4 New Albums You Need: Amaraae, For Those I Love, DJ K, and more

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 Amaraae’s Black Star, For Those I Love’s Carving The Stone, DJ K’s Radio Libertadora!, and more.

Amaraae: Black Star

Amaarae’s best songs are snapshots of high glamor at its most unguarded. She’s not interested in the highly manicured red carpet shots, preferring to beam directly from the hedonistic after party when the gowns are ditched for a second look and paparazzi aren’t welcome. Black Star, the Ghanaian American artist’s third album, brings the bacchanal directly to your earbuds with songs befitting a globetrotting superstar in the making. A club record at its core, Black Star skips between Jersey, Johannesburg, Accra, and São Paulo, pulling the dancefloor diaspora into a buffed and sleek mix of house, gqom, afrobeats, and funk. Guests including Pinkpantheress (“Kiss Me Thru The Phone pt 2”) and Charlie Wilson (“Dream Scenario”) show an all-ages approach to collaboration while millennial nostalgia is rife: “Starkilla” features an interpolation of Kelis’ “Milkshake” while the El Guincho co-produced “She Is My Drug” plunges Cher’s “Believe” into a world of lust and powders. At a time when similarly ambitious pop stars like Rosalía and Charli xcx can ascend to pop ‘s top table, Black Star marks Amaarae as a worthy contender-in-waiting. — David Renshaw

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

For Those I Love: Carving The Stone

On the new project, David Balfe opts for a more widescreen examination of the pressures exerted on his fellow Dubliners as they fight to survive in what the tech industry has helped become one of Europe’s most expensive cities to live in. This pressure is felt most keenly on “Of The Sorrow,” in which Balfe talks about how “eyes are bloodshot red when you’re looking at the rents” and the need to “bankrupt yourself just to stay where you belong.” In addition to the societal violence that runs through the album, there is also a visceral trail of blood smeared across songs like “Mirror” in which Balfe recalls a “ballyed up man with life and death in his veins” pointing a double barreled shotgun in his direction. It’s in these moments that Carving The Stone transcends the antri-gentrifcation method and pivots into something closer to a neo-noir for people who use the term “technofeudalism.” — David Renshaw. Read our feature here.

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

Teethe: Magic of the Sale

Texas band Teethe’s experimental, sometimes punishing slowcore asks the question: How do you soundtrack the end of the world? On the band’s latest full-length album, Magic of the Sale, whispered vocals, heavily layered textures, and sullen lyrics reject the current state of reality and embraces the unknown and nameless. It’s the perfect soundtrack to accompany the feeling of sweat sticking onto your skin during a brutal heatwave — the sprawling nature of the band’s songs have the feel of a never-ending summer’s day when time, and life, gets lost within the unrelenting, scorching sun. — Cady Siregar. Read our feature here.

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

DJ K: Radio Libertadora!

São Paulo baile funk producer and bruxaria pioneer DJ K’s first album Pânico No Submundo was a 43-minute aural assault and psychological siege, unrelenting from either angle. The project was inspired by pandemic-era social unrest, and this atmosphere “prevailed in the sounds of the album, showing that we were on the brink of collapse,” K told The FADER. “It was meant as a cry for help, and I sweated on all the songs.” His new album Rádio Libertadora! tones down the horror in favor of a call for revolution. It begins with a 1969 clip of a radio speech by guerilla revolutionary Carlos Marighella, followed by a loop of a female broadcaster calling for the end of military dictatorship. Chaos continues to reign in K’s heart, but he’s attempting to channel it now, in service of a greater goal. The album is less stylistically unified than K’s debut, but its twists and turns are fun to follow. Tracks like “Mega Suicidio Auditivo” have multiple albums’ worth of ear obliterations. But then there’s “Sua Filha Quer Os D” (“Your Daughter Wants the D,” unfortunately), which samples the Muslim call to prayer over a snappy synth to headbanging effect. And there’s “Beat Suga Alma,” which opens on a chaotic chop of “P.I.M.P.” before descending into a minimalist chasm. Closer “Techno de Favelado” is a hard-charging cut worthy of its title, a fitting way to end an album full of jump scares. — Raphael Helfand

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Other projects out today that you should listen to

Ada Lea: when i paint my masterpiece
Anamanaguchi: Anyway
Big Freedia: Pressing Onward
Bunnygrunt: Action Pants [Expanded 30th Anniversary Edition]
The Black Keys: No Rain, No Flowers
Charley Crockett: Dollar a Day
Chuckyy: I Live, I Die, I Live Again (Resurrected)
DJ Premier & Roc Marciano: The Coldest Profession
Ethel Cain: Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You
Field Medic: Surrender Instead
Fire Toolz: Bugland
Gunna: The Last Wun
Jenevieve: Crysalis
J.I.D.: God Does Like Ugly
Mechatok: Wide Awake
Ninajirachi: I Love My Computer
No Joy: Bugland
Osees: Abomination Revealed at Last
Phil Elverum & Arrington de Dionyso: Giant Opening Mouth on the Ground
Teethe: Magic Of The Sale
Tommy Richman: Worlds Apart EP
Young Nudy: Paradise