Stream Oklou’s choke enough and more albums for New Music Friday

Stream every standout album released this Friday with The FADER’s weekly roundup.

 

Every Friday, The FADER’s writers dive into the most exciting new projects released that week. Today, read our thoughts on Oklou’s choke enough, Zelooperz and Real Bad Man’s Dear Psilocybin, and more.

Oklou: choke enough

After years of churning out avant club loosies and the sumptuous synth pop tracks of 2020’s Galore, Oklou — the French electronic artist born Marylou Maniel — found herself stumped by her new album. Galore was written and submitted in the span of a few months. Her newest, out February 7, took closer to two years. There was no eureka spark moment, she says on a recent January morning, tucked in the middle of a cozy couch in a friend’s apartment in downtown Manhattan. Instead, it was an album that discovered itself as she created. “Many things changed in my alchemy, in my brain.” … Maniel’s pop songs have always felt like intricately crafted puzzle boxes but her newest are exceptionally exquisite. The guitar work on “blade bird” flits like a mechanical dove, while processed woodwinds on “obvious” feel like its own folklore. The fact that they also feel like her most approachable yet — like on “Family and Friends” on which it sounds like she’s singing about starting a family — doubles the gratification. — Steffanee Wang

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Squid: Cowards

British band Squid have compared their third album to a book of “dark fairytales,” with their dread-soaked songs bubbling with alarm and isolation. Where once their band chronicled the bucolic past and deteriorating present of their home country, Cowards takes a more global outlook informed by their travels as a band. “Building650,” for example, comes loaded with dramatic strings and bursts of guitar that capture an acute sense of loneliness experienced in Tokyo. There is a streak of bloodlust that runs through the album, too. “Crispy Skin” explores moral failings through a cannibal narrative while “Fieldworks II” reaches its post-rock climax as “twisted bones crash down onto the rocks.” Guest vocalist Clarissa Connelly appears on album highlight “Cro-Magnon Man,” meanwhile, an airy and addictive song on which Squid most successfully marry their fantastical literary allusions with bitingly inventive guitar music.

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

James Brandon Lewis: Apple Cores

For his 16th LP, tenor sax luminary James Brandon Lewis and longtime collaborators Chad Taylor (drums, mbira) and Josh Werner (bass, guitar) draw inspiration from and pay tribute to two towering figures in Black music: cultural theorist Amiri Baraka, who wrote a column called “Apple Cores” for Downbeat back in the ’60s, and renowned avant-garde trumpeter Don Cherry. There are no Cherry covers on the album, but each song reflects the endlessly curious spirit of Cherry’s music. Appropriately, no two sound the same. Opening track “Apple Cores #1” pits choppy sax riffs over a familiar drum/bass groove. “Prince Eugene” is a contemplative dub reggae jam, with Lewis’s instrument gliding like a lonesome seabird through the haze. His explosive playing on “Five Spots to Caravan,” meanwhile, is set to scrumptious, technical guitar chords. Later, we hear “Remember Brooklyn & Moki” a groovy homage to Cherry’s wife; “Broken Shadows,” a tense, mbira-based jam in which Lewis clings tightly to the pentatonic scale; “Don’t Forget Jayne,” which brands the flighty sax lick that serves as the album’s central motif into the listener’s ears over crashing drum fills; and “Exactly, Our Music,” a blissed-out slow ride that ends Apple Cores on a note of complete calm. — Raphael Helfand

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Zelooperz & Real Bad Man: Dear Psilocybin

Something shifted when Future rapped “I’m an addict and I can’t even hide it.” Rap music’s relationship with drugs became darker, less recreational and more committed. Few artists, though, have even attempted to match the pathos of Future at his peak. Zelooperz does so on Dear Psilocybin, his new collaborative album with Real Bad Man. You won’t find any trace of classic Atlanta trap on this project, though: just peep the opening title track, where the Detroit rapper flows like the skin is falling off of his mouth over a tropical sunset beat with the vibe of a demo button on a high end keyboard. Zelooperz keeps his trademark wits about him across the album, locking in whenever a feature demands it (especially on the scorching “Past Life” featuring MAVI) and throwing off brawny bars even when there isn’t. Despite the title, Dear Psilocybin is clear-eyed and focused in its own fantastical way, imbued with the kind of vivacity that can only come from a long, sober look at yourself in the mirror. — Jordan Darville

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

Rescene: Glow Up EP

I admit my initial curiosity with the South Korean rookie girl group Rescene was due to a faint connection with their name. Growing up, instead of Barbies, I had My Scene dolls. They were probably part of the off-brand Barbie circuit but I always felt they were chic-er and, with their wardrobe of fur coats and strappy heels, gave me the vibe they were made to cater toward girls with city ambitions. It feels fitting this is the kind of nostalgia that’s stirred up when I listen to Rescene’s music: they’re perhaps a band that also grew out of a trend, and yet still stands out because of some je ne sais quoi factor. In our post-New Jeans world hordes of new groups have emerged mining the same ’00s garage/drum and bass/jersey club vein — and Rescene, one could say, is a part of that. Aesthetically it aligns, and it does musically with the wistful clubby vibe of their new EP Glow Up. Yet, as I’m five repeats deep, there’s a distinct seasoning on these songs that keep me coming back for more. “In my lotion” is like a lighter “Ditto” made for running home after school, while the title track is cool school girl disco. It’s worth noting that I eventually did get a Barbie, but I still loved my My Scene dolls just as much. —Steffanee Wang

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

Other projects out today that you should listen to

Biig Piig: 11:11
The Bird Calls: Melody Trail
Caroline Rose: Year of the Slug
Chase Shakur: Wonderlove
Drop Nineteens: 1991
FACS: Wish Defence
Guided By Voices: Universe Room
Heartworms: Glutton for Punishment
Holly Lovell: Hello Chelsea
Horsebath: Another Farewell
Larry June, 2 Chainz & The Alchemist: Life Is Beautiful
Low Roar: House in the Woods
Maeve Chustar: Small Songs
Michigander: Michigander
Nardo Wick: Hold Off EP
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Perfect Right Now: A Slumberland Collection 2008-2010
Pit Pony: Dead Stars
Rio Da Yung O.G: Rio Free (Something Happen)
Serane & perc40: 40MGPM
Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory: Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory
Skeleten: Mentalized
Traxman: Da Mind of Traxman Vol.3
Wafia: Promised Land
Yung Fazo: Zo