NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out Jan. 10

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

NPR Music's Stephen Thompson is joined by KCRW's Travis Holcombe to run down their four favorite albums out today, as well as the revamped version of SZA's 'LANA' project.Featured Albums:• SZA, 'SOS Deluxe: LANA'• Franz Ferdinand, 'The Human Fear'• Ethel Cain, 'Perverts'• zzzahara, 'Spiral Your Way Out'• Moonchild Sanelly, 'Full Moon'See the long list of albums out January 10 and stream our New Music Friday playlist on npr.org/music.See 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

A quick note before the show, this podcast contains explicit language. All right, Travis, let's make some magic. It's New Music Friday from NPR Music. I'm here with Travis Holcomb from KCRW in Los Angeles. Hey, Travis. Hey, Stephen, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to have you. I know these are trying times in Los Angeles, so I appreciate you being here.

But since we're here to talk music, you host a show on KCRW called Freaks Only. me about it? It's a show every Monday through Friday, 8 to 10 p.m. Pacific time, try to highlight what I consider the best of music every night. And yeah, I feel very fortunate to have a platform to be able to do that. Wonderful. That is the dream. Get to geek out and everyone listens, which is what we're doing. We've got a ton of great music on this week's show, including new music from Ethel Cane, Franz Ferdinand, Zahara, and more. But first, there is one record that we're actually not talking about this week. Bad Bunny has a new album called DeBee Tirar Mas Photos,

and it dropped this past Sunday. The reason we're not talking about it is that Alt Latino has us covered, so you can head on over to the NPR Music Feed to hear more. Sometime after the pandemic, Bad Bunny supplanted hip-hop is the most requested thing that you'll get as a DJ, to the point where it's almost become a cliche, where you just have to be ready with the 2022 record, Unverano Sinti, just in case somebody comes at you with a request for Bad Bunny.

Yeah, that record is all bangers. You can really just hit any track from that record. And it, like, totally elevated him to headliner status across America. So that's on Alt Latino. First up on our show, we alluded to this last week, but back on December 20th, Siza put out a deluxe edition of her album, SOS. It's called SOS Deluxe, colon, Lana. And it extends SOS from an...

already generous 23 songs to 38 songs. So, Travis, have you been doing this record. Just trying to get my head. So, Travis, have you been digging this, like, extremely long-form version of this record? I have. And you know what? One of the things, I'm very curious, what are your thoughts on why do you think Siza released it this way? As it's sort of an add-on to 2022's SOS record rather than as a standalone album? I think it's a matter of stakes, right?

I think there's, I think these are really strong songs. They feel of a piece with SOS, and they're still kind of expanding her sonic palette in interesting ways, which we'll kind of get to in a second. But I think she is somebody who puts a lot of pressure on herself. And so having this kind of like, here is my follow-up to this extraordinarily successful and beloved record, I think it lowered the temperature a little bit. And at the same time, you know, so many big pop stars and R&B stars and hip, pop stars have have kind of developed increasingly sophisticated ways of gaming the billboard charts. And this is a way of gaming the billboard charts. As much as these are very, very strong songs, there is this quality of like if we do it this way,

SOS, which has never left the top 20 in the like two plus years since it came out, it has been in the Billboard top 20 ever since. This is a way of kind of re-upping that record, boosting this record back to number one, where it's been for the last couple weeks. Spoiler alert, it is about to get displaced by the new Bad Bunny record. But, you know, I think it's a way of kind of keeping the heat around SOS alive, lowering the stakes, lowering the pressure on these songs, and kind of just putting her back into the conversation right as she's got like a movie coming out,

as she's been working with Kendrick. She's about to tour with Kendrick Lamar. She's on the Kendrick Lamar record. It's kind of a way for her to kind of, Instead of trying to reintroduce herself in a way, it's a way of leaning on this project that people love and letting people get into her new songs that way. Felt like as good as SOS was,

it did feel like more of a collection of singles than maybe like a cohesive album, whereas I feel like this SOS deluxe Lana record does feel more like a cohesive statement as a record. And at the same time, there is an expansion to her sound here, right? I wanted to talk a little bit actually about a track called Kitchen. It has this really dreamy, classic throwback pop sound

that doesn't feel as much immediately like the Siza sound. It's almost, I don't know if it's like a dusty Springfield vibe to it. There's something very kind of warm and gentle to it that's different from a lot of the rest of the record and different from a lot of the rest of what Sizz has been doing. And one of the things that I loved about SOS was that it was dabbling in pop punk. It was dabbling in kind of these different sounds. And this extension of the record is still doing that.

I also really like the song BMF on this record. When I first heard it, I was like, is that girl from Iepanima? And then when I checked the writing credits afterwards, I saw that they were credited on there. But that is definitely a standout from this brand new version. Yeah, it's one that really jumped out from me. too. You know, the other one that that immediately jumps off, of course, because of the feature, is 30 for 30, which features Kendrick Lamar. I get this type of feel you ain't a costume, too. I swear I'll be in peace if it won for you.

But if it fuck me, then fuck you. And that's the way I like it. Everything been no tape. They salute me so damn much. Every time show up, nigga hug my face. Everything no cut. I fuck y'all up. I'm really. You know, Hey, three seven guns, Why you're waiting on nuts? Tell him I was on PCH. You fucking with niggins that's thinking they cute it in you?

You know, Kendrick Lamar just dropped this record in November called GnX, and it has a couple of very prominent SZA features on it. To me, she is like, I wanted every song to have Siza on. I mean, I always want Siza to be on every song, but she really brings something to that Kendrick record, and so it was really nice to see him immediately repay the favor. What do you make of the visual motif that she's rolled out for this record,

where she's kind of dressed like an insect on the cover of Lana? I mean, I think it's a way of establishing that she is this ever metamorphizing artist. And this project is kind of this metamorphizing project. And something to kind of scuffing up her photos, kind of scuffing up her public image and kind of being willing to experiment. I think that's at least the vibe I get. Well, I wonder if we're going to get a SOS Super Deluxe edition in a couple years down the while.

You know, she's been teasing more songs, so I would not put anything past her. That's the way I like it. That's SOS Deluxe Lana by Siza. Next up, the band Franz Ferdinand has a new album called the human fear. Let's hear some of the song build it up. It seems so critical.

Less critically, I see the overcome. I'm not going to run. So Franz Ferdinand has been in our lives for over 20 years now. Their debut album came out back in 2004. That's the record that had Take Me Out, Come on Home, This Fire, so many bangers that still kind of live on today. This is their sixth album.

It's called The Human Fear. And Alex Capranos, the lead singer, sort of says that it touches upon specific fear, including the fear of isolation, the fear of leaving an institution, and the fear of staying in a relationship. Fear just seems to be like the go-to word for 2025, maybe. But, yeah, I feel like this new Franz Ferdinand record, not as muscular rhythmically as we've heard from their first three records in their golden age. It's a little more pop rock than it is dance rock or post-punk. but still really well done. I think they're still keeping their sound fresh.

One thing that I liked about this record, you touched on the thematic qualities, songs about fear that is certainly deeply relatable to all of us who are governed by fear in our lives. They still have something to say. And while the sound has kind of morphed over the years, as you said, kind of maybe into a little more straight-ahead pop rock, there are still echoes of the music that people fell in love with with this band.

There's a song on this record called The Birds that to me had these echoes of Take Me Out where, you know, I'd been listening to the record for a while without necessarily having old Franz Ferdinand songs getting stuck in my head. But when I hit this song, all of a sudden I was like, whoa, there it is. This is a composite sketch of every Franz Ferdinand song. I will say the song Night or Day. If I were to make a Franz Ferdinand greatest hits, that song would be on it. There have been a few personnel shifts. There's a new drummer here.

They're kind of feeling out a new lineup. But for me, this really still feels like Franz Ferdinand. If I can be irascible or proud, then we can be producing. And that song hooked when I first heard it, it's got like a weird Justin Timberlake sexy back kind of quality to it. The DJ brain and me wants to put those next to each other just to see how they'd line up. But definitely an unexpected twist from Franz Ferdinand to mind the sounds of Justin Timberlake and Timbaland. It works. It does work.

So that is The Human Fear from Franz Ferdinand. Their sixth album in more than 20 years. What happened? All right, well, we have some more great records to get to on New Music Friday, but first, let's take a quick break. It's New Music Friday from All Songs Considered. I'm here with Travis Holcomb from KCRW. Next up, a very strange, fascinating, sometimes punishing record from the wonderful Ethel Cain. It's called Perverts.

I hit play on this record, having not read anything about this new record. and thinking that I had like a vague idea of what Ethel Cain sounded like, and perverts totally upended any of those preconceptions I may have had about Ethel Cain. As someone who might be more familiar with Ethel Cain's music, how does this fit into her discography exactly? It's very, very different. So she put out this brilliant record in 2022 called Preacher's Daughter, which is this concept record about growing up as a homeschooled Southern Baptist

in Florida, raised on Christian music, coming out as a trans woman. You know, it has this big, grand, kind of tragic sprawl to it. It's really beautiful and hypnotic, little traces of like Lana Del Rey coming through, but also a lot of kind of artier, more ambient Gothic sounds at the same time. And it's a very grand and ambitious and beautiful record. When you listen to Perverts, it's 90 minutes long. It's experimental. A lot of it is built around guitar drones.

The songs sprawl anywhere from six minutes to 15 minutes. And it leads off with a 12-minute track. It does. Yeah, right out the gate, it tells you this is not Preacher's Daughter Part 2, but it's not necessarily meant to stand as this is the new Ethel Cain studio album. This is an experimental project. But at the same time, if you spend time with it, you will get lost in these deep drones. You will find beauty and grace in some of her kind of lyrical asides.

I wanted to call out a little stretch of the song Amber Waves. Let's hear that. A really beautiful moment on a record that is not in any way, shape, or form a traditional, here's a pretty set of pop songs. I feel like there's some ambient music that can kind of float in the background, and this is the kind of ambient music that really sucks you in and in a way slaps you around a little bit and fills you with a sense of quiet dread throughout. That's what I'm looking for.

Aren't you all looking for quiet dread? But at the same time, I'm just interested in anything that she brings. I loved Preacher's daughter so much. I love that she's taken this opportunity where she has a bigger megaphone, has a bigger stage. you know, has people who are really hanging on her every word and interested in what she does next. And there will be an official follow-up to Preacher's Daughter that presumably continues more in that vein. But she is an artist and she is an experimentalist and she wants you to be challenged. And I really appreciate that this is a record that does that while still finding moments of beauty.

So that's perverts by the artist Ethelcane. I love it. It's weird. Set aside 90 whole minutes. Next up, we've got a new record by the artist Zahara. Z-Z-Z-Z-A-H-A-R-A. Their new album is called Spiral Your Way Out. So Zahara is a L-A-based artist who was previously,

in a group called The Simps, released their own music independently since I believe 2021. But the new record, Spiral Your Way Out. They wrote it over the course of three months in the aftermath of a toxic relationship. And you kind of hear that in this first track. It didn't mean nothing. It almost sounds like an attempt to insult their ex by saying the relationship was meaningless. And it's almost like Zahara is also trying to convince themselves about that. But I feel like Zahara has a very important.

very raw vocal delivery. And sometimes it's not as effective. But in this case, I feel like it conveyed a lot of emotion that they were going through in the midst of the breakup. And it really translated well on this brand new record. I think spiral your way out is just a great way to describe a certain kind of relationship. The only way out is through. And sometimes that's a really messy and awful process.

At the same time, like, there's fire in this record's belly, but Zahara also has this kind of sly laid-back vibe that I think is so agreeable at the same time. There's catharsis and there's grit and hardship in these songs, but at the same time there's a certain kind of conversational, you can spend half an hour with this record, And as much as it's a breakup record and it is about having been jerked around

and feeling really constrained in a relationship, there's a certain kind of freedom to it. And so I really like the way this record kind of balances a lot of different feelings and sounds around a breakup in a way that still feels really approachable. And Sahara worked with Sarah Tudson of Illuminati Hotties,

which is an inspired... The mark of quality. Collaboration. Yeah. You could tell they were listening to a lot of emo music, A lot of that influence really bleeds through throughout the record. That is Spiral Your Way Out by Zahara.

Last in the alphabet, first in our hearts. We do have one more record to get to, but first let's take a quick break. It's New Music from NPR Music. I'm Stephen Thompson. I'm here with Travis Holcomb from KCRW. Before we get to our lightning round, we wanted to talk about one more record. It's by a South African artist named Moonchild's Sons. and Nelly. The album is called Full Moon, and this song is called Scrambled Eggs.

So Moonchild Sarneli's got a know, I'm the flyer stop in here. Nakers know my kind is rare. Bet this is why they stop and sit. Try they love, they do not care. Fall in love, I do not care. So Moonchild Sinelli has been around for a few years. She's from South Africa. This is her third album.

And she's collaborated with some big stars. She's on Beyonce's My Power with Tierra Wack. She's worked with Gorillas. She's worked with Major Laser. And her own music, She describes her sound as, and I quote, future ghetto funk, which gives you kind of a sense of the vibe, right? It's dance pop. It weaves in electro pop and hip hop in these songs that are kind of about body positivity and sex positivity and just joy in general.

And she writes an earworm. One of the things that first struck me when I hit play on this record, It reminded me a lot of early MIA and Santy Gold's collaborations with Switch back in the mid aughts, which is a sound that I absolutely adore to this day, and I'm glad that Moonschowellie is here to pick up the torch for that. Every time I would hit a track, I'm like, well, that's stuck in my head, and then I would hit another one. There's a track on this record called To Kill a Single Girl, parentheses, Tequila, that was like, I listened to that song and I was like, oh boy, I am going to wake up in the middle of the night, and there's a little This song is going to be stuck in my head. But then, you know, by the time I got to scrambled eggs, I'm like, oh, never mind.

This song is going to be stuck in my head. So, you know, it's very earworm forward and really joyful. Toilia because my words I swore. I don't drink no tequila because my memory goes. I'll fuck to tequila because it kills my joy. I don't want no tequila. I just want my boy. I will fix all the problems because I love this dog.

I will go to therapy because he is the one. I will pack all the fish and I will be my fit because he fight people. There's a couple moments near the end of the record, too, where she gets a little more introspective. And I think just in the aftermath of being hit by this barrage of heavy beats, it was almost like a nice way to exhale at the end of the record. The track, Muntanami, which I guess translates to my child, and she's talking about her father on that track.

My daddy had ten wives. I was the tenth child from the first child. There's wife wasn't the best one. My daddy never had time. He was never mine. He was never moms. I didn't know love. My mommy took care of us. Said we needed wives.

Said we needed slaves. Women don't count. There's also the track, I was the biggest curse. It almost feels like an exhale at the end of the record. One of the things that I noticed on the production credits is it's produced by Johann Hugo, who was one half of the group the very best, which kind of started putting out records in the wake of MIA and Santigold

back in the late Otts in early 2010. So it wasn't a huge surprise that she had some material connection to that world. Oh, you know, I think of funnusi, bopella, bimdo-dwenra, to do you nada a promisar, dammituma,

whokewat-wit-l-hua, go-bang, bending, who-z-upeka. All right, so that's Moonchild Sinelli. Her new album is called Full Moon. There are always so many records in any given week, even in relatively early January.

We couldn't possibly get to the mall. So we wanted to do a little bit of a lightning round of some of the stuff that is out today, January 10th. Let's start with Ringo Star. Ringo Star, his 21st studio album is called Look Up. It's his first album in six years. Produced by T-Bone Burnett. It's a country album that brings in artists like Alison Krauss and Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle.

That's out today. William Bissinski and Richard Chardier have a record together called Aurora Terminalis. William Bacinski, if you don't know, him, very prolific ambient composer. Richard Chardier is a sound artist. their first new album together in almost a decade. And, oh boy, a slab of just punk joy from a duo from England called Labrini Girls. The album is called Who Let the Dogs Out? As the title might suggest, this is an album just full of noise and humor and, like, wall of sound guitars.

I think any fans of Amel and the Sniffer is going to absolutely love that record. Yeah, that's a good poll. Yeah, I really, really like this one. I want to give a shout out to the Skyfall record that just came out, sort of embracing his Caribbean heritage. Skyfall, I should mention, for those taking notes at home, spelled S-K-I-I-I-F-A-L. It's a brand new collaborative record with Kenny Beats. It's a reggae record, essentially.

Georgia Smith makes an appearance on kind of like a Lubbers Rock Throwback track called Her World, an excellent listen. Also one that people may have missed in the midst of the holiday extravaganza going on in December is a new record from the Japanese artist Yuma Abe. It's a second solo record.

It's called Hotel New Yuma. It kind of revolves around the theme is Yuma Abe is a hotel manager on a southern island in Japan, although you wouldn't really know it unless you speak Japanese. But it's a fun record.

I feel like he kind of came on the scene as a singer-songwriter in the mold of Mac DeMarco, and this is a lot more fun, city pop, a lot more funky, and a fun listen. A couple more records, there's a blues singer from Birmingham, Alabama named Early James. It kind of fuses a lot of vintage blues, rock, folk, country sounds, but with a fresh perspective, it's on Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys label. That's called Medium Raw. And finally, I wanted to mention the new record by the band Star Flyer 59. This is one of my colleague Lars Gottrich's favorite bands of all time,

and I think he would never forgive me if I didn't mention this record. They've got a new record called De Haime Dormier, which means let me sleep. And it's Jason Martin, who's the leader of Starflyer 59, took a bunch of Starflyer 59 songs and reimagined them as lullabies. And it's very, very pretty. and very sweet. Let's hear a little bit of the song Major Awards, parentheses, Dormir version. What is our show? Thank you so much, Travis Holcomb, for being here.

Thank you for have me, Stephen. It's very nice to get a look around the NPR mothership here. Well, it is a pleasure to have you. You are invited back any time. This was a delight. This episode was produced by Simon Rentner and edited by Otis Hart. The executive producer of NPR music is Saraya Mohamed. and her boss is Keith Jenkins, NPR's vice president of music and visuals, and a peach of a guy in his own right. We'll be back next week to talk about new albums from the Weather Station, Mac Miller, and others. I'll be joined by Kara Manning from New York City Member Station, WFUV. Until then, take a moment to be well, touch grass or snow, and treat yourself to lots of great music.