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New Music

10 Albums You Can Hear Now: Cat Power, Animal Collective, Crypts, More!

Cat Power's 'Sun'

Teh Internetz are rife with previewable music this week. For your ease of unpaid listening, we’ve rounded up the 10 records you’ve gotta hear now, even though they aren’t out yet. You don’t want to be caught at the proverbial water cooler trying to talk about 2 Chainz or Swans, do you? Those albums are so (literally) yesterday. Have fun clicking through the 103 songs we’ve amassed below.

1) Cat Power, Sun, out September 4 on Matador. “Fans hoping for another rainy-day companion won’t find much comfort on the appropriately titled Sun. Propulsive synths, drum machines and urgent, densely layered vocals.” (via NPR)

2) Animal Collective, Centipede Hz, out September 4 on Domino. “Animal Collective muddies the waters with electronics, samples, and blips and burps of varied and indeterminate origin. But… it snarls and heaves, supported by electric musculature.” (via NPR)

3) Stars, The North, out September 4 on ATO. “Any given Stars fan ought to find something to like… whether it’s the springy pop-rock song ‘Backlines,’ the gorgeous balladry of ‘The 400,’ [or] the over-the-top dramatics of ‘Do You Want to Die Together?’ (via NPR)

4) Sondre Lerche, Bootlegs, out September 4 on Mona. “The album… was recorded at famed rock venue Hulen in Bergen, Norway and various clubs in Brooklyn, N.Y. during Sondre’s recent tour in support of his 2011 self-titled album.” (via Paste)

5) Jens Lekman, I Know What Love Isn’t, out September 4 on Secretly Canadian. “The Swedish singer-songwriter’s third album… continues to match his uncanny knack with a good pop song to his literate, infinitely quotable lyrics.” (via the Quietus)

6) Deerhoof, Breakup Song, out September 4 on Polyvinyl. “Though anything but predictable… the 30-minute set never feels aimless or formless, opting instead to unfold in a flurry of short, playful, charming blurts.” (via NPR)

7) Azure Ray, As Above, So Below, out September 4 on Saddle Creek. “[The] indie-poppers… wander through brooding soundscapes with harmonic motion, adding wispy, delicate vocal melodies to cloudy beats.” (via Rolling Stone)

8) Crypts, Crypts, out September 4 on Sargent House. “A synth-heavy blend of glitchy gloom-pop, heavy on the bass and the post-hardcore sensibilities, with stand-out tracks including ‘Daft’ and ‘Smut.'” (via Consequence of Sound)

9) Two Gallants, The Bloom and the Blight, out September 4 on ATO. “Bringing a healthy dose of thrash and bash to their folk- and blues-rooted tunes, [the] San Francisco duo release … their first record in five years.” (via Rolling Stone)

10) The Music Tapes, Mary’s Voice, out September 4 on Merge. “I love sentimental melodies you can hum with feeling. People warn against sentimentalizing or mythologizing the past. It’s any failure to mythologize the present that I think we have to be afraid of. This is a miracle. You are a miracle. Our lives are magic… Music proves it.” (via Julian Koster)

Bonus Listens! Lightning Love’s Blonde Album, the Avett Brothers’ The Carpenter