With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services. This week’s batch includes new albums from Bon Iver, Ken Carson, Sherelle, Cold Specks, and Vegyn. Subscribe to Pitchfork’s New Music Friday newsletter to get our recommendations in your inbox every week. (All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our affiliate links, however, Pitchfork earns an affiliate commission.)
Bon Iver: SABLE, fABLE [Jagjaguwar]
Justin Vernon returned to his woodsy singer-songwriter roots on last year’s SABLE, EP, “three uniformly deep-blue songs introducing an album of kaleidoscopic color,” as Alex Robert Ross put it in Pitchfork’s review. That subsequent album, SABLE, fABLE, appends nine new songs to the EP to present an altogether sprightlier proposition—an exultant symphony of funk-infused rock that doubles as “a genuinely surprising pop and soul record,” Ross added, “from an artist who has spent half a lifetime searching for new modes of expression. Across fABLE, he sounds unrestrained and irrepressible, as though he’s purging some ecstasy he’s kept at bay for years.”
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Ken Carson: More Chaos [Opium/Interscope]
Ken Carson’s much-hyped new album is billed as a defining opus from the rage rap breakaway described, in Alphonse Pierre’s November feature, as either “the next great Atlanta rapper” or “a parody of the next great Atlanta rapper.” More Chaos, the follow-up to 2023’s A Great Chaos, is a largely feature-less affair, as Carson goes it alone across 21 tracks. A final, 22nd song, “Off the Meter,” features Opium’s Playboi Carti and Destroy Lonely.
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Sherelle: With a Vengeance [Method 808]
Long a fixture of London clubs and festivals, Sherelle cemented her rise from underground darling to leading UK producer and DJ with the surprise release of her debut album on Wednesday. With a Vengeance (punning on .WAV) showcases Sherelle’s helter-skelter approach to R&G and UK bass, hurtling between rave aesthetics and knottier, hyper-percussive sounds inspired by footwork and ghetto house. George Riley, go-to vocalist of bubbly British beatmakers, provides a star turn on lead single “Freaky (Just My Type),” borne of a playful session between the two artists. “It was already such a vibe and almost like magic the bisexual anthem was born,” Riley said in a press release.
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Cold Specks: Light for the Midnight [Mute]
Thirteen years after wave-making debut I Predict a Graceful Expulsion, gothic soul balladeer Cold Specks returns with her fourth studio album and first since 2017. Co-produced with Ali Chant and Portishead’s Adrian Utley, Light for the Midnight rallies together a suite of frosty, piano-propelled laments, featuring contributions from Owen Pallett, Holy Fuck’s Graham Walsh, and Arab Strap’s Malcolm Middleton, among others.
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Vegyn & Air: Blue Moon Safari [Parlophone]
Air’s 25th anniversary celebrations of classic album Moon Safari did not end with the audiovisual extravaganza the French duo embarked on last year. They have invited prolific UK producer (and longtime Frank Ocean collaborator) Vegyn to reimagine the record, front to back, on the remix album Blue Moon Safari, applying his puckish sensibility to the original’s chillout opulence.
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