10 new albums to stream today

Paste is the place to kick off every New Music Friday. We follow our regular roundups of the Best New Songs by highlighting the most compelling new records you need to hear. Find the best new albums of the week below.

Eartheater: Heavenly Body: If I’m The Bottle You’re The Message

For Alexandra Drewchin, pregnancy and childbirth have proved to be multilayered and universe-vast wells of inspiration from which to draw cosmic baroque and trip-hop compositions. The songs on Heavenly Bodies unfurl outwards and shift under Drewchin’s watchful eye and elastic voice, soaring through time and space with a boundless appetite for creation, the final product encompassing each step of the nonlinear journey that birthed it. “The earth’s been working up to you since the beginning of time,” she sings. Much like Eartheater herself, her latest album contains multitudes. —Grace Robins-Somerville [Chemical X/Mad Decent]

Gary Stewart: One Track Mind

One Track Mind is old, borrowed, and blue—a picture of Gary Stewart, clean-cut and new in town from Fort Pierce, Florida, taping demos for Cedarwood Records in Nashville. The songs were recorded between 1967 and 1972 but not officially released until now, and the album captures what Gary Stewart sounded like before he became Gary Stewart, author of “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Double)” and “Empty Glass.” This may be one of the recordings that convinced Roy Dea to sign Stewart to RCA. “Woman Will Tear the Heart Right Out of a Man” undeniably stands out as a prized, early-career rarity: a honky-tonk great before drugs and depression made him a honky-tonk Dracula. One Track Mind puts on display the voice of a twenty-something Appalachian boy scratching out a living on Music City’s songwriting circuit—a place where a Treasure Coast transplant like Stewart could thrive but never love. It’s a genuine country-music artifact that, as Stewart’s biographer Jimmy McDonough would put it, is “another rabbit coming out of the hat.” Stewart sings as if he has timelessness on speed dial, and music like this sounds like a prophet rejecting Babylonia. —Matt Mitchell [Delmore Recording Society]

Helado Negro / Reyna Tropical: Helado Tropical

To keep it incredibly short and sweet: Reyna Tropical is the South Texas-based project of guitarist/songwriter/producer Fabi Reyna, while Helado Negro is the stage name of Brooklyn resident Roberto Carlos Lange, who makes dreamy pop with a Latin spin. Together, the pair team up for the aptly titled Helado Tropical, which sees them cull together their collection of synthesizers for a breezy dose of subtle, beach-ready jams. Equal parts ambient, electronic, and pop with plenty of nods to their shared Latin American heritage, Helado Tropical is pretty, peaceful, and a damn good backdrop for lazy heat wave days. —Abby Jones [Psychic Hotline]

Max Subar: Anything Could Be

After a smattering of EPs and his work as the guitarist for Casey Gomez Walker’s Case Oats, Max Subar emerges with Anything Could Be, his unabashedly lovely, remarkably clear-eyed debut. The sounds on Anything Could Be are familiar: guitar patterns that guide a song, gently, from start to finish, the occasional thrum of an upright bass or high, wavering notes of a violin. The drums are particularly pleasing to the ear—provided by Subar’s brother Sam and Case Oats bandmate Spencer Tweedy, they keep each track ticking along with quiet, lilting rhythms. Most pervasive on this record is the feeling of space. Subar is creating space for himself, as well as observing the spaces around him: he ponders “indecision like sludge” on “As the Weather,” observing as he does how the “kettle whistles on the stovetop / with no one there to hear.” Many of Subar’s lyrics are simple but unexpected. Sometimes even he sounds surprised by them, as though he were feeling his way out of a dark room, touching objects and finding which are familiar and which are new. Still, the words dovetail elegantly with their musical arrangement. “I’m buried between the mud and the leaves,” he sings on “Cat at My Door,” almost chastising himself, “nobody can separate me.” But then: there’s the “cat at my door / won’t let me be.” As he sings of its “sweet cry,” an electric guitar squeals in and out, mimicking the same sound. Such clever sleights of hand litter Anything Could Be, and they give a feeling of real, close attention being paid by Subar. It is a warm, intelligent album, the kind that you put on in the next room and dip in and out of with pleasure. —Mariam Abdel-Razek [Merge]

Mock Media: Rat Bastard

If you’re looking for bouncy, riffy nu-wave and power pop to power you through the rest of the summer, look no further. Led by Garnet Aron of Crack Cloud, this Canadian rock group takes no detours on its way to punchy pop-rock immediacy. They’ve got clear forebears in bands like The Cars and DEVO, who take shiny, silly music seriously as hell, in case you couldn’t tell from their penchant for stern, doubled vocals and beats that are borderline militaristic in their stompy danceability. Next stop: Mock City. —Grace Robins-Somerville [Mac’s Record Label]

Nia Archives: Emotional Junglist

Nia Archives’ second record, Emotional Junglist, works as an extension of Silence Is Loud’s intention to rip it up and, as they say, start again, seeing the artist more fully expand the scope of sounds she’s willing to incorporate into her creative palette. The most notable difference, in this case, is the foregrounding of guitar, often paired with the frenetic beats that drive most Nia Archives tracks. Opener “Feelingz Go Numb” feels like the most successful merging of analog and synthetic sounds, matched with string samples, vocal loops, and a punky bassline to drive momentum. Its follow-up “Around Tha Bend” and penultimate track “Lovers Grief” also make use of the record’s more guitar-forward production, with the former riding on a surf-rock groove through its runtime. Despite the occasional bearing of teeth, Emotional Junglist is primarily a record of indie pop songs layered over Archives’ signature dancefloor-friendly production, documenting the ache of falling into and out of love from behind the DJ booth. —Elise Soutar [HIJINXX/Island]

Steve Lacy: Oh yeah?

It’s hard to believe Oh yeah? is only Steve Lacy’s third solo album. Over the past decade, the musician has left an indelible mark on R&B, one he makes all the more permanent on his latest effort. Silky and strange, funky and free, Oh yeah? is Lacy at his most self-possessed. “is it cool?” is disarmingly honest, like the stylings of his collaborator SZA, but it never loses Lacy’s signature sensual beats or vocal purrs: “Growing up has been so hard for me / I never learned how to love properly.” At other moments, Lacy’s self-reflection is more tongue-in-cheek: on “doom,” he smirks, “I found my head up my ass”; “show you me” is a bare-bones love song, a departure from the album’s experimentation that highlights Lacy’s pop sensibilities and his gift for bawdy balladry—some of the song’s lyrics I dare not write in this review. “I can show you me,” he promises over and over as the song fades out, buoyed by doo-wop a cappella beats. “lovesexdrugbomb” is sweaty and lip-biting, sliding fluidly along an ever-building groove with a scene-stealing guest spot from Montreal’s Cecile Believe. “nice shoes” is nine minutes shapeshifting from trip-hop into a kaleidoscope of Lacy’s skill. At risk of stating the obvious, it wears its Blonde influence happily. Oh yeah? is slippery, natural, and unmistakably Lacy. —Miranda Wollen [RCA]

Swapmeet: Mount Zero

A eunuch’s album Mount Zero is not. It’s more a record of virginity, if anything. Shockingly, I mean that positively: the desperate, hair-pulling fantasies spun by the band hearken back to somewhere prelapsarian. As the album progresses, it unravels the heartaches of youth, cracking open and bleeding into the disillusion of young adulthood. The LP that bears its name is an album of inaction itself: “It’s not like me to suggest / I wanna leave,” Elphick and O’Broin breathe back and forth on the title track. “Sand” is a product of that same halting fear, a Slow Pulp-y guitar burn that thrashes and flails as it barrels toward an angry descent. Many of the album’s songs climb a musical mountain themselves, starting tentatively then snowballing into a wall of sound. Mount Zero, at its best moments, captures the impossible yet seemingly eternal desires of the cusp of young adulthood. The album is one of contrafactual conditionals and unfulfilled desires, wants made impossible by the fears and needs that supersede them. —Miranda Wollen [Winspear]

Syd: Beard

However long we have to wait for The Internet’s next project, its individual members are keeping us sated in the meantime. Beard, the cheekily named third LP from Syd, is a dreamy, mature exploration of modern queer femininity. The winking “Callin,” all reverbed keys and sultry whispers, is quintessential Syd, complete with lip-biting ad-libs. “My Love” has a breezy, bossa-nova feel, sexy elevator music that lulls the listener into a rose-tinted daze. Album highlight “Always Be Mine,” featuring Jordan Ward, is fluid and hip-swaying; Syd skips and twirls over a sugar-sweet beat with all the confidence of a household name. She has always been arrestingly self-possessed, a purveyor of effortless confidence even as a rookie. On Beard, she marries that mastery to deeper vulnerability: on “Do Better,” a self-effacing number reminiscent of her sometime-bandmate Steve Lacy, Syd croons affectingly about her inability to provide what her romantic partners need emotionally. This song ushers in a heart-rending final half of the LP, one in which Syd reckons with her own romantic masochism and her desire to be loved. The result is polished and shimmery without becoming generic: on “2 Many Days,” the album’s dramatic closer, as she croons, “I don’t want this life for you / Gotta make it right with you,” you’re inclined to believe her. —Miranda Wollen [Free Lunch/Warner]

Yard Act: You’re Gonna Need a Little Music

Yard Act’s gruff, nihilistic brand of post-punk has made the foursome a favorite on the UK scene. On You’re Gonna Need A Little Music, their third record, the band cements its status as one of the decade’s most exciting rock groups. “Empty Pledges” spirals into madness, frontman James Smith spitting and seething as a wall of guitars and anxious drumbeats bears down on the listener. Smith twists the threads of history on “Tall Tales,” a jazzy, off-kilter number propelled by a jaunty piano. It’s followed immediately by “Fiction,” a bouncing, punchy polemic laid over a twitchy, Talking Heads-esque groove. The title track plays like a Harry Styles song from the Upside Down, disco-pop hooks colliding with spoken-word verses. “Cherophobe Rock,” “Thrill of the Chase,” and “Over The Barrel” sound like the lovechild of Gorillaz and Fontaines, D.C.: propulsive tracks that skip and swagger atop relentless guitars. Across forty-two minutes, Yard Act never lets up; neither the band nor the listener gets a moment to catch their breath. It’s heady and invigorating. You’re Gonna Need A Little Music blends the brash drollness of the band’s debut with the high-octane ambition of its sophomore effort, resulting in a witty, thumping meditation on half-truths, full fictions, and the perils of paying attention in the modern age. —Miranda Wollen [Island]

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