth album, Hermoso.
REC 03
Kiyasume
silent
♪ experimental bedroom popThe bedroom artist, who died earlier this year, was working on silent before her passing. Where her catalog favored sparse voice-and-guitar 'negative pop songs,' these introduce experimental electronic touches: discombobulation on the jittery 'Wakaranai Koto,' glossy synthesized strings on 'Karaapo.' A gorgeous, bittersweet document of being caught between life and death.
REC 04
Hector & The Malcouns
Ka Rica-Tar
♪ afro-funk / jazzA Munich-based group whose record feels birthed out of the Ethiopian synth-funk lineage, with Western jazz players moving toward the afro-sound. Dinner Music slots it into a run of exile-adjacent grooves that bridge community traditions and studio craft.
REC 05
Four Tet
☼⃝☼⃝◉ ҉⃝O◉◖ƪ❍⊁◞..◟⊀...
The latest dispatch from Kieran Hebden's unpronounceable Wingdings alias, born as a workaround to sneak untraceable loosies onto his 192-hour Spotify playlist. Where 2024's Three ran downbeat, this keeps tempos brisk: half the tracks skate atop house and UK garage grooves. Track five, a crowd-stoking anthem built on modular whorls and an 'I've got feelings' hook lifted from Britney's 'I'm a Slave 4 U,' defines contemporary UK house at its most pleasing, while the opener's slow unfurling against zithers and heartbeats marks his most explicit engagement with Indian music since Morning/Evening.
REC 06
Gangrene
Better Than McDonald's
♪ underground hip-hopShatter the Standards frames the Alchemist and Oh No's Gangrene as the place loops get chosen on the basis of how ugly they are, the pair rapping stoned, angry, and pleased with themselves over samples no sane producer would give a client. It's the deliberate inverse of the smoothed-over daytime client work both men leave at the door.
REC 07
FATHERS
STUB
The grooviest cut on the self-titled Blue Note debut from the trio of Kiefer, CARRTOONS, and Nate Smith, where synths whirl over keys, drums, and bass in synchronous flow. Recorded in roughly 48 hours of improvised sessions with Kenny Beats as producer and creative director at his Putnam Hill studio.
REC 08
Kelela
new avatar
Kelela's most accomplished record yet, complementing her genre-splicing adventurism with a new sense of lightness and self-assurance. The opener "idea 1" leaps from downtempo meditation to space-age hymn on quicksilver guitars and skyscraping harmonies, while shoegaze textures from her D.C. indie years resurface across "linknb" and "crystalize." "don't piss me off" foregrounds UKG's slippery low-end with new confidence, and guests like PinkPantheress and AK Paul open up space that suits her.
REC 09
RAYE
Who Knows Where the Time Goes
♪ Pop / Jazz-PopThe Gig singles out RAYE's Montreux opener, a cover of Sandy Denny's 1966 song, delivered with power and pliability and a steady command of dramatic tension and tonal shading. Her Nina Simone name-check elides the more complicated history of that 1976 set, but the vocal itself justifies extending grace.
