Things are crazy, but hopefully you haven’t abandoned new music just yet. The variance in releases from today’s New Music Friday is arguably just as chaotic, but in a good way. Today brings covers albums from singer/songwriter Dana Gavanski, Chicago band Whitney and synth-pop artist Black Marble, plus highly anticipated albums from Young Jesus, Burna Boy and Kathleen Edwards. Spanning improvisational rock, electric blues, nu-metal-infused pop and more, there’s something here for you. Scroll down for 10 essential new albums out today.
1. Black Marble: I Must Be Living Twice
Black Marble, the project of Brooklyn synth-pop artist Chris Stewart, has shared a new covers EP featuring songs by Wire, Robert Palmer, The Field Mice, Grouper and Lives of Angels. It’s the follow-up to his fantastic 2019 album Bigger Than Life. “I’ve always loved the cover song aspect of live performance,” Stewart says. “Most musicians are fans first and covers are a way for bands to show this. They can add an improvisational tone to an otherwise rehearsed feeling set, and give a sense that songs are owned not only by the people who write them but by the fans that know them and the other musicians that take influence from them.” —Lizzie Manno
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2. Burna Boy: Twice as Tall
Nigerian singer/songwriter Burna Boy has shared the follow-up to his 2019 album African Giant, which was nominated for Best World Music Album at the Grammys. His fourth studio album Twice as Tall was executive produced by Burna Boy, Diddy and Bosede Ogulu, and features appearances from Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Stormzy, Youssou N’Dour and Naughty by Nature. It was mostly recorded in Lagos during lockdown and also includes production credits from Timbaland, Mike Dean and more. —Lizzie Manno
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3. Dana Gavanski: Wind Songs
Serbian-Canadian singer/songwriter Dana Gavanski has shared a covers EP titled Wind Songs, which follows her debut album Yesterday Is Gone from earlier this year. She takes on songs by King Crimson, Chic, Tim Hardin and more in this collection of soothing, breathy folk and lounge pop. —Lizzie Manno
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4. Eric Slick: Wiseacre
Philly’s Eric Slick—drummer for Dr. Dog—has shared his new solo album Wiseacre, which arrived with the lead single “When It Comes Down To It.” “When It Comes Down To It” is simple and meditative, floating and sparkling with dreamy atmospherics. Exploring newfound love, Wiseacre is a flash of brightness after his darker, more introspective album Palisades. —Danielle Chelosky
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5. Fantastic Negrito: Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?
Grammy winning-artist Fantastic Negrito, aka Xavier Dphrepaulezz, has shared his latest album Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?—the follow-up to 2018’s Please Don’t Be Dead. Negrito’s music has always stemmed from quintessential forms of American music—electric blues, soul and rock ‘n’ roll—but Negrito expands his gruff roots music on this new LP. Songs with hip-hop beats sit alongside gospel and funk-infused rock tunes as well as bubbly R&B tracks. The album also features E-40 and Tarriona “Tank” Ball from Tank and the Bangas. —Lizzie Manno
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6. Kathleen Edwards: Total Freedom
Kathleen Edwards always could write. The Canadian singer was spinning emotionally complex stories into compelling country-tinged rock songs while she was still in her teens, and for a while there, her vivid imagination and skill at evoking scenes and feelings outpaced her lived experience. By the time she released Voyageur in 2012, life had caught up, as it tends to do, and her fourth album was an excellent collection of songs about second thoughts that she wrote while her marriage was falling apart. By 2014, as the stress of a mid-level life in music increasingly weighed her down, Edwards ducked out from under her career anxiety for a while to open a coffee shop in her hometown near Ottawa and refocus her mental, physical and emotional energy. Total Freedom, her first new album in eight years, proves the break did her good. Edwards is sharp here as she runs through a wide range of emotions on songs with a strong, lived-in feel that wasn’t always there when she was younger. —Eric R. Danton
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7. Orville Peck: Show Pony
Orville Peck has shared a new EP titled Show Pony, originally set for release on June 12, but delayed to show support for the Black Lives Matter protests. The EP includes “No Glory in the West,” which made appearances in the masked singer’s live shows earlier this year and follows his last single, “Summertime” from early April. Peck’s EP offers six tracks, including a collaboration with country-pop icon Shania Twain on “Legends Never Die.” —Jack Meyer
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8. Poppy: I Disagree (More)
Poppy, the enigmatic musician and ominous YouTube persona, has shared a deluxe version of her 2020 album I Disagree. Titled I Disagree (More), the album features four new tracks: “If It Bleeds,” “Bleep Bloop,” “Khaos x4” and “Don’t Ask.” The LP itself is hard to pin down—high-pitched pop intermingles with nu-metal riffs and harsh electro-industrial passages. —Lizzie Manno
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9. Whitney: Candid
Chicago duo Whitney are getting into the business of cover songs. Following their 2019 album Forever Turned Around, Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakaceck have shared an album of covers called Candid, out now on Secretly Canadian. They marked the initial news with the release of their take on The Roches’ “Hammond Song,” from the folk band’s 1979 self-titled album. Candid also features other covers of artists like Kelela, David Byrne and SWV. —Ellen Johnson
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10. Young Jesus: Welcome to Conceptual Beach
Los Angeles-based band Young Jesus have shared their new album, Welcome to Conceptual Beach, via Saddle Creek, which follows 2018’s The Whole Thing Is Just There. They do a lot with just seven tracks—their improvisational jams span jazz, math rock and haunting folk-rock, but nothing is set in stone. It’s blissfully conscious and unconscious, and at times, they sound more like conjurers than musicians. Their abstract, impressionistic lyrics heighten the beautiful recklessness of their music. —Lizzie Manno
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