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The year is at its midway mark, which means there’s still a good deal of new music still to come. Grab your swimsuit and took a look at 37 new releases to anticipate in the coming months. (As of May 21, all release dates have been confirmed. But as usual, everything is subject to change.)
100 gecs: 10000 gecs
100 gecs’ Laura Les and Dylan Brady are set to return this year with the follow-up to their breakthrough 2019 album 1000 gecs. The new one, called 10000 gecs, is set to include the new single “MeMeMe” and “Doritos & Fritos.” According to a recent feature, the album will showcase the artists as they ease up on Auto-Tune, though not absurdity—look forward to a song called “Doritos and Fritos.” Read Pitchfork’s Cover Story “This Is Your Brain on 100 gecs.” –Evan Minsker
Adrian Quesada: Boleros Psicodélicos
Adrian Quesada, the guitarist, producer, and Black Pumas co-founder, pays tribute to the Latin America balada music from the late 1960s and early ’70s with Boleros Psicodélicos. The record includes appearances from iLe, Gabriel Garzón-Montano, Girl Ultra, Angelica Garcia, Gaby Moreno and more. In addition to original compositions by Quesada, the album features covers of balada classics including La Lupe’s “Puedes Decir de Mí” and Jeanette’s “El Muchacho de Los Ojos Tristes.” –Quinn Moreland
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The Afghan Whigs: How Do You Burn?
In September, the Afghan Whigs will release their ninth album, How Do You Burn? The group’s first album in five years—following 2017’s In Spades—features contributions from a series of familiar faces: Susan Marshall, who sang on the Whigs album 1965; Van Hunt, who toured with the band in 2012 and appeared on Do to the Beast; Marcy Mays, who sang on “My Curse” off 1993’s Gentlemen; and the late Mark Lanegan, who performed in Dulli’s Twilight Singers and the Gutter Twins, and sings backup on two tracks. According to Dulli, it was Lanegan who picked the album’s title. –Quinn Moreland
Angel Olsen: Big Time
Country music is a good fit for Angel Olsen, who writes of the highs and lows of temptation, heartbreak, sin, and redemption. She looks to the genre on her new album’s loose, lightly twangy singles “All the Good Times” and “Big Time.” The record, Big Time, is a satisfying twist for Olsen, who remains a force with her inimitable voice and unique insight into the human heart. –Allison Hussey
Bartees Strange: Farm to Table
Bartees Strange’s follow-up to his debut 2020 LP, Live Forever, is also his first record for the storied British indie 4AD. A genre-busting jaunt through pop punk, R&B, indie rock, hip-hop, emo, and country, Farm to Table features the early single “Hold the Line,” written for George Floyd’s daughter, and “Tours,” an acoustic lament that ruminates on the loneliness Strange felt when his service-member parents would leave home on tours of duty. Read Pitchfork’s profile “He’s Just Bartees Strange, Baby.” –Matthew Ismael Ruiz
Beabadoobee: Beatopia
The British ’90s alt-rock revivalist Beabadoobee welcomes listeners back into her world with a new album called Beatopia. Pronounced “Bay-A-Toe-Pee-Uh,” the record is 14 tracks long and includes a collaboration with PinkPantheress titled “Tinkerbell Is Overrated.” The follow-up to 2020’s Fake It Flowers was led by “Talk,” and Beabadoobee said the single is about “doing things that aren’t necessarily healthy or great for you but you can’t help indulging.” Rest assured, listening to Beabadoobee qualifies as healthy and good for you. –Quinn Moreland
Black Midi: Hellfire
Hellfire, the UK group Black Midi’s third record for Rough Trade was written while isolating in London after releasing 2021’s Cavalcade. Hellfire is led by the single “Welcome to Hell,” which explores the horrors and excesses of war. “If Cavalcade was a drama, Hellfire is like an epic action film,” the band’s Geordie Greep said in a statement. Revisit Pitchfork’s 2019 Rising interview “Get to Know Black Midi, a New Type of British Guitar Band.” –Quinn Moreland
BTS: Proof
BTS are celebrating their ninth anniversary as a group with the release of Proof, the K-pop titans’ first anthology collection. The three-disc set includes many of the group’s biggest hits, plus deep cuts, demos, and a few previously unreleased tracks. “The BTS anthology album that embodies the history of BTS will be released as they begin a new chapter,” the group’s management company said of the compilation. “The anthology album Proof... reflect[s] the thoughts and ideas of the members on the past, present and future of BTS.” –Eric Torres
Built to Spill: When the Wind Forgets Your Name
It’s been seven years since Built to Spill last released an album of original music. Doug Martsch and the rest of his indie rock band will return soon with When the Wind Forgets Your Name, their Sub Pop debut and the follow-up to 2015’s Untethered Moon and their 2020 covers record Built to Spill Plays the Songs of Daniel Johnston. Martsch mixed the album himself with help from Lê Almeida, João Casaes, and Josh Lewis. If lead single “Gonna Lose” is any indication of what to expect, fans are in for more of the band’s trademark fuzzy hooks and burning guitar solos. –Nina Corcoran
Burna Boy: Love, Damini
On stage at the iconic Madison Square Garden for his One Night in Space performance, Burna Boy became the first Nigerian artist to headline the venue and, in the midst, announced his next album Love, Damini. This next record will come on the heels of his Grammy-winning 2020 record Twice as Tall, which further cemented his status as a global popstar. In the time in between albums he’s remained extremely active, releasing singles like “Kilometre” and “Want it All” and popping up on remixes such as Asake’s “Sungba” and Black Sherif’s “Second Sermon.” –Alphonse Pierre
Cardi B
Another year came and went without another Cardi B album, and, though she’s teased fans with singles like “Up” and “Bet It,” she still hasn’t announced any new info about when her next full-length is set to appear. After last year’s appearances on summertime pop singles from Lizzo and Normani, Cardi has more recently flexed her Bronx bona fides alongside Kay Flock, DougieB, and Bory300 on the drill track “Shake It.” She’d noted that her “little 15 minutes lasting long as hell” on “I Do,” and she’s probably still laughing. –Allison Hussey
Danger Mouse & Black Thought: Cheat Codes
Cheat Codes is the long-awaited joint album from Danger Mouse and Black Thought. It is led by the song “No Gold Teeth” and features guests including A$AP Rocky, Run the Jewels, the late MF Doom, Michael Kiwanuka, and more. Cheat Codes arrives after Black Thoughts’ recent solo trilogy, Streams of Thought, and is Danger Mouse’s first hip-hop record since his 2005 collaboration with MF Doom, Danger Doom. –Quinn Moreland
Florist: Florist
Let’s clear up some confusion about Florist: 1) It is a band composed of Emily Sprague, Jonnie Baker, Rick Spataro, and Felix Walworth. 2) Yes, technically Sprague released a solo album under the moniker, 2019’s gut wrenching Emily Alone. 3) The project’s self-titled fourth album is both full-length and full-band. The foursome recorded the 19-track album in June 2019 while holed up in a rental house in New York’s Hudson Valley. “We called it Florist because this is not just my songs with a backing band,” Sprague says. “It’s a practice. It’s a collaboration. It’s our one life. These are my best friends and the music is the way that it is because of that.” –Quinn Moreland
Grimes: Book 1
Since releasing her long-awaited fifth album Miss Anthropocene in 2020, Grimes has been hard at work on an epic space opera called Book 1. She teased the project earlier this year after sharing the one-off single “Shinigami Eyes” and announcing her next EP, Fairies Cum First, which was billed as a “prelude” to Book 1. Grimes discussed her forthcoming LP—and some other things—in a recent chat with Vanity Fair. According to the interview, Grimes’ 15-track “fairycore” album is set in the distant future, and contains as yet unreleased tracks like “Marie Antoinette 2077,” “100% Tragedy,” and “Sci-Fi,” which she wrote with the Weeknd and his producer Illangelo. –Madison Bloom
Hollie Cook: Happy Hour
British musician Hollie Cook co-produced Happy Hour—her follow-up to 2018’s Vessel of Love—with her General Roots band members Ben Mckone and Luke Allwood and executive producer Youth. “Making this music that I love, I do turn deep inside myself,” Cook said in a press statement. “It makes me explore a lot of human truths and feelings that we should not shy away from, and it feels like a release to turn them into songs.” –Quinn Moreland
Hot Chip: Freakout/Release
Freakout/Release is the first full-length in three years from electronic outfit Hot Chip. The London band recorded its eighth album at the Relax & Enjoy Studio in East London and has shared the first single “Down,” which samples Universal Togetherness Band’s “More Than Enough.” The follow-up to 2019’s A Bath Full of Ecstasy features contributions from Cadence Weapon, Soulwax, and Lou Hayter. –Eric Torres
Interpol: The Other Side of Make-Believe
Cooked up in London with Alan Moulder and Flood, The Other Side of Make-Believe is Interpol’s seventh studio album. Frontman Paul Banks took enough time away from Muzz—his band with Josh Kaufman and Matt Barrick—to record Interpol’s follow-up to 2018’s Marauder; it features early singles “Toni,” “Something’s Changed,” and “Fables,” which Banks described as “evocative of classic R&B with a nod to the golden age of hip hop.” –Matthew Ismael Ruiz
Jack White: Entering Heaven Alive
It’s already been a wild year for Jack White, and that’s not only because he’s single-handedly trying to get major labels to start pouring money into the vinyl pressing business. Almost immediately after the release of his recent album Fear of the Dawn, he played a hometown concert in Detroit where he got engaged and surprise-married on stage. This summer, with all that behind him, he’s putting out a second album featuring the singles “Love Is Selfish” and “Queen of the Bees.” –Evan Minsker
Joan Shelley: The Spur
The cozy embrace of time at home with a growing new family inspired “The Spur,” the lead track to Joan Shelley’s first studio LP since 2019’s Like the River Loves the Sea. Shelley’s tunes have always felt like warm, empathetic dispatches, but here, she expands on her acoustic-guitar foundation. Her fuller band arrangements, which feature contributions from Meg Baird, Nathan Salsburg, and producer James Elkington, abet the Kentucky singer-songwriter in pushing her songs toward stirring emotional ends. Bill Callahan joins Shelley singing on “Amberlit Morning,” a dreamy duet that puts his velvety baritone and her clear lilt in exquisite complement. –Allison Hussey
Joyce Manor: 40 oz. to Fresno
California pop-punks Joyce Manor are gearing up to release 40 oz. to Fresno, their first new album in four years. The follow-up to 2018’s Million Dollars to Kill Me is produced by Rob Schnapf, who previously worked with the band on Cody, and features Motion City Soundtrack’s Tony Thaxton on drums. The album title is a play on Sublime’s 1992 classic 40 oz. to Freedom that the band lifted from an auto-corrected text message. That tongue-in-cheek spirit can be heard on “Gotta Let It Go,” the album’s youthful lead single that harkens back to Joyce Manor’s early days. –Nina Corcoran
Julia Jacklin: Pre Pleasure
Three years after her breakthrough, Crushing, Julia Jacklin will return with a new record. Pre Pleasure is Jacklin’s third album and is led by the single “Lydia Wears a Cross.” Jacklin recorded the album in Montreal alongside co-producer Marcus Paquin. “For the first time I stepped away from the guitar, and wrote a lot of the album on the Roland keyboard in my apartment in Montreal with its inbuilt band tracks,” Jacklin said in a press statement. “I blu-tacked reams of butcher paper to the walls, covered in lyrics and ideas, praying to the music gods that my brain would arrange everything in time.” Revisit Pitchfork’s Rising interview “Julia Jacklin Was Finally Breaking Beyond Australia’s Indie Rock Scene. Then the Pandemic Hit.” –Quinn Moreland
Katie Alice Greer: Barbarism
Barbarism is the debut solo LP from former Priests lead singer Katie Alice Greer. The new record follows Greer’s trio of solo EPs: Freaky 57, 3 Colors, and No One Else on Earth. She announced her upcoming album earlier this year, sharing lead single “FITS/My Love Can’t Be.” Greer also released a music video for the track that she directed, produced, and edited herself. The glitchy clip spoofs vintage news broadcasts, with Greer starring as every character. –Madison Bloom
Lizzo: Special
Special is the follow-up to Lizzo’s 2019 breakout LP Cuz I Love You. The singer announced the album last month with the release of “About Damn Time,” which she issued with a Christian Breslauer–directed music video partially set in a “Stressed & Sexy” support group. “‘About Damn Time’ can lead into so many conversations,” Lizzo told Zane Lowe following the single’s release. “It’s about damn time I feel better, it’s about damn time we get out this pandemic. It’s about damn time we to get the first Black female Supreme Court Justice. There’s so many things. It’s about damn time we popped the champagne. It’s about damn time the tequila got here.” Last summer, Lizzo dropped her Cardi B collaboration “Rumors,” marking her first new track in over two years. It is currently unclear whether or not the song will appear on Special. –Madison Bloom
Maggie Rogers: Surrender
Surrender is Maggie Rogers’ follow-up to her 2019 debut Heard It in a Past Life. Rogers recorded the LP at New York’s famous Electric Lady Studios, Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios near Bath, England, and in her parents’ garage. She announced the record with an album trailer and accompanying poem. More recently, Rogers released lead single “That’s Where I Am,” which arrived with a music video featuring cameos from pals David Byrne and Hamilton Leithauser. –Madison Bloom
Nick Cave: Seven Psalms
During lockdown, Nick Cave wrote a series of psalms, one a day for a week. Cave and his longtime collaborator Warren Ellis set those seven spoken-word pieces to music and will be releasing them under the title Seven Psalms. “The seven psalms are presented as one long meditation—on faith, rage, love, grief, mercy, sex and praise,” Cave wrote in a statement. “A veiled, contemplative offering borne of an uncertain time.” The B-side of the album features a 12-minute instrumental piece recorded during the sessions that produced 2021’s Carnage. –Quinn Moreland
Normani
Normani has taken her time with the rollout for her first solo record, sharing her attention-grabbing debut “Motivation” in 2019 before recruiting Cardi B for the slinky, luxurious “Wild Side” last July. She’s delivered those two powerhouse singles with stunning choreography and eye-popping visuals—full-suite treatments that bode well for anything else on the way. She’s nodded to titans like Janet Jackson and Aaliyah as she’s developed her own lane, maintaining a hold as one of the most promising young forces in the pop landscape. And, just last week, she shared another new track, “Fair.” –Allison Hussey
Perfume Genius: Ugly Season
Ugly Season follows Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, Mike Hadreas’ stunning 2020 entry as Perfume Genius. Hadreas reunited with producer Blake Mills for the new album, which comprises songs he wrote for The Sun Still Burns Here, an immersive dance piece made with choreographer Kate Wallich. The new LP includes two previously-released songs from the performance: “Eye in the Wall” and “Pop Song.” In addition to the 10-track record, Hadreas will issue an accompanying short film created by visual artist Jacolby Satterwhite—the director of Solange’s film When I Get Home. “My visual narrative serendipitously mirrors the lyrical direction in his music,” Satterwhite said of the short in press materials. “It’s a creation myth. How do you architecturally mold and render an idealized version of utopia? It’s about making something that you desire so beyond your scope that it’s hard to grapple into a concrete form.” –Madison Bloom
Post Malone: Twelve Carat Toothache
It’s been three long years since Post Malone’s last album, Hollywood’s Bleeding and the Posties are hungry. Their cravings will hopefully be satiated by a new album called Twelve Carat Toothache. Post Malone’s fourth studio album will include his single with the Weekend, “One Right Now.” Malone also revealed that the album will feature collaborations with Doja Cat, the Kid Laroi, Roddy Rich, and Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold, with whom he performed “Love/Hate Letter to Alcohol” on Saturday Night Live. –Quinn Moreland
The Range: Mercury
The Range, the electronic project of James Hinton, is gearing up to release Mercury, his first new album in six years. The follow-up to 2016’s Potential includes the singles “Relegate,” “Bicameral,” “Urethane,” and “Ricercar.” In a statement, Hinton explained that the latter track is one of many in which he edits lyrics as a way “to say something that [he] would never be able to say out loud.” The Range promises, once again, to play around with a wide range of samples on Mercury, from a reworked “Chief Kamanawanalea” break by the Turtles to UK grime artist MIK’s track “Ice Rink.” –Nina Corcoran
Regina Spektor: Home, before and after
New York avant-pop singer-songwriter Regina Spektor hasn’t put out an album since 2016’s Remember Us to Life. After announcing a new box set edition of her debut, 11:11, the singer-songwriter unveiled Home, before and after, which arrives this summer. Spektor recorded and co-produced the LP in upstate New York with producer John Congleton and has shared two singles from the album so far: the piano ballad “Becoming All Alone” and the experimental pop song “Up the Mountain.” –Eric Torres
Soccer Mommy: Sometimes, Forever
Soccer Mommy has built anticipation for her third album, Sometimes, Forever, with the singles “Shotgun,” “Unholy Affliction,” and “Bones.” The new album was produced by Oneohtrix Point Never architect Daniel Lopatin— a collaboration that Sophie Allison originally believed to be a pipe dream but it turned out that Lopatin was a fan of Color Theory. –Alphonse Pierre
Stella Donnelly: Flood
Following her 2019 debut, Beware of the Dogs, Australian songwriter Stella Donnelly will be releasing a new album titled Flood. Led by the single “Lungs,” Donnelly’s album was born from a period of transience that found her moving frequently. During this period, she became interested in birdwatching; a flock of Banded Stilts adorn the cover, their black and white frames forming an abstract mass. Donnelly’s commune with nature allowed her to “lose that feeling of anyone’s reaction to [her],” she wrote in a statement. “I forgot who I was as a musician, which was a humbling experience of just being; being my small self.” –Quinn Moreland
Sun’s Signature: Sun’s Signature EP
In the past decade, Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser has slowly become more and more of a visible presence in music. She put out records in collaboration with Oneohtrix Point Never and Jónsi, played some Massive Attack shows, and scored some TV series. Sun’s Signature, the new project from Fraser and her partner Damon Reece, is the first release of music that’s been gestating in one form or another for a long time. “Underwater” is the name of a single she released in 2000, while others have been performed live. “Golden Air” marked the first proper introduction to the project. –Evan Minsker
SZA
Ever since SZA dropped her breakout album Ctrl in 2017, we’ve been impatiently waiting for the next one. But the immediate future just brought big collaborations: A song with Kendrick Lamar for the Black Panther cut “All the Stars,” another with the Weeknd and Travis Scott for the Game of Thrones track “Power Is Power,” and, unfortunately (but inevitably), a Maroon 5 single. Her first single as a lead artist since 2017 didn’t arrive until 2020, when she dropped the Neptunes-produced “Hit Different” (featuring Ty Dolla $ign) and “Good Days.” Earlier that year, she insinuated that Top Dawg Entertainment had been holding up the release of her new music, and, in 2021, SZA self-released three tracks—“Nightbird,” “Joni,” and “I Hate You”— via an anonymous SoundCloud account. She issued the latter on official platforms months later, after a fresh string of collaborations, “Kiss Me More,” “Fue Mejor,” and “No Love,” to name a few. –Madison Bloom
Tim Heidecker: High School
Tim Heidecker might be the busiest man in showbiz. The comic, actor, musician, and fake film critic seems to draw from an endless well of material. His latest endeavor is High School, a forthcoming 10-track album that the polymath produced alongside Drew Erickson, Eric D. Johnson, and Mac DeMarco. Last month, Heidecker detailed High School, which boasts an appearance from Kurt Vile on a track called “Sirens of Titan.” He also dropped the breezy lead single “Buddy.” The new LP follows Heidecker’s 2020 full-length Fear of Death, which featured Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering, the Lemon Twigs, Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado, and others. –Madison Bloom
Ty Segall: “Hello, Hi”
Prolific rocker Ty Segall is gearing up for another album. “Hello, Hi” follows last year’s Harmonizer and 2019’s First Taste. Segall largely self-recorded the LP at his California home. He shared the album’s title track last month and revealed the tracklist, which features song titles like “Cement,” “Saturday Pt. 1,” and, naturally, “Saturday Pt. 2.” In between Harmonizer and “Hello, Hi”, Segall released his soundtrack for Whirlybird, a 2020 documentary from Matt Yoka. –Madison Bloom
Yaya Bey: Remember Your North Star
Yaya Bey’s music is R&B at its core, but with elements of neo-soul, rap, reggae, and jazz. Bey wrote and produced her new album, Remember Your North Star, with some help from Phony Ppl’s Aja Grant and DJ Nativesun. The album follows her 2020 project Madison Tapes and 2021 EP The Things I Can’t Take With Me. –Alphonse Pierre
