New Music Reviews (5/1)

Each week, Music Director Don Yates shares brief insights on new and upcoming releases for KEXP's rotation. These reviews help our DJs decide on what they want to play. See what we added this week below (and on our Charts page), including new releases from Jessie Ware, Indigo De Souza, Baby Rose, and more. 

Jessie Ware – That! Feels Good! (Interscope)
This British artist’s fifth album is an excellent set of club-oriented disco and related styles. Featuring accompaniment by eight-piece band Kokoroko, the album combines propulsive rhythms, bright synths, strings, horns and more with buoyant melodies, soaring vocals and lyrics of love and desire.

Indigo De Souza – All of This Will End (Saddle Creek)
This Asheville, NC-based artist’s third album is a powerful set of moody indie-pop inflected with grunge, folk-pop and other styles, combining jangly guitars, synths, piano, pedal steel, trumpet and more with brutally honest lyrics of trauma, anxiety, love, connection and acceptance.

Baby Rose – Through and Through (Secretly Canadian)
This DC-bred artist’s second album is an impressive set of moody R&B inflected with funk, psych-pop and other styles, combining atmospheric guitars and keyboards with her smoky, cavernous vocals and lyrics of love, heartache and healing.

The National – First Two Pages of Frankenstein (4AD)
his Brooklyn-based band’s ninth album is a well-crafted set of elegiac folk-pop combining a mostly lowkey sound with melancholy melodies and lyrics of lost love and a desire for connection. Special guests include Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers and Sufjan Stevens.

Nabihah Iqbal – Dreamer (Ninja Tune)
The second album from this London artist of Pakistani heritage Is an immersive blend of trance, techno, shoegaze, ambient, post-punk and other styles, combining fuzzy guitars and shimmering synths with hypnotic rhythms, beatific melodies and lyrics of love, loss and nature.

Y La Bamba – Lucha (Tender Loving Empire)
The seventh album from this Mexico City-via-Portland band led by Luz Elena Mendoza Ramos is an expansive set of psych-tinged indie-pop combining guitars, keyboards, congas and more with bilingual lyrics of trauma and healing.

Country Westerns – Forgive the City (Fat Possum)
This Nashville-based band’s second album is an excellent set of barroom indie-rock. Produced by acclaimed guitarist/producer Matt Sweeney, the album combines bristling guitars, punchy rhythms, gravelly vocals, often-anthemic song hooks and lyrics of connection, change and renewal.

New Breed Brass Band – Made in New Orleans (Treme)
This nine-piece New Orleans band’s debut full-length is a lively set of New Orleans brass band jazz-funk inflected with hip hop, R&B and other styles. Produced by Trombone Shorty, the album’s party-starting sound combines energetic rhythms with buoyant horns and catchy song hooks.

Beach House – Become EP (Sub Pop)
This Baltimore duo’s latest release is a five-song EP of outtakes from the recording sessions for their previous album (2022’s Once Twice Melody). The songs are mostly fine examples of the duo’s atmospheric dream-pop, with a spacious sound combining fuzzy synths, ethereal vocals and transportive melodies.

Melati ESP – hipernatural (Carpark)
The debut Melati ESP album from Indonesia-born, New York-based artist Melati Malay is a well-crafted set of electro-pop inflected with drum ‘n’ bass, techno, downtempo and other styles, combining propulsive rhythms and celestial synths with her breathy, often-processed vocals.

Susanne Sundfør – blómi (Bella Union/Warner)
This Norwegian artist’s sixth album is a beautifully crafted set of atmospheric folk-pop inflected with gospel, Celtic folk, ambient and more, combining piano, guitar, sax, various ambient sounds and other instrumentation with lyrics of love, family, connection and hope.

Harrison – Birds, Bees, The Clouds & The Trees (Last Gang)
This Toronto producer’s third album is a well-crafted set of jazz-tinged electronic grooves incorporating elements of hip hop, R&B and other styles, with a warm, mostly laidback sound featuring sunny piano melodies and some special guests including Kadhja Bonet, Guilty Simpson, Nanna.B, M.E.D. and TOBi.

Mya Byrne – Rhinestone Tomboy (Kill Rock Stars)
This Oakland-based artist’s second album is a well-crafted set of hook-filled folk-rock inflected with country, blues, glam-rock and other styles, combining ringing guitars and shimmering keyboards with lyrics of struggle, resilience and joy.

WheelUp – We are the Magic (Tru Thoughts)
The second album from this London DJ/producer (aka Danny Wheeler) is a groove-driven blend of broken beat, jazz-funk, hip hop, house, R&B and more, combining buoyant synths and often-propulsive rhythms with a variety of guest vocalists.

(Various) – I Am a Pilgrim: Doc Watson at 100 (FLi)
This tribute album to the late country/folk guitarist Doc Watson features an impressive roster including Dolly Parton, Steve Earle, Valerie June, Bill Frisell, Jerry Douglas, Rosanne Cash, Jeff Parker, Marc Ribot and other notables interpreting songs from Watson’s extensive recording catalog.

Tomten – Artichoke (Plume)
This Seattle band’s fifth album (and first in five years) is a well-crafted set of pastoral, folk-tinged psych-pop with gentle acoustic and electric guitars, atmospheric keyboards and dreamy melodies.

Skinny Pelembe – Hardly the Same Snake (Partisan)
This South Africa-born, England-based artist’s second album is an adventurous blend of post-punk, electro-pop, hip hop and other styles, combining a diverse, sample-heavy sound with lyrics of isolation, connection and mortality.

Rudy De Anda – Closet Botanist (Karma Chief)
This Chicago-via-LA artist’s third solo album is a buoyant set of summery psych-pop inflected with R&B, funk and other styles. Produced by Adrian Quesada is his Austin studio, the album combines gently ringing guitars, simmering organ, piano and synths with breezy melodies and lyrics of lost love and renewal.

Moreish Idols – Lock Eyes & Collide EP (Speedy Wunderground)
This London band’s second EP is potent four-song set of expansive post-punk inflected with jazz, funk and other styles, with often-shapeshifting songs combining guitars, keyboards, sax and more with buoyant song hooks.

Annie Blackman – Bug EP (Father/Daughter)
This Brooklyn-based artist follows up her 2022 debut album All of It with this sharply crafted five-song EP of bittersweet folk-pop with acoustic and electric guitars, wistful melodies and lyrics of desire, lost love and heartache laced with wry humor.

Holiday Ghosts – Absolute Reality (FatCat)
This British band’s fourth album is a solid set of buoyant garage-pop inflected with New Wave, surf and other styles, combining jangly guitars, bouncy rhythms and catchy song hooks.

Josh Ritter – Spectral Lines (Pytheas Recordings/Thirty Tigers)
This veteran Brooklyn-based artist’s 11th album is a well-crafted set of atmospheric folk-pop combining guitars, keyboards, woodwinds, pedal steel and more with lyrics of love, loss, nature and connection.

Silver Moth – Black Bay (Bella Union)
The debut album from this seven-piece UK collective featuring Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite along with members of Burning House and Abrasive Trees (among other notables) is a potent set of dynamic post-rock combining atmospheric guitars and keyboards, cello and more with haunting melodies and lyrics of love, loss, mortality and hope.

JFDR – Museum (Houndstooth)
The third JFDR album from Icelandic artist Jófríður Ákadóttir is a well-crafted set of experimental, folk-tinged electro-pop with an atmospheric sound combining synths, strings, piano, guitar and more with her hushed, breathy vocals and lyrics of change and healing.

Bernice – Cruisin’ (Telephone Explosion)
This Toronto band’s third album is an adventurous set of atmospheric, jazz-tinged indie-pop combining a playful, sometimes shapeshifting sound with lyrics of connection.

John Andrews & the Yawns – Love for the Underdog (Woodsist)
This New York-based artist’s fourth album is a well-crafted set of folk-tinged indie-pop with gentle guitars, atmospheric keyboards, cinematic strings and wistful melodies.

Braids – Euphoric Recall (Secret City)
This Montreal band’s fifth album is a solid set of moody electro-pop with shimmering synths, lush strings, gently propulsive rhythms and lyrics of love and healing.