NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out Dec. 5

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

Dove Ellis. Melody's Echo Chamber. Editors' Tom Smith. Erin Wolf of Radio Milwaukee joins Stephen Thompson to discuss those albums and more on our last episode of New Music Friday this year.The Starting 5:Dove Ellis, BlizzardMelody's Echo Chamber, UncloudedTom Smith, There Is Nothing In The Dark That Isn’t There In The LightTEED, Always With MeVoices from the Lake, IIThe Lightning Round:HTRK, String of Hearts (Songs of HTRK)Ben Marc, Who Cares WinsIsobel Waller-Bridge, ObjectsMother Soki, Fantasy EPPrins Thomas, Thomas Moen HermansenSee our long list of albums out December 5 and sample dozens of them via our New Music Friday playlist on npr.org.Credits:Host: Stephen ThompsonGuest: Erin Wolf, Radio MilwaukeeAudio Producer: Noah CaldwellDigital Producer: Elle MannionEditor: Otis HartExecutive Producer: Suraya MohamedSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Sore I would take to my grave the fact I'd change my flight out of Chicago, just so I'd see you one more time. Happy Friday, everyone from NPR Music. It's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Aaron Wolf from Radio Milwaukee. Welcome back to the show, Aaron. Thanks, Stephen. Nice to be here. It is a pleasure to have you from my home state of Wisconsin. I wanted to mention up front, you're hearing Annie DeRuso. Annie DeRuso this week just today released a deluxe edition of her album Super Pedestrian, which we talked about on this show months and months ago when it originally came out.

It has gone on to become one of my very, very, very favorite albums of 2025. And this is, appropriately enough, list season. NPR Music next week will be publishing our best albums and best songs of 2020. It is always an exciting ordeal. Aaron, I wanted to ask you, what is your favorite album of the year? Well, here at Radio Milwaukee, we did a thing called Essential Albums of 2025, which you can find at RadioMwaukee.org. And I picked Saya Gray's Saya as my Essential album.

That's a great record. She's so magical. And I feel like she really stepped into her groove with this record. Yeah, I loved the way that record sound. I've just started dipping back into it. You know, you host this show every week, you listen to all these records, and then you just kind of file them away because you have to go move on and start listening to next week's records. And that one has really stuck with me as one of the best of the year. Yeah, there's just something about it. It's got that extra something. Yeah, great pick. I mean, you know, I hate to spoil things here on New Music Friday, but you might read a little bit more about Saya Gray next week as part of N.P. PR Music's coverage. Let's kick off this week's show with a new record, the debut album, from the singer-songwriter

Dove Ellis. It's called Blizzard. Blizzard by Dub Ellis was self-produced and recorded in London in Liverpool. Dub Ellis is a singer-songwriter from Western Ireland, who makes what's described as chamber pop, Which I don't know if that's like quite right, but... I mean, it's got some strings. Sometimes that's chambery enough. Yeah, chambery enough.

We'll just say that. He's notably been supporting geese on their North American tour this fall, so some of the listeners out there might already be acquainted with the live version of Dove Ellis. He's been called the next Jeff Buckley, which feels really important, you know what I mean? And there's also those radio head comparisons out there as well. listening through to this full debut. I do hear Jeff Buckley and Tom York on the vocals, but I also heard a little Fran Healy of Travis, Rufus Wainwright,

Cameron Winter, of course, is in there too, any boy that can really sing passionately, but also cerebrally, if that makes any sense. Absolutely. I mean, it's funny because I didn't necessarily, I'm a huge Jeff Buckley fan, and I've been a huge Jeff Buckley fan for more than 30 years, and I've embarrassed myself gushing about Jeff Buckley's music over the years.

And so that always just like gets my backup. Like, he's not Jeff Buckley. But he does have, you know, a big swooping melodramatic voice. I mean, one of the things that I was really getting listening to this record was, and this is, you know, you may find this is a little bit of a theme of this week's show is I felt like it harkened back a little bit to some of the big kind of breakthrough bands of the blog era. I heard a little bit of like a slightly less worldly version of Beirut or like clap your hands say yeah where you do have this like this big swooping voice

but you also there's a frenetic quality to it. There's a there's kind of a nervy energy and I think that is part of what sets him apart and probably puts them a little bit more in the pocket of a band like geese which has had a massive massive 2025. Yeah, absolutely. I felt that frenetic energy. I don't know if it's coming from his environs, Western Ireland. I also was kind of getting this little water boys, Anne Van Morrison kind of pub band vibe to it. You know, the concertina's in there, acoustic guitar. It feels like you're down the block at the pub for a pint. And there's Davales, you know, there's certain songs on the record that are kind of in. in that vein, bag men for one. I remember hearing that concertina,

but then yeah, then a lot of it's just also really tense, but tender energy that youthful sadness that Buckley was so capable of to the sandals is a really good example. From your place to say it is. I wanted to single out another song on this record. You know, we're very much in, we're in the holiday season now and you know,

we're suddenly, Suddenly, I don't know if you're participating in Whamageddon, you know, where you're trying to avoid the song Last Christmas by Wham. Oh, man, that would be so hard. I've done it so far. Still have not heard Last Christmas by Wham in 2025. But there is a song on this record called I'll Be Gone by Christmas. And, you know, it's not super Christmassy. You're not hearing any of the telltale signifiers like your sleigh bells or anything like that.

But it is very Christmas themed. It's grand. It's swooping and dramatic. you know, kind of the vibes that we've been talking about elsewhere on this record. And part of what I appreciate it is a lot of the Christmas music that really speaks to me is a little more hard-bitten and a little more melancholy and has a little bit,

it's not just like shaking you by the lapels and demanding you be happy. And so to me, I was happy to have a new addition to the Christmas canon in 2025. I'm always looking for something that is not the same eight insufferable songs. That is Dove Ellis. His new album is called Blizzard. Next up, new album from Melody's Echo Chamber.

Melody's Echo Chamber's new album is called Unclouded. So Melody's Echo Chamber is a project named for the French singer Melody Proche. This is Melody's Echo Chamber's fourth album dating back to 2012. In the very beginning, she started out working with Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, which certainly gives her a certain amount of cred with the, massive throngs of people that swarm to every Tame Impala concert. Part of what I really like about this record is it feels like a throwback in a lot of ways. You've got your kind of Phil Spector Wall of Sound, you've got kind of loungy vibes. You know, we mentioned the strings with Dove Ellis. These songs,

a lot of these songs have big, rich, swelling strings. But it doesn't just feel like a museum piece. There's still verve and modernity and energy to it. You know, kind of few of the songs. You know, by Melody Proche and her kind of mysterious, sometimes inscrutable vocals. Yeah, that's just the thing. I think that this team of the Swedish producer Sven Wonder, he does have like a throwback element, but it's not completely in that zone. It's modernized.

And also I love how the production and the strings and the framework around her voice kind of anchors it because her voice is so airy and light. It needs something to kind of hold. hold it down so it doesn't totally float away. Totally. Her voice has always been something that has caught my ear. I have been a big fan since that 2012 debut.

And with the Tame Impala production, I was like, okay, how does she top this? But I really think that this record might edge out that one for me. I really, I really love Unclouded. It's such a beautiful record. It feels like a little impressionistic and expressionistic, as Melody says, like Snapshot. of her life and as she says she kind of fell in love with life again and she thinks that this record

like really conveys her new mindset well and that really comes through as i as i alluded to some of her vocals are pretty inscrutable lyrically speaking but but at the same time the vibes and that energy still comes through and i'm not surprised at all you know that that she says you know this is the product of this fresh outlook including the fact that there is a a song on this record. One of my favorite songs on this record is called How to Leave Misery Behind. And, you know, we're in December. December is always a good time to stop and contemplate how to leave misery behind. And, you know, the song feels like a little bit of a mission statement. And, you know, again, we've mentioned these strings. The strings really help propel

this song. And just kind of an overarching sense of wonder. It's a lovely sentiment to take in at the end of what has for, I think, a lot of people been a very, very tough year. I mean, if you need a record to close out the year with and feel like you're dropped into a different existence, this is the one

to do it with, sink into a chair, and you're like snuggle up with a cozy blanket and just kind of like, I don't know, man, it's like a Calgon record, for real. It's just kind of got that ability to take you to somewhere completely different where

life is blooming. Is Calgon still a going concern? Because I think there used to be commercials for those of you listening who are maybe young, not to suggest that Aaron isn't. But there were commercials for, was Calgon

like a bubble bath? It was always like Calgon Take Me Away. Yeah, I just remember the catchphrase. Yeah, and it was a very, very effective ad for like a product that would help you you kind of let your worries fall by the wayside. And I do think a Calgon record is a great way to describe this,

and I'm probably going to steal that in future episodes of this show talking about other stuff. Yeah, I really enjoyed and admired this record. And kind of the more I listen to it, the more times I listen to it, I kind of found more and more intricacies coming through, where it wasn't just like, this is a great sounding record. It became like a great feeling record. That is Melody's Echo Chamber,

The new album is called Unclouded. We've got some more records we're going to talk about that come out today, December 5th. But first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Aaron Wolfe from Radio Milwaukee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Aaron, tell me what's going on at the station besides the fact that it resides in my beloved home state. So this week was giving Tuesday, and we had our one-day drive, which was really fun. This time around, we had this really cool premium.

was a long-sleeved concert t-shirt with all of our 2025 studio Milwaukee sessions on the back listed and we began the year with Ben Stellar ended the year with rap boys so it was a really great lineup of sessions and also we've got like a brief wind down for the year as we get ready for 2026 we just put together our essential albums list and we'll have our big holiday playlist for the 24th and 25th you can tune in and listen and and get merry, RadioMwaukee.org or on our app. Boy, I have to say, you know, I left Wisconsin about 20 years ago,

and one of the things that has changed about me is I have started pronouncing the L in Milwaukee again. You know, for the longest time, I would say Milwaukee, like a local. It is. It is Milwaukee. But it's come back. Radio Milwaukee. Oh, boy.

I had a friend that recently said, my Milwaukee is showing. I forgot what he had said, but I was like, oh, I didn't know we had. an accent, but you're confirming that now. Oh, we don't have an accent at all. Oh, I know. Nah.

No. Nah. All right. Well, next up, we've got a new album from Tom Smith of the band editors. It's called There is Nothing in the Dark that isn't there in the light. But it's a deep dive learning to breathe. I don't know what you keep down there. In your deep past ocean you'll heal, eventually.

You are not alone when you're lonely. We all get left behind. You are not alone when you're lonely. Tom Smith, the voice of the editors, is striking out with his first solo record. 20 years since his iconic band took the dance punk world by storm. His own solo work captures the spirit of one of his face. R-E-M at their most introspective, and really carries a torch for other thoughtful balladeers like Matt Berninger and David Gray, and I find Smith reflecting on a whirlwind career on the stage.

Yeah, I mean, reflective is really the tone here, right? And, you know, you mentioned a few names that his voice evokes, and I think those are accurate. I would also say Nick Lowe, you know, the mix of a certain kind of plain spokenness, deeply felt perspective, a calming quality, but it's also infused with a lot of real lived-in intelligence. Absolutely. Lived-in intelligence. That's kind of what this record is. It's like a sum up of a young life spent, but not totally, you know, the chapter's not closed.

It's just like he's very reflective of this really busy, kind of intense period of his life. And now he's like, what happened exactly? His song, The Lights of New York City, I really liked. It's like a trumpet-led, kind of, I don't know, lonely ballad to a former life as a rock star. Yeah, and I mean, you know, he's still a rock star. Indeed, indeed. I shouldn't say former life as a rock star. But I do think this album comes at an inflection point, right?

Editors made seven albums. That is often an inflection point in a band's career. And, you know, there's a track on the record called Endings Are Breaking My Heart. And it's vulnerable and it's raw. And it's clearly somebody who was looking at the world and his place in the world and his career and has seen some of those chapters close. And that's hard. And the song is just a kind of a raw reflection on that.

And his voice kind of really enters crooner mode. The band leaves the encore face. Losing light as the seasons change One last drink, it's time to pay Move on My favorite song on this record is called Broken Time And it's where I think the tenderness And that search for profundity

Kind of land the hardest I think he hits what he's aiming for a lot on this record But I think he hits the most squarely in Broken Time Yeah, that song was a standard out to me as well, it's very gentle and you can really feel the emotion behind it. That it ain't over. We ain't flawless by design. Through all these fractures, our love is broke.

That album has a title that is worth keeping in mind as 2025 draws to a close. The artist is Tom Smith of the band editors. The album is called There Is. is nothing in the dark that isn't there in the light. Next up, a new album from Teed, T-E-E-E-D, formerly known as Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. The new album is called Always With Me. So as I mentioned before, Teed, T-E-D, it is an acronym for totally enormous extinct dinosaurs, which is the formerly used name for the British electronic producer Orlando Thomas Edward Higginbottom,

This is his third album first since 2022. And Teed, the specialty here is kind of catchy, smooth, propulsive electro-pop with hooks piled on top of hooks on top of hooks. This record kind of opens right out the gate with a couple of really hard-driving synth-pop songs that would have fit right onto an 80s club mix. Just like check out that synth line in a song like In Darkness. and you're just right in the pocket of, you know, the greatest hits of Depeche Mode and New Order and so many of the bands that defined that era. Without, again, kind of as we alluded to, you know, with other records here, without sounding like an imitation or a throwback. It's funny that you mentioned Depeche Mode because when I was reading up about the making of this record, Higgin Bottom shared that there were moments when he wanted to recreate the feeling he had listening to Depeche Mode for the first time.

I'm going to share a quote. He said, I didn't listen to Depeche Mode while I was making this album and I didn't reference their sound either. I'm trying to evoke a hazy memory of a feeling that music gave me. And I love that because I remember the first time I heard Depeche Mode. And it was a very marked feeling. And I can sympathize with him in that. And I feel that coming across after I read that, I was like, oh, yes. That totally makes sense.

I also like the softer side of this record, too. I feel like there's some ambient-leaning things. My melody erect and endless kind of were giving me Fortet, or Ulrich Schnells meets M-83, and it was marrying ambiance with pop structures. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned my melody. My melody for me, I mean, my notes next to the song, I had not heard that quote that he had said about Tepesh Mode.

And I wrote in my notes, My melody is giving me Depeche Mode flashbacks in a good way. I'm brooding. I'm 15. I'm here for it. And if he's trying to evoke the feel and the spirit of Depeche Mode without imitation, mission accomplished and wrecked, what a beautiful melancholy hook. I just, I couldn't get enough of it.

I know. That one really captured my ears first. I was like, oh, okay, I'm listening to this one again. And yeah, picking and choosing your favorite songs and going back to him again. It was just, it was such a chilly, sweet, and lovelorn album, I felt like, even though it wasn't precisely about love. It just felt a little heart sick and searching, but it hit nice in the best way. That is always with me by T-E-E-D-Ted, short for totally enormous extinct dinosaurs. We've got one more record.

talk about as well as a lightning round of some of our other favorite albums out today, December 5th, but first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Aaron Wolfe from Radio Milwaukee. Before we get to our lightning round, we wanted to talk about one more record in some depth. It's by the techno duo Voices from the Lake. It's called Two. Voices from the Lake are Italian ambient techno producers, Donato Dazzi, and Neos.

This project was born from this one-off live performance in the Japanese Alps at Labyrinth Festival, which later was captured into their first self-titled album. And this new album, too, is their first in 13 years. And it's their second total. They're calling it a continuation and a reinvention. Anybody who is still in school or has gone back to school will tell you that we are right in the belly of finals season. it is always a great time to discover new music that will fill your brain and keep you from getting bored or distracted, but will free the pathways to allow you to study, to write, to edit, to actually do work that involves concentration. And I am always here for any kind of head-filling instrumental music that can help serve that purpose.

You know, I keep a playlist on Spotify called Thinking Songs. Usually it's a little bit more kind of ambient instrumental. This is more propulsive. It's songs that are kind of shifting and drifting over the course of, you know, seven, eight, nine minutes. But it's really fully enveloping. And I really loved having this on not just in the background, but even in the foreground to kind of let my mind kind of move with it.

I found this to be very engaging as well, but my first listen to it was walking in a snowstorm in Wisconsin. I took it outside, and I found that it was engaging, looking at the natural world. Moments of it reminded me of alone in Kyoto from air. It was turning on parts of my brain that hadn't been activated in a while. There's a track called B-SPIN, B-E-S-P-I-N, where there's like a chiming quality. to it. There's a little bit of a ringing feel. But if you if you concentrate on it, you can feel where the song is kind of morphing. And I think that's a really cool quality to to a lot of techno music where it's like you're not necessarily having those like pop music pleasure centers

activated. It's it's music that is reaching deeper into your brain and kind of allowing you, you know, as you kind of said, Aaron, to, you know, to unlock parts of your brain you're not usually accessing. And I think walking with this record in a snowstorm would have been really cool. I'm from Wisconsin. I went home for Thanksgiving and I got stuck in a lot of snowstorms. I should have put this record on. I think that it would have sooth your savage soul at that point. All right. That is two, the numeral two, by the artist Voices from the Lake. Now, December 5th isn't anyone's idea of a busy release date for new music, but there were still enough good albums that we couldn't fit them all, so we're going to do a lightning round with some of our other

favorites out today. I'm going to kick us off the Australian duo Hate Rock that's spelled H-T-R-K in all caps, has been around for more than 20 years, and as that name suggests, hate rock makes music that can be stark and combative and foreboding, but it's also inventive and unpredictable. And speaking of unpredictable, its new project is a combination of remixes and covers by other artists. You can hear different versions of old songs, as well as interpretations by artists like liars and double Virgo. Hate Rock's new project is called String of Hearts, parentheses, Songs of Hate Rock. So London-based Ben Mark, his real name is Neil Charles, is a bassist and producer. He's notable for his use of real live instruments to create this mood.

atmosphere and texture, and he muddies the waters between jazz electronic, classical soul, folk, and beyond. And he continues to be this musical Rolling Snowball, picking up collabs with so many amazing artists as he works. He's worked with Johnny Greenwood, the Sunrah Orchestra, Latua Estateke, Macy Gray, the Charles Mingus Big Band, and many, many more. So Benmark really grabbed my attention with this new release, Who Cares Wins, because of its pops of psych. his 2022 album Glass Effect was magical, yet this one really spoke to me because of this engaging, watery flow of musical consciousness that is Benmark, and his new album is called Who Cares Wins? Isabel Waller Bridge is a wonderful composer for movies and TV. In fact, you might remember the work she did on the TV show Fleabag with her sister, Phoebe Waller Bridge. Isabel Wallerbridge's new project is a new album full of soft, patient, beautiful, still instrumentals.

It might be just what you need as you're settling into this weekend. Isabel Waller Bridge's new album is titled Objects. Mother Sokey is a Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter who writes ambient pop dreamscapes, inspired by the Sundays and Cockto Twins, as she says, but really ultimately Mother Sokey reminds me of Chanel Bedees, McGee, Beach House, and her citymates, Polisa. I first became, shall I say, riveted by her sound when she shared her viral single Rivet Gun back in April, and her bedroom-imbued atmospherics really creates a sense of duality, evoking like intimacy and existential questioning both. There are these heavy guitars, vapor-thin vocals, and they create an effect of searching and longing

and the indebtedness to both dream pop, 90 sounds, and modern production really creates this alluring space. Mother Soki's album, Fantasy, is out on mom and pop. And finally, Prince Thomas is the stage name of the Norwegian producer and DJ Thomas Mohn Hermanson. His music is a fun and funky mix of dance music, Prague rock, and electro pop. It's a sound he calls Space Disco, which is actually pretty apt, and it's especially great when plays through the best headphones you can find. Prince Thomas's new album is sort of self-titled if you think about it. It's called Thomas Moen-Herminson.

So, Aaron, you and I listen to a lot of music to prep for this week's show. Naturally, some favorite song is bound to have risen to the top. What is your pick? What's your favorite song of all the songs that we listen to this week? Well, Stephen, I think it has to be the dove Ellis. songs, if I may, two of the lead tracks like Pale Song or Love is. I was listening to them in route in a car to a family gathering and for some reason just really struck me and both songs made me feel very emotional and they took me back to the specific place in my life that I'd

intentionally abandoned and it felt okay to go back there when I was listening to these songs. Nice, that's a great pick. I am really torn. Oh, what am I going to do? I am going to go with the song Wrecked by a totally enormous extinct dinosaurs, aka T-E-E-E-D. That is the first song, and I kind of did a pass through everything I was going to listen to, and the first song that really grabbed me and really didn't let go was wrecked, R-E-K-T,

just that beautiful hook, that sense of melancholy, There's something so homey and comfortable and nostalgic but current about those synth pop songs. And that's the one where the hook just mesmerized me. That is our show for this week. Thank you so much, Erin Wolf, for taking time out of your week at 88.9 Radio Milwaukee. Stephen, thanks so much. It's always a pleasure to talk to a fellow musical nerd and Wisconsinite. Go Pack Go.

If you enjoyed this week's show, we always appreciate a podcast. positive review on Apple or Spotify or whatever app you're listening to right now. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and edited by Otis Hart. The executive producer of NPR Music is Soraya Mohamed. I'll be back next week to discuss NPR Music's best albums of the year with Ann Powers and Daoud Tyler Amin. Until then, take a moment to be well, leave misery behind, and treat yourself to lots of great music.