NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out May 9

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

NPR Music's Stephen Thompson welcomes WXPN's John Morrison to discuss billy woods, Thom Yorke, PinkPantheress and more.Featured albums: • billy woods, GOLLIWOG (Stream)• Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke, Tall Tales (Stream)• PinkPantheress, Fancy That (Stream)• MIKE & Tony Seltzer, Pinball II (Stream)• mclusky, the world is still here and so are we (Stream)See our long list of records out May 9 and sample more than 40 new albums via our New Music Friday playlist on npr.org/music.CreditsHost: Stephen ThompsonGuest: John Morrison, WXPNProducer: Simon RentnerEditors: Otis Hart and Elle MannionExecutive Producer: Suraya MohamedVice President, Music and Visuals: Keith JenkinsSee 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

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It's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson, here with John Morrison from Culture Cipher Radio on WXPN in Philadelphia. How you doing, John? I'm good, Stephen. How you been? I've been doing all right.

We are getting into a stretch of the release calendar where it is very hard to narrow down just a handful of albums to talk about. Yeah, around this time, It's always a nice wave of records that I enjoy. We're going to kick things off with the record Billy Woods, and it's called Gullywark. Dumb luck if they ask me how, go ahead and cash me out. You already know I need mine now.

When my father came home, they slaughtered a cow. I come home, the house falling down. Everything boarded up in town. Everyone living South Africa now. Talk about it's hard all around. Why, when it's my turn to eat, it's always ashes in my mouth. Excited to be in the streets, Negroes is clowns. Or maybe it really is hard all the brown.

Weight of the world on your shoulders, keep a couple of pounds. Tender grass and tune the trees, I keep the grounds. I saw to the earth, bent back with a hoe his whole life. Sat up in the herds gave him quite the fright. Rigging for this on the floor of this bike like in memoriam. Sight by sources, anti-poppy consortia coat flowing every line. Billy Woods is a Brooklyn-based MC. He's the founder of Backwood Studios,

one of the best and most progressive labels in underground hip-hop. He's a veteran emce. He's one-half of the duo, Arm & Hammer, with the rapper Illucid, and really one of the finest emcees working today. Woods, new one, Galiwag. It's such a dark, unsettling record was reading Andre G's fantastic piece in Rolling Stone where he interviews Woods and Woods specifically points to the influence of horror on this album

and it's all over like you can feel it today I watched the man die in a hole from the comfort of my home the drone flew real low no rush real slow he curled up into himself For fetus in the womb, womb was the earth. Grenades landed at his feet and he scrabbled in the dirt. The way this record plays out kind of reminded me of the classic, like, old school horror anthologies, like creep show or, like, trilogy of terror. Where Woods, he's detailing very real social horrors, like historical, contemporary, and then some future kind of like speculative stuff. He's talking about colonialism. There's a point where you hear an audio clip, a sample of someone talking about the U.S.

government's torture programs that they carried out after 9-11. This stuff is rooted in a horror aesthetic, sonically and lyrically, but it's not fantasy. It's all real stuff that he's talking about. Staggering post-colonial African zombie state chase the people into the waves. Watch every ship and raft till it disappear, whether it make it or watery grave. Hey, who's to say right away, zombies stop going all crazy. They whole game changed like Sozay. Walking dead, no way.

Brother, the uninterrupting range is roving. You already know that chauffeur gold Mercedes is a goat. They'll harvest where the house of trades is a hawk and is that. Billy Woods has been around a long time. You know, he's been putting out records since 2003. He's really taken off in the last few years. He's been collaborating with people like Kenny Siegel. You know, he put out a record in 2023 called Maps

that was just a staple of year-end top-ten lists. I must be getting old or something. A track like waterproof mascara, you know, it sounds like it's the soundtrack to a vintage horror movie. Watch my mother cry from the top of the stairs, scared when it came to the walls, I cover my ears half hoping you know who would die. Then he did.

Surprise. Careful what you wish. for might just get that shit. Mom's shortest where she kept the passports in. The king's dead and your uncles are not our friends. How many times I gotta tell you kids it's us in this room? That's it. A song called Golgotha, you know, that again is weaving in these samples.

The old years, the green years will leave. But at the same time, because a lot of the samples are so vintage, because he's drawing on kind of old horror movies. He's drawing on these influences, you know, that are very much, you know, from deep in the past. There's almost this sense of playfulness at the same time. Like, the samples are leavening agents as much as they are, like, reminding us of the horrors of the world.

Munitions flying in an empty sky. I saw a lion at the Bronx Zoo when I was nine. It's stuck in my mind. Sometimes feeling like the Togon Shrine's cover. The fuselagin, cut them dead. I don't think Woods gets as Shuddering at the plane climb You know I pray to every one in the moh

I don't think Woods gets as much credit as he should for his humor Kind of like clever insight that he'll throw into the music This record is absolutely brutal But it does have moments where I don't want to say lighter But it's kind of like dark humor Like even the very beginning of the record Like the first sound you hear If I'm not mistaken it sounds like

an old school film projector winding up, like the first thing you hear before you hear any music. So with that choice, like breaking the fourth wall, Woods to me is very much playing the role of like Alfred Hitchcock on this record, where he's not only exploring fear, but he's also the mind and the voice narrating all of it and tying it all together. Death poems folding and breast pocket My bag clothes It's a dark road But ain't no accidents

No coincidences it's all practices Some drove some craws Some rain glancing backwards Some ran raveless Tender is the flesh Slender imaginary friends This winter you'll eat to live Summer heat blew the grid

Rabbit dog in the yard Car won't start rag dog playing dead It's all over the place In a way that I found really impressive I went back and kind of listened to it again and kind of picked up on more and more of the tonal shifts

as he's moving through this record. There's a song called Born Alone, which is really sad and haunting and woozy. But I found it really hypnotic. I just got drawn into it. Born alone, die alone, no matter who your man's heads, hope he led long enough to tell it to his break gifts.

Born alone, die a long, born alone, die a lawn, born alone, die a lawn, born alone, die a lawn. I had a zipper break on the nightstand, woke to a pile of 12-12s. It had a skunky smell, shoe-making the L's. I'm gonna go back in time tell that young boy give him hell. If it's a fight, fight to the bell. Peep the six CD carousel, Scottel page.

And then, like, he's such a clever lyricist. You know, I can't help but shout out a song like Corinthians, which features the rapper Despit. Not just because it features a reference to the tiny desk, but because he's so witty that it really I almost said undercut, it does an undercut, it enhances. It mixes in the kind of the darkness and the portent with, as you said, humor. I hit him with the he's screaming, carry my vision swim.

Girlfriend, whenever you're around, you like dims, two cents. If it's on site, say less. Where I see it, and ain't no past tense. Little kid, tiny desks, itty bitty violins, big head, blue lips. If you never came back from the dead can't tell me shit. Woods is one of the best writers out. And it's all over this record, not to make it like in like a sports metaphor kind of way, but he's really in his prime.

You know what I mean? And it seems like everything he puts out, it's like, yo, how deeper can you get into the craft of MC and the craft of writing? Neighbors just got evicted. How you going to put folks out a week before Christmas and they got kids? Them people sick in their head is sick. Everything niggas got tossed the street Crying kids is wicked Took what they could fit in a cousin whipping two trips

The rest just sit Nobody wants to be the first but it's just sick Eventually people start picking and sifting through Not proud but eventually I was with them too Poxy pants in the kitchen few old clothes My kids is little they won't know the difference Dolls with their heads missing wild-eyed, rocket horse Mouths carved into a frown

Family photos scattered on the ground But they're not of that family I put them down A light drizzle drove me back inside the house Baud the door sat on the couch The stuff on the floor Everywhere it's hungry mouths It's going to house For popular musicians

That is not generally the trajectory So to have him Kind of continuing to gain momentum As he moves through his 40s As his music is kind of getting Even smarter As these references get more dense As the samples that he's drawing from

become kind of richer and more thoughtfully considered, it's really inspiring for me to hear a record by an artist who's this far into his career and sounding more vital than ever. All summer in a day, I spent all summer digging myself out of grade. Can't run with the walls when you're a stray. Can't let anyone know you getting paid. Can't let them meet the connect. Your own people will get you about the way.

I hit 20K in my mother's bass. DC Summers suffocating, the air pregnant, the whole city just waiting, tasting my own blood and bracelets. When I was a kid, rappers got signed to a major label and got two albums. And that was it. Right. You know what I mean? This is somebody who's created his own lane, pushing the craft itself forward, pushing

you know, his own skill and ability to write forward. And this record, you know, I didn't tap in with the last. one as much as I've been playing this one. And this is, you know, one of my favorite things that he's done in Reaching Gears. That's Goliwog from the rapper Billy Woods out today, May 9th. Next up, more veteran artists. Mark Pritchard and Tom York have a new record called Tall Tales. So Mark Pritchard and Tom York, this is their first full-length album together. Tom York, of course, is, you know, the lead singer of Radiohead and The Smile.

Mark Pritchard is a veteran electronic producer with reload and link and global communication. He's a specialist in weird old synthesizers. Like he delves into like archives of obscure old synthesizers and really puts that skill set to good use here in the song we just heard. You know, this is probably closer in spirit to Tom York's work with like Adams for Peace than it is with like Radiohead or the Smile. kind of experimental electronic music where they're really warping and playing with Tom York's music in interesting ways, while really turning Mark Pritchard loose on these strange and hypnotic and kind of throwbacky arrangements that sometimes sound like old video games and really kind of smear these songs in really intriguing ways. Yeah, this was a pleasant surprise for me.

I saw Mark Pritcher's name pop up on this record, and I kind of speculated what it would sound like, and I was excited. You know, his production is fantastic. A lot of those old global communication tracks, I still play out in DJ sets. But this is something completely different. Tall Tales is a dark, atmospheric record. sometimes it feels like a film score there are certain sections of this record that feel like maximal ambient music

but then there's other times where they lock into a groove and a vocal and melody and it feels kind of like electronic pop record from another dimension there's a track on this album called the White Cliffs and it's eight minutes long and you get this eerie quality

You'll get kind of lo-fi, you know, kind of drum machine, you know, minimalism. But then you're also getting hooks thrown in. And, you know, they're playing around with Tom York's voice so much. And it's wild. You know you're dealing with confident artists. You're playing around with a voice as iconic as Tom York's voice. Tom York's voice has been omnipresent now for more than three decades. But they'll take it and they'll warp it.

It's almost like a charcoal drawing where they're taking their fingers and smudging it and kind of flattening it and stretching it and playing around with it. They're still playing with new ideas and new sounds this far into their careers. And that Tom York is kind of liberated from having a lot of commercial needs. He's not worried about extending some big hit-making career. He's interested in making challenging music. It's just overall sonically such a playful record. The sound design is crazy.

You hear a lot of the older instruments that Mark Pritchard and Tom York are using as Farfisa on this record. They're playing an ARP Odyssey at one point, a Yamaha lectone that I love, love the sound of those old Yamaha synthesizers. and they're like twisting this stuff and playing around with it and making all these old vintage instruments sound futuristic. Tonally, it adds up to this vibe that, like, I don't know, I'm sure in German there's a word that means jaunty and haunting. There's a track called Gangsters, where my immediate thought was like, this manages to be jaunty and kind of playful,

but there's also this undercurrent of menace, and sorrow. Like a weird old horror movie to kind of speak to what we were talking about with the Billy Woods record. I wanted to kind of wrap the segment by acknowledging that there is kind of a third member of this group. The visual artist Jonathan Zawatta designed visuals to go along with this record, not just album artwork, but also video. And Jonathan Zawada made a full-length visual companion to this record. There's another dimension to the work that they're doing here

that makes perfect sense that there would be visuals. And I can't wait to see kind of the visuals that they concoct to go along with this sound, because it's music that really lends itself to the eye. But it's not going to change

myself I wanted to end. I'll get to have you back somewhere you've been. My legs can't. That is Tall Tales, new album by Mark Pritchard and Tom York. We've got a bunch more great records to talk about this week, but first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with John Morrison of Culture Cipher Radio with WXPN in Philadelphia.

John, I hear tell you have a book coming out. I do, I do. So for the past year and some change, I've been working on a book about Philly's own Boys to Men, and the book actually comes out May 20th. It's about Boys to Men, it's biographical. So I'm walking folks through the story of Boys to Men, how they met in high school, how they became one of the biggest pop groups of the 90s. but I'm also giving you, you know, lots of nuggets about, you know, Philly hip-hop history, soul music history, the history of R&B as it relates to race in America.

So I tried to pack as much as I could in this book about a beloved group. Yeah, and boy, they came out of such an interesting and fertile scene, you know, because they kind of came up alongside like Belle Biv-Devo and, you know, a lot of that stuff that was that was really, really popping in the 90s. Fun fact, this is a perfect, like, two truths and a lie thing for me. There was a memorial service for my father, who died in 1994, and another bad creation, ABC, performed at a memorial for my father. Really? Wow.

Yeah, if you would have done that, you know, like two truths and a lie, I would absolutely be like, no way that's true. Man, I'd see, there's just a lot of info about that new edition, East Coast family, a lot of 90s R&B. You know, it's a big, beautiful book. It's a hardcover book perfect for coffee tables. The book is Boys to Men 40th Anniversary Celebration. No town Philly.

Boys to Men, ABC, B, B, BD. Yeah. East Coast Family. Boys to men, ABC, B, BD. All right, next up, we have the new mixtape from Pink Panther. Pink Panther has a new record called Fancy That. So I tend to think of Pink and I'm really glad to meet you. You're recommended to me by some people.

Is this illegal? It feels illegal. I've solved quite a few times with paranoia. So I tend to think of Pink Pantheras as kind of the ultimate rising star of the TikTok era. She makes these songs that kind of breeze in almost like they're coming in like a vapor. You know, and this record is nine songs in 21 minutes, brisk, breezy, but sometimes. very insistent dance pop. You can tell she has her finger on the pulse of what young folks want to hear.

But it's also interesting, like listening to the single from this mixtape tonight. I'm hearing a lot of different references from older music. It's like older electronic music but filtered through this contemporary lens. Just the chords, this song tonight, his beautiful electric piano chords. There's a tune by the band, D. Light, called How Do You Say Love? And the producer, Pau Joey, did a remix, like a dub of it. if you would have told me that Pink Panthera's sample the same chords that Powell Joey did on that Delight record, I would believe you.

The texture and the sound, they sound so similar. In her music, I hear electronic dance music, Jersey Club, Baltimore Club, but there's also in certain songs like in her vocal tone and the melodies that she plays around. with, they kind of feel like a Western take on K-pop, which K-pop itself is, you know, it's drawing so heavily on Western pop music. Its own set of influences. Yeah, so it's like a weird, like, feedback loop. These songs, you know, to your point, Stephen, are quick and breezy, but I think that there's definitely substance and history in this stuff. It feels very much how young people process music history, like, very fast.

Well, and one thing that this record really had me thinking about is a larger trend that is really coming up in pop culture in general, beyond just music, which is the power and increasing volume of Gen Z nostalgia. A lot of what Pink Panther is doing is kind of marrying very, very contemporary, kind of TikTok-friendly, extremely like hook-forward, excerpt-forward music, and mixing that with a healthy dose of Gen Z nostalgia. The artists sampled on this record, Basement Jacks, Jessica Simpson, Panic at the Disco, and Just Jack.

And so she's weaving in sounds that she herself is nostalgic for. And, you know, when we're talking about kind of the larger pop cultural landscape and you're looking at some of the biggest, like a couple of the biggest movie hits in recent years are like a Minecraft movie, Five Nights at Freddy's. These are films that are making absolute bank appealing to the nostalgic impulses of very young people. I would argue that Gen Z cares about the past more than my generation did. Like, Gen Z feels like a generation that's very much forward moving but also like looking at the past and you know they all love shoegaze and like old electronic music and old drum and bass

and stuff like that you know and it obviously an artist like Pink Panther is somebody who's you know accomplished like she produces a lot of this music she's you know not somebody who's just showing up at the studio and singing, not that that doesn't have value, but she's creating a lot of these soundscapes herself. So naturally she would have a handle on sampling and what she wants to reference. This feels like kind of the root of what can be a larger project. I'm kind of hearing remixes of the future listening to this record. There's a track on this album called Stars. Big, bold, bright, danceable pop music. She's famous for her brevity.

She's famous for songs that don't waste a second and have this compact quality to them that can still be kind of excerpted down into smaller and smaller fragments. But I also hear the potential in a song like stars for remixes and expansion at the same time. That is Fancy That by Pink Pantherus. Next up, Mike and Tony Seltzer.

Mike and Tony Seltzer have a new album called Pinball 2. This is a Tony Seltzer, explicitly. Brody Tony what it takes him, made my necklisten. I brew with her and run away to feel neglect victims. He's good to try and run a fade. Now I get with her. No few my niggas tuck and blading do the stress dinner. I come to my chest and fade my head and chest mess.

I almost touch a hundred K. I'm rapping tan kisses. Pinball two is the brand of me Pinball 2 is the brand-new You can't invest in me There's funny niggas up in Shady Instead of rent with me Pinball 2 is the brand new album

From the New York based MC Mike M-I-K-E And the producer Tony Seltzer This record is Very fun And very bizarre it opens with a song called Sin City which has this like wild,

raucous, like heavy beat. Even like the master of the record, it sounds like it's distorted. Like they push the entire thing into the red and the arrangement and the production, it kind of feels like 2009 Lex Lugar

kind of beat. You know what I mean? Like it has that late 2000s, like club energy to it. And I think that that song, starting off with that song, it kind of sets the tone. All that goofy shit you fell for, I'm in the steward Tony Seltzer. We just raising hell. Well, they do me in that cell for ain't in getting your bell.

Try to prove I was a failure. Yeah, they prove they never sell. You're a goat all I hit. Never know how I feel. Seen ghosts in a mirror at my own game chill. Do the most for shit. I was broke. It's a stiff.

Feeling close from my head shot, cold trying to All that goofy shit you fell for Only bring your cell, I'm in the stew, Tony Seltzer Nogers raising hell Where they do me in that cell for ain't me And give me bad I try a proof They proof they never said

Go all I hear Never know how I feel See a ghost in the mirror And my home getting chills Being chills There's like mellow tunes that have really gorgeous production and sonic environment. But then there are songs that are like straight up, like, it feel like somebody hit you with a baseball bat.

You know what I mean? It's like hard as nails. It has that good aspect of a mixtape feel where you get a lot of variety. and Mike is Mike. Mike is a very particular vocal tone and delivery style and you know he's he's the center of all of this other music that's flying around this environment that they're creating is kind of like a storm and and Mike is at the center of me. This record He ain't got no brass, getting a shortcake, yeah. I grew up to her litig is very new. He ain't get no bad, short, shortcake, yeah.

I grew up to tell your litig is very new. This record puts 17 tracks in 33 minutes. And as you can imagine, from kind of that statistic, you're getting a lot of kind of one-and-two-minute songs, but the ideas on these songs still feel complete. You know, trip out on that mission because it's more ways, more of a bay, how to bring that chicken to your doorway, Northside, had to put a city on a tour, Dates and short.

You move through this record with real momentum as it's kind of, as you said, kind of whipping from song to song, but nothing feels unfinished. Nothing feels kind of frustratingly truncated where it's like the start of an idea that doesn't go anywhere. There's slower material that really has some real kind of emotion, like intimacy and emotional impact. There's a track on this record called Anxie, which, you know, true to its title, has this sense of reflection to it, even as it's kind of whipping through different tones and sounds and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If I lose my rain and blame me, they get cool my ways in canny. Your booze just came in handy.

I got to lose my paper stamping. And the truth just way too bad. So the truth just made me angry. I can mute my taste of rinsie. I'll be moving way too fast. A lot of his delivery feels slurred. It feels super casual, but it's also like a casual mastery. At his face, they feel like, oh, he's just kind of showing up and mumbling through this.

But if you look at the couplets that he's putting together and the patterns that he's kind of playing around with and how he's locking in with the beat, you realize like, yo, this is somebody who's mastered the traditional way of rapping and gone beyond it. There's a story folks used to call Ornette Coleman

Little Bird because he learned how to play all the super fast, you know, Charlie Parker's stuff. And then he went into the stuff that had people thinking like, can this dude really play? It's that sort of thing where it's like

he's really kind of broken through with a style of MC and that's all his own. The different shifting moods on this record, there are aspects of it that are sad, that feel vulnerable, but then there are other aspects of

where he's like, I'm talking shit, I'm sliding on this beat, I'm better than you, you know what I mean, like the thing that rap should be. Suddenly, booter when I'm with her, I get cut of me. Suddenly, the coolest in the city who they want to be hugging you, cooler and they been there's under me. Jew would not be wishing on a hundred g, money dream, dream, new more reckon bitches, all that son of me. Covering me, moving through your city, I got muscle beats, trouble with me, try and get up with me. Listening to this record, it kind of reminded me of how unique an artist Mike is. And the production, it's like a perfect marriage.

I'm John plays still a man. Well, and you talk about flexing. I mean, it's like the penultimate track on the record all of a sudden. It's like, oh, here's Earl sweatshirt. Just thought we'd just have him pop in and you just get get this great kind of bracing mix of voices. That's all that doubt with your bird of wasopi. Try to count you under hurt as the copy.

Only God know a word is behind me. Only God know the worst I ain't got it. Mostly I know the worst I remind me. Only don't know the hurt to be modest. Know my body you certainly like me. I go chopper on murder of the sock. Ain't a while if you learn from Mike. That's Pinball 2 from Mike and Tony Seltzer.

We've got one more record we're going to talk about in depth, as well as a lightning round of some of the other great new albums out today, May 9th. But first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with John Morrison from Culture Cipher Radio in WXPN in Philadelphia. We've got a lightning round of some of our other favorite albums out this week. But first, we wanted to talk about one more record, definitely a curveball. It's by the band McCluskey, and it's called The World is Still Here, and so are we.

Because your death, aye, aye, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right's of a pig, I taste nothing. Without its permission, I swear.

The unpopular parts of a pig, I'm sorry. But no one enjoys picking blood from your hair. All right. So, McCluskey, you know, one theme, you know, with several of the artists we've talked about this week. Veteran artist, McCluskey, UK, kind of post-punk, hardcore band. It's been around since the mid-90. then took an extremely long hiatus starting in the mid-aughts. Aggressive, weird, snotty post-punk, with a real sense of humor and grandiosity.

First thing pulling me in about this record, song titles. There's a song called The Competent Horse Thief. There's a song called Kafkaesque novelist Franz Kafka. You know, we've talked about with several other records this week, like the Billy Woods, like the Mark Pritchard and Tom York record, you know, where they're just like wadding a time. of ideas into these songs that really just have this quality, like they couldn't not release it because this music is just so bursting with creativity. This is a fun, wild-ass record, you know what I mean?

I wasn't familiar, McCluskey, as the meme says, wasn't familiar with your game before I heard this, because I think this is a very unique body of work. But one thing that kept jumping out in my mind was, like, like, yo, this is like a louder, gnarlier pair-ubo. A song give you like hardcore kind of riffs and rhythms, but then it'll spin into this weird, like, shouty thing or like a bass breakdown. This is bizarre, and I think that rock music needs that. Every genre music needs the weirdos and people willing.

to make a bizarre, political, emotional, erratic music. And this McCluskey record has all of that. I was pleasantly surprised by how hard and crazy and weird this record was. It hadn't even occurred to me to think of this record as a tribute to Paraubu and the late David Thomas, whom we just lost. I had been aware of McCluskey. Like you, John, this is a band that I hadn't necessarily spent a ton of time with, but I've always had friends who've loved this band. And, you know, I've always

had, there was always, there was always somebody else at, you know, wherever I was working, who was always willing to jump on a new McCluskey record and who was always excited about a new McCluskey record. And this is the first time for me that I ever really got a chance to sit down and listened from start to finish to a full McCluskey record and then kind of listen to it again and kind of soak up some of the, some of the nuances. I know nuance sounds like a strange word with a record that is so hard charging, but just reveling in how weird and wonderful a lot of these songs are, how funny they are. There's a track on this record called Auto Focus on the Prime Directive that is so wild and unhinged and almost, almost cartoony. It's intense in a way that

feels deeply playful, and that is what I really found myself celebrating on this record. You can feel forever be a side man. All to focus on the prime array. You can feel the commitment, even in, you know, beyond like the lyrics and what's happening vocally, the performances, musically, the arrangements. We need more rock music that, you know, will kind of like drag you around the bend and introduce weird ideas, a hand-futable. of individuals who are committed to make it something that don't sound like anything else.

That's the world is still here, and so are we by McCluskey. We could not possibly get to every new record that we wanted to talk about. So we wanted to do a lightning round of some of our other favorite albums. I'm going to kick us off with The Head and the Heart, because tonight we're going to party like it's 2011. The Head and the Heart is back with a gorgeous new set of kind of crowd-pleasing folk pop. The exact mix I think fans have come to really look for and expect. Big, joyous, rousing uplift, intersected with tenderness and sentiment, rendered with real skill and craft.

This has been one of the most reliable bands around for more than 15 years now. Their new sixth album is called Aperture. Celebrating the anniversary of their 2002 debut album in between, the German electronic music collective Jazzanova, their back with, a brand new album In Between Revisited, which is a live version of In Between. It's a beautiful album connecting the dots between hip-hop, sample culture, broken beat, soul music, jazz music, and it's all played out live on stage, a record that was so complex with all of these different samples and different musicians coming in,

playing these very complex arrangements. It's dope to see them do this live and create a nice update to such a groundbreaking record. The singer-songwriter Omar Bonos, who records under the name Kuko, has been putting out charming pop records for almost a decade now, and he's still only 26. His music blends bedroom pop, kumbia, Basanova, and the classic sounds of American AM soft rock.

All of it is dispensed with really earnest emotion and undeniable charisma. Kuko's new album is called Riding. Seven piano sketches by the rapper Andre 3000. This record is curious, obviously, Andre being one of the greatest MCs who's ever lived. opting out of getting on the microphone. Instead, he's given us this small collection of just piano improvisations. He can play a little bit and has, you know, a lot of technical limitations.

But I think that's part of the charming thing about it. He has some pieces on here where he's playing some really gorgeous, rich chords. but you can tell he just doesn't have the technique to flesh it out. It probably ain't going to win best jazz record or anything like that. But it's nice to see somebody at his level so willing to experiment. And finally, Cole Police plays warm, fluttering, ambient music where the primary voice is the saxophone. The effect can be calming or conversational or even kind of futuristic. vibey. Sometimes there's this quiet, searing quality to it, but if you, like me, like to settle

in with some hypnotic, ambient music at the end of a long week, I am here to recommend Cole Police, whose new album is called Lans End Eternal. John, before we go, you and I listen to quite a bit of music in preparation for this episode, and it's fun to kind of just go out with, like, what was your one single favorite song that you listened to preparing for this episode? Yeah, so I'm a cheat a little bit because this is a live version, updated version of a song that I know well, but from Jazzanova's in between revisited the song No Use featuring Clara Hill, absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous soul tune. Sometimes, you know, when I'm struggling to pick, you know, well, which was my favorite? What was my one favorite song? I just think what song is stuck in my head? And I'm just going to talk McCluskey.

Autofocus on the prime directive. That's what is stuck in my head. It's just the shouting, the chanting of that big, wild, silly, goofy, fun song. Like, I will be cranking that out of my car for weeks and hopefully months to come. But there is plenty to choose from this week. and that is our show for today, May 9th. Thank you so much, John Morrison, for taking time out of your week with WXPN and Culture Cipher Radio.

Absolutely. Thank you, Stephen. And congratulations on the new Boys to Men book. Yeah, I appreciate it. I can't wait to check that out. If you enjoyed this week's show, we always appreciate a positive review on Apple or Spotify or whatever app you are listening to right now. This episode was produced by Simon Rentner and edited by Otis Hart.

The executive producer of NPR Music is Soraya Mohamed, and her boss is Keith Jenkins, NPR's vice president of music and visuals. We'll be back next week to talk about the new Amine album and more with Roe Wildflower Contreras of KCRW. Until then, take a moment to be well, fire up the nearest grill, and treat yourself to lots of great music.