Skip to content
New Music

10 Albums You Can Hear Now: Yo La Tengo, Skrillex, Pantha du Prince, Free Energy, and More

skrillex, yo la tengo

Hey, it’s Tuesday! Hunker down in headphones with the 10 new albums below.

1) Yo La Tengo, Fade. On “Ohm,” the album’s opening track: “A sweetly lilting melody and gentle male-female harmonies nest atop a distortion-seared, krautrock-propulsive drone that gradually changes and reveals itself with the Zen-like subtlety of the video, or nature itself; handclaps arrive just in time for the gorgeous do-do-do vocals to give way to a casually blistering guitar solo.” — SPIN (via Pitchfork)

2) Skrillex, Leaving EP. “‘Leaving’… trades in pitch-warped vocals, minimal skittering percussion, low swells of sub-bass, and rainy day ambience… Second song ‘The Reason’ hits a bit harder, but still tones down the Transformers skronk in favor of melody and multidimensional texture, not to mention an out-of-character shout-out to old school electro mashed up with ’90s big beat. The closer, ‘Scary Bolly Dub,’ is a bouncy, exotic remix of his first big hit, ‘Scary Monters and Nice Sprites.'” (via SPIN)

3) Wooden Wand, Blood Oaths of the New Blues. “[Blood Oaths delivers] a gorgeous set of sprawling songs with a comfortably minimalist and hi-fi feel… The strongest intoxicant in the mix, however, is Toth’s voice — a world-weary thing touched with just the slightest bit of twang, prone to poetic proclamations about the human condition.” (via SPIN)

4) Free Energy, Love Sign. “Opener ‘Electric Fever’ explodes with dueling guitars, fiery ‘Whoa-oh’ shouts and fist-pumping conviction, while ‘Dance All Night’ seduces with a smoky lead lick and dizzying piano touches.” (via Rolling Stone)

5) Indians, Somewhere Else. “[Somewhere Else is] remarkable headphone music that reaches both the heart and the loneliest reaches of the heavens… hits a few familiar indie-pop reference points… Bon Iver’s wounded melancholy, The Shins’ sweetly soaring grace — but [Indians] still finds a way to swirl them all together, seal the mix in a time capsule and send it hurtling into the cosmos.” (via NPR)

6) Pantha du Prince and the Bell Laboratory, Elements of Light. “There are only five tracks, but the album’s two lengthy centerpieces … are so sweeping that the album ought to be experienced as a single, mutating composition… At times, it’s more overtly sweet and even bombastic than any previous Pantha du Prince material … At other points, it’s all understated ambience, a few glassy notes circling in space.” (via NPR)

7) William Basinski, Shortwavemusic. “To celebrate the album’s 30th birthday, quirky label Auris Apothecary have produced a very special reel-to-reel tape version… as the label note[s], ‘dropouts, warble, pitch-bending, static, crackle, hiss & extreme frequency shifting are to be expected.'” (via FACT)

8) Recycle Culture, In Transit EP. “[In Transit is] comprised of [four] floating, expansive, mostly ambient compositions; wintry sounds that envelop and soothe while evoking a longing that tugs at the heartstrings.” — Gorilla vs. Bear (via Recycle Culture’s Bandcamp)

9) Lee Harvey Osmond, The Folk Sinner. “[A] mix of toe-tapping folk rock and gruff country dirges, and the proceedings are given an eclectic twist by the jagged guitar squall of ‘Leave the House,’ the soft rock woodwinds of ‘Freedom’ and the jazzy sparseness of ‘Oh, Linda.'” (via Exclaim!)

10) Criminal Hygiene, CRMNL HYGNE. “[A] lean, mean 17 tracks of glorious revival punk clocking in at just under 40 minutes… the group understands the primal, visceral elements of old-school punk, heavily utilizing layers upon layers of reverb and fuzz. But they also seem to have an appreciation for the more tongue-in-cheek aesthetic of Brit punk, leaving plenty of space for brash vocals and joyous harmonies.” (via Consequence of Sound)