NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out July 25

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Tyler Childers. Patty Griffin. Indigo De Souza. Joe Kendrick of WNCW in North Carolina joins us to discuss the best albums out on July 25.Intro:• Tyler, The Creator, 'DON'T TAP THE GLASS'The Starting 5:• Tyler Childers, 'Snipe Hunter'• Patty Griffin, 'Crown of Roses'• Indigo De Souza, 'Precipice'• Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band, 'New Threats from the Soul'• Yoshika Colwell, 'On The Wing'The Lightning Round:• Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist, 'Alfredo 2'• Cory Hanson, 'I Love People'• quinnie, 'Paper Doll'• Unspoken Tradition, 'Resilience'• MC Yallah & Debmaster, 'Gaudencia'See our long list of albums out July 25 and sample more than 50 albums via our New Music Friday on npr.org.CreditsHost: Stephen ThompsonGuest: Joe Kendrick, WNCWProducer: Simon RentnerEditor: 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

A quick note before the show, this podcast contains explicit language. Happy Friday, everyone from NPR Music. It's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Joe Kendrick from WNCW. In Spindale, North Carolina. Hey, Joe. Hey, Stephen. Welcome to the show. It's great to be here. I've been looking forward to this. So before we start, we should acknowledge the major album that dropped at the beginning of this week. Tyler the Creator just eight months after the release of Chromacopia is back with a rowdy and upbeat new album called Don't Tap the Glass.

It's an uncharacteristically brisk and brief album for Tyler the Creator it clocks in it just under half an hour. And it's a real hairpin turn. We just wanted to make sure we at least mention it in this roundup of the best new albums. But we're going to kick off our show with the new album from Tyler Childers. Tyler Childers has a new album called Snipe Hunter. So Tyler Childers, a country singer from a blind, as in you'd be blind to see that there's a man's mansion and it did not come. So Tyler Childers, a country singer from Kentucky, deep, bluegrass and folk bent to his music.

He's been floating around kind of ever since a 2017 breakthrough with purgatory, but he has just kind of been putting out really critically acclaimed album after critically acclaimed album. He put out a record in 2023 called Rustin in the Rain. That was like seven songs in 28 minutes, kind of speaking of short albums by people named Tyler. But this is really pretty epic. You know, 13 songs, it runs almost an hour, big sound, you know, big anthems, big voice. You know, everything on this record feels kind of built out. This one produced by Rick Rubin and co-produced by Sylvan Esso's Nick Sanborn,

who adds a lot of layers with organ and scent. And that expands his sound even more. I think he's going in some new directions musically. It's an angry record, and Tyler Childers is known for being kind of that brash personality. but I think on this record, it's really front and center all the way through. There's a song called Getting to the Bottom, where it feels like Tyler Childer's voice is almost like punching through the din in a way that I found really affected.

Tyler's vocals are almost clipping in most of this record. With a couple of exceptions like the song Oneida, which is a fan favorite that he finally put on record, and it shows a little bit more nuance. I know that I'm younger than most, but I'm willing if you got the time. Everywhere else, it's not only his voice, but it's, you know, guitars and drums and synths.

It's all crashing and cascading. You might want to wear some PPE when listening to this record. There's a song on the record called Bighton List. This kind of kiss-off anthem, and the chorus has this line, if there ever come a time I got rabies, you're on the biting list. Which is just a way of kind of telling someone to buzz off. So it's kind of quotable and pretty profane along the way. You know, thinking about rabies, it might flee in terror from Tyler Childers.

You know, he may be immune. That sort of colorful speech that ability. to turn a phrase is something that folks from the South, I think especially have a knack for. And Tyler shows it all the way through. And when somebody drops an F-bomb, it's totally different when Tyler Childers does it, because when he does it, it kind of leaves a mark.

It's like, ow, the cursing on the record feels earned. I love the fact that Jesse Wells is on this record as well. I think his star is rising deservedly so. He's kind of the consciousness of a new generation of folk and Americana artists. And his fiddle and his guitar is all through this record. There's also a track on this record called Turthiatra. That references a Hindu pilgrimage. The song has lots of references to Dharma.

And you get these reminders that kind of like his fellow Kentucky and Sturgle Simpson. This guy's a searcher. actually live except we'd leave behind. Turtha Yatra, so that is sort of the front porch philosopher aspect of Tyler's personality. And especially for a native southerner or myself, you know, that sort of oddball, autodidactic tendency that certain folks in the South have, they're outcasts. And I think Tyler Childers has taken up that mantle with that song especially. And he refers to his sort of hillbilly lineage with lines like coming from a cousin loving clubfoot something something backward searcher.

He would be one of the most interesting people to have dinner with. But again, I might be a little bit afraid to sit down with Tyler Childers. I mean, if you've ever seen him perform, he's got laser eyes. That is Snipe Hunter, the new album from Tyler. Childers. Next up, Patty Griffin is back with a new record called Crown of Roses. So that was the end. And then this world began. And I'm very strange land. So I swallow my pride. I told to myself again and again and again. Patty Griffin is legendary. She's had a fantastic career. she's back with an intensely personal record.

She's gone through a whole lot. Crown of Roses is a beautiful record. It's all about reconciliation with her late mother. It reflects very largely her adopted state of Texas, originally from Maine. You'll see on the cover, her mother's wedding day photo. This record just has that sort of southwestern feel musically. and thematically throughout. I think that's front and center.

This is an album of newfound perspective. She's looking back on her relationship with her mother and how it's shaped her and how that relationship evolved. Patty Griffin is a cancer survivor. That cancer took a toll on her voice, that she's still kind of reclaiming. But she's found ways to kind of sing through that and sing around that and find subtleties

in ways that maybe she wouldn't have thought of before. She talks we wanted to see, wanted to change, wanted to free, there's so many things we needed to be,

and we are. She talks about how she's given up her sort of, I don't know what you would call it, male-centric view of the world. She's quoted as saying,

there's a lot of work to do and I'm glad I'm a woman. It goes hand in hand with the sort of the courageousness, that sort of theme that runs through so many of these songs. Well, the album kicks off, you know, with back to the start, you know, which is kind of chugging, bluesy, vibes. It's kind of setting the tone of like just keep moving, just keep surviving. There's a line in the song, you know, there's secrets I don't tell ever to myself, I just keep moving. It's this kind of anthem for anyone who's kind of feeling stuck. The world is conspiring to keep you from

feeling happier, to feel like you're progressing in your life. But then also trying to stop and take stock in, you know, what has brought you to this point and what's going to make tomorrow better than today. She starts and ends the record with songs that mention secrets. And in the first song, it's secrets that she won't share with herself. In the last song, it's a secret that she wants to share with you, whom I think she's referring to as her mother. That song that closes the record a word is just, ooh, it is a devastating song and a really beautiful summation of a lot of these themes that have run through the record.

There's a place out on the edge of this town where you find all the people like me. She's got a lot of Latin flavor to her music on this record. She is quoted as citing Brazilian singer Rosa Pazos, as well as Billy Holiday and Rickie Lee Jones, and her late mother as main reference point for her singing style, which is, quote, delicate and to the bone. That delicacy, I don't think it's bone deep. There are a lot of scars that are just underneath that. veil. In the song Long Time, there's this lusy vibe, but there's this lusy vibe, but there's also something seething and unsettling. And it's really appropriate, like Robert Plant, you know, with whom she's had this long

relationship, you know, he comes in and sings back up. And, you know, if you want ominousness in 2025, you know, call on Robert Plant, you know, this voice that has seen it all and kind of come out the other side. There's a song on the record called Born in a Cage, looking at her relationship with her mother, kind of gaining perspective, offering forgiveness, understanding that sometimes things just didn't work out the way she wanted because that's life.

That sense of perspective, I think, is what really gives this record such heft. Mother still cry, but after a while, When I first heard that songbird in a cage, I thought it might be about human trafficking. But then I read the backstory on it. It was like, oh, no, it's really about her late mother. But that's kind of perfect because I bet that Patty Griffin would think it's totally valid to have that interpretation of the song. Her songs work best when there is a vagueness to them, when they're open to multiple

interpretation. But she's such a deft songwriter and she's so gifted. These are ragged stories because life that they reflect is ragged and that that's life. Yeah, life well lived. That is Patty Griffin. Her new album is Crown of Roses. We've got a bunch more great records coming up to talk about that are out today, July 25th, but first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Joe Kendrick from WNCW in Spindale, North Carolina. Joe, tell me, now, for those who aren't familiar, where is Spindale? Spendale is in the foothills of the Appalachians in western North Carolina.

Our broadcasting tower is on Klingman's Peak, which makes it at practically the highest point on the east coast, so our signal travels over parts of five states. Wow. So tell me about the station. We are largely a music-based station, but we are largely a music-based station, but we do have NPR News Headlines, Morning Edition, and shows like the World Cafe. We were one of the first five stations to carry the World Cafe. We've got kind of a sort of a buffet of new music to choose from, and it's more or less

lined up, but you still have tons of choice, and the hosts get to make changes on the fly, take requests, have inspiration for themes. And people can stream WNCW anywhere. They just go to WNCW. That's right, and we're on tune-in. Well, next up on New Music Friday, we've got an artist from North Carolina with straight up one of my favorite albums of the year so far. Indigo DeSuzza has a new album called Precipice. All right, so Indigo DeSuzza is a rising star from Western North Carolina from Asheville.

And listening to that shibber and shake of pop that she's got here on an album precipice, you know, it may not sound like the Rootsie Americana that Western North Carolina is so often associated with. But it is definitely we will claim her every day of the week all year long. She is so adept at, you know, she's brash pop bangers. But this record is also bookended with these. beautiful, atmospheric songs that are ringing out big, deep emotions. A song like, Be My Love, you know, is just such a beautiful tone setter. And then, you know, closing with this, the title track, Precipice, it's bringing to mind artists like Bonne Verre.

She is so gifted at kind of bringing people from the indie pop world to the pop pop world. and back, I feel like she's a gateway drug in both directions. And, you know, emotion, I think, is at the center of this record. It's kind of the meat on the bone, both musically and lyrically. It's a no skips record. There's a song on this album called Heartbreaker, which has big Mitzky vibes, and not just because Mitzky has a great song called The Only Harpaker. This is not fitting into the box marked pop.

You're also hearing this intelligence and, depth and analytical quality of kind of looking at bruised relationships, but that are couched in songs that have a brightness to them. Take a song like Be like Water. Now that's closer to poetry than Pablam anywhere on the planet, man. There are two like really mile wide, you know, just pop bangers on this record. One is called heartthrob. Yeah, heartthrob is a.

Extremely catchy song, but it's also kind of scary. Listening to that song is like, whoa, Indigo's been through some things. Western North Carolina has been through a lot, and she's been very publicly open about the fact that she has really, she really took a hit in these storms. Yeah, she did, and I'm glad she didn't leave, Stephen, because it would be so easy to pull up stakes and give up because the damage is still everywhere.

Everybody was traumatized, Indigo DeSouza included, so I tip my cap to her for sticking through it. Well, if you want to support Indigo DeSouza, one great way to do it is check out this record. That is Indigo DeSuza. Her new album is called Precipice. Next up, Joe, I have a sneaking suspicion that this is one of your year-end top-10 list entries. It is by Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band. It's called New Threats from the Lest. I jolted up to some new transference from a sliding door on a sister vessel and just let it play through. El Segundo, I left my true love in the West Lafayette escape room.

Kind of smile to get a blue swine in trouble. I kind of smile to get a violent one or two-time felon and pulled. So, Jessica Rabbit, my buddy chair, my Peggy Bundy. So Ryan Davis is from Louisville, Kentucky, and works with a number of kind of Kentucky musical icons. Bonnie Prince Billy shows up on this record. The great guitarist Nathan Salzberg wrote his artist bio. He is definitely, like, deep Kentucky, which kind of seems to be a theme this week. This is a deeply strange, neosyncratic, very lyric-dense record.

There's a sunrise worth a day, just the facts that I heard to say. For saken puns flip for police force to work and worse than get their king horsey shirts away. There's a, like a song on this record, Mutilation Springs, that is almost 12 minutes long. This morning. True kind of rambling, epic, and it's almost all verses. I think this is in my top ten. You ever have a record that you first hear it, and you'll always remember what you were doing or where you were at the time? Usually on my couch. All right.

Well, or driving to work. But this one, I'm washing my car on a sunny day listening to this record going, what the whole time? I'm like, oh my gosh, then this happens. And there's breakbeats. Country is going to get attached to any description of this record And it does have a pedal steel throughout But you know, it's coming at it from a completely different angle Kind of in the way that artists like Lee Hazelwood or Graham Parsons might be labeled country

But they're really kind of not or even some parts of lamb chop You know those would give you an idea of the completely complexity, at least, as far as a comparison to Ryan Davis. You know, when you listen to this record, you hear Catherine Irwin from Freakwater shows up. The people who are working with Catherine Irwin, they stay in this business for a long time because they have something to say. And this record is by a guy who has something to say. some 3,800 words in the lyrics to this album and almost none of them repeat.

Right. There's a track called Better If You Make Me. And at six minutes, it kind of feels like the closest thing to like a single. You know, in part because it has a repeated chorus, you know, unlike a lot of these songs that kind of unfold more like rambles, but it's still, it's so quotable and it's so clever. Sipping Exo-Congiac in the back of the donkey show Everything is a secret

Everything is a secret To somebody knows It's so rock and roll, I think, A stream of consciousness almost, The way he writes his lyrics. You'll take, like, OJ did it on a license plate, Lightning Strikes and ignites the Day. I'm pushing this lawnmower down Broadway in a windstorm,

twirling like a sex tape in a microwave. I'm just thinking of Odelay-era back right there. You have to sing it like Ryan Davis, who does really sound a lot like Bonnie Prince Billy when he sings, especially that line. This is a dense record, and it is going to uncover new things with repeated listens. The Spanish moms who weeps in mourning,

not only personal, but also planet. Terry laws. Not just for the bloodshed, but back on for what the Bloody Mary's cause for the beauty queen. That is Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band. It's called New Threats from the Soul.

We've got one more record we want to talk about in depth as well as a lightning round of some of our other favorite new albums out today, July 25th. But first, let's take one more quick break. From NPR Music, it's new music. Friday, I'm Stephen Thompson here with Joe Kendrick from WNCW in Spindale, North Carolina. Next up, we've got a new album by Yoshika Colwell. It's called On the Wing. It'll never be enough, but I still call. Let it go.

Hold on for too long. You told me you were right, you know. Yoschid to black. Everything that I had. I gave back. And what a breath of fresh air. She was raised in the English countryside, and this is a record that really sounds like it. So she took a meandering path to get to where she is in her early 30s.

For a number of years, she was with a trip hop group called Luna. Luna with two U's, not to be confused with the other band. Yeah, not the Dean Wareham, Luna. Yeah. The word I kept coming back to when I was kind of taking notes on this record was luminous. These songs like almost glow. And there's a track called In Bloom, you know, which has this, you know, this sunny vibe that kind of suits its title. Elsewhere, it's, you know, it's slower and more, more pensive and reflective.

There's a, the song, Turn My Face Away. At one point, it kind of reminded me a little bit of Emily Haynes from Metrick when she put out this gorgeous solo record. Keep coming back to Kentucky, a little bit of Joan Shelley. If I'm comparing somebody to Joan Shelley in any way, shape, or form, that means I'm a fan. Comparisons. like Sandy Denny, I think, are not out of line. Absolutely. Or a more modern-day comparison, Laura Marling.

There's a Stephen Hawking quote that says, Quiet People Have the Loudest Minds. I'm pretty sure that Yoshika Colwell is a quiet kind of person, but, man, she can deliver some blows. Like, on the very first song, the lyric, and the world spins on and on, and it's taking all I have just to get it wrong. And it just stopped me in my tracks.

That's a great line. You've probably felt that at some time, but have you put it into those words? The amount of effort it takes to screw things up, it should not be discounted. There's a song called Last Night, you know, where it's got harps, you know, kind of straying throughout it. You can almost feel like night falling around this. The violin, the violin, the cello being in the cello being in the same song with, say, pedal steel and electric guitar, and it is, like you said, it's luminous. That's Yoshika Colwell. Her debut album is called On the Wing. Now, Joe, we could not possibly get to every great record that is out today, July 25th. This is a busy release day and a really really, really good one.

I'm going to kick off our lightning round with Freddie Gibbs and the veteran rapper. Back in 2020, Freddie Gibbs, he's a veteran rapper, put out an album with The Alchemist, who's an extremely inventive producer. That album in 2020 was called Alfredo, and it matched Freddie Gibbs' kind of evocative, hard-bitten flow with The Alchemist's production, which is really sample-rich, you know, kind of throwback, kind of vintage retro feel. Alfredo was a big, critical and commercial hit. It got nominated for Best Rap Album at the Grammys.

So I suppose a sequel was inevitable. Today it is here, complete with guest appearances from Anderson Pack, J.I.D. and Larry June. That album is called Alfredo 2. Corey Hanson's new record, I Love People. If you don't know the name Corey Hanson, perhaps you know his other band, WAND, or some collaborations that he's done with artists like Ty Siegel, also Bill Callahan, and Bonnie Prince Billy.

Everything comes back to Bonnie Prince Billy. It does, doesn't it? Now, Corey Hanson, he's been into these rock and roll context, you know, Ty Siegel's just screaming rock and roll. and on Corey Hanson's album before this, Western Com, it was very guitar-centric, but this has got way more in common with, say, Rufus Wainwright or even Elton John than any of those artists. And it's like so much of this is almost like a velvet painting of a record.

Magic our prophet, desert rat, dormant, short skirt, man like machine. The New Jersey indie folk singer Quinny writes song, with a deceptively childlike quality. They plumb emotional depths, but they sound playful and strange as they do so. Quinny released a terrific debut album called Flounder a couple years ago, and now she's back with a follow-up

that explores themes of alienation and isolation. Her roots and bedroom pop show throughout, but there's also a real expansiveness to her work. Quinny's new album is called Paper Doll. In case you haven't heard, Bluegrass is having a moment, thanks to superstars like Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle,

folks are coming around to Bluegrass from all sorts of angles, I think from the country world, also from the jam band type world. But Bluegrass has had a long-storied tradition, and continuing in more of that straight-ahead direction is Western North Carolina band Unspoken Tradition and their new album, Resilience. You've got two brothers in the band, Audie and Zane McGuinness. Ty Gilpin on mandolin, bassist Sapp Sancoran, and this hits all the sweet spots for anybody that's

familiar with bluegrass. You've got at one point triple fiddles, which is just so rich, but just those stacked harmonies that, in a way that sounds so sweet only like bluegrass can do, resilience is in large part a reference to the resilience of the region in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. American tradition is also spearheading a set at the upcoming Earl Scrugg's Music Festival. It's called Healing the Hollers, which is a benefit for Blue Ridge National Heritage Area and Blue Ridge Music Trails, which benefits a lot of the musicians affected by Hurricane Helena in the area. What's it going to take for us to hold on?

MC Yala is a Kenyan rapper based in Uganda. who wraps in four languages with a dense and intense flow. Even when you can't understand what she's saying, it's performed with such ferocity that it barely matters. She's been floating around the East African hip-hop scene for more than a quarter century, but she's still being discovered here, including by me. I've never heard of her. She's amazing.

A great place to start is her fiery new album. It's a collaboration with the French producer Debmaster called Godencia. Now, Joe, give me the pick of the litter. Give me one song that you're taking away from this experience. Your sweet nothings are still souring the sheets on the bed. This is so difficult, Stephen. I know, this is a really good week. So many great picks.

But since I already mentioned that Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse band is very likely in my top ten for the year, I'm going to have to go with the title track to new threats from the song. Well, for me, in addition to the fantastic array of records that are out today, there's also a remastered 30th anniversary edition of an album called Music for Nitrous Oxide by one of my favorite ambient bands in the world, really one of my favorite bands in the world, Stars of the Lid. We couldn't fit it into this week's show, but it's gorgeous,

and it's more than just a hint of the wondrous music that Stars of the Lid would go on to make. But if I only get to pick one thing, it's going to be something for, from that Indigo-Desuza record. Coming to a precipice. I'm going to go with the title track, Precipice, which closes this record. It is so beautiful. And doing it in a really reflective,

gorgeous way that I'm going to come back to again and again. That is our show for this week. Thank you, Joe Kendrick, for taking time out of your week at WNCW in North Carolina. Thank you, Stephen, for having me on. It's been great. It has been great to have you. If you enjoyed this week's show,

we always appreciate a positive review on Apple or Spotify or whatever app you're listening to right now. This episode was produced by Simon Retner and edited by Otis Hart. The executive producer of NPR Music is Soraya Mohamed. We'll be back next week to discuss new music

with Liz Warner from Public Radio Station, WDET in Detroit. Until then, take a moment to be well, support public media, and treat yourself to lots of great music.