6 albums you need to hear this week
With music from Fontaines D.C., Sabrina Carpenter, Mura Masa, Body Meat, Sofi Tukker and GIFT.
In the age of streaming, it’s never been easier to listen to new music — but with over 60,000 new songs added to Spotify every day, it’s also never been harder to know what to put on. Every week, the team at Rolling Stone UK will run down some of the best new releases that have been added to streaming services.
This week, we’ve highlighted records by Fontaines D.C., Sabrina Carpenter, Mura Masa, Body Meat, Sofi Tukker and GIFT.
Fontaines D.C. – ROMANCE
When Fontaines D.C. dropped their debut album Dogrel in 2019, the Irish post-punkers were heralded in some quarters as generational voices, a band that was able to dissect their Irish identity in a way so acute that it evoked the spirit of that nation’s great poets — whether that was classic voices like James Joyce or modern hellraisers such as Shane McGowan.
But this new record beckons in a more surreal, looser and brilliant era. ‘Starburster’ is among the best things they’ve ever done, while the whole record feels their most accomplished to date too. Job done.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Sabrina Carpenter – Short n’ Sweet
Short n’ Sweet is Sabrina Carpenter’s sixth studio album, but the first that arrives with her as a bonafide pop giant. The only competitor against ‘Espresso’ for the title of 2024’s song of the summer is, well, ‘Please Please Please’, and the pair of heavyweight hits lead an album that exudes confidence and charm, looking to ensure that Carpenter’s rise to A-list status isn’t a flash in the pan.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Mura Masa – Curve 1
“Curve 1 is ultimately a manifestation of an attitude I’ve been cultivating in my personal life; ignore everything,” Alex Crossan says of the fourth Mura Masa album. After his breakout as a pop-house producer adored by rappers and an unexpected but glorious turn into emo and pop-punk on his R.Y.C. album, 2022’s demon time saw him eschew all genre tags and cohesion entirely, instead making an album of crazed and infectious energy. Curve 1 continues this trend, and is a grab-bag of sounds from a brilliantly restless mind.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Body Meat – Starchris
Body Meat’s debut album arrives eight years after upstate New York-based artist Chris Taylor began the project, and was – according to the artist – born across thousands of hours of tinkering, experimenting and starting from scratch. The result is a truly fascinating album that inputs hip-hop beats, metal guitars, bleeps, bloops and Taylor’s Auto-Tuned vocals, before feeding them through a sonic blender and presenting the shrapnel in inventive and somehow catchy ways. This is deconstructed pop music at its absolute best.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
Sofi Tukker – BREAD
More is better is the motto for US duo Sofi Tukker, whose live shows, fashion, artwork and outrageous house bangers always aim big. New album BREAD, complete with its absurd artwork that sees Sophie Hawley-Weld wearing nothing but its titular food, draws from Eurodance, house, pop and beyond with a simple aim to write the biggest choruses possible.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music
GIFT – Illuminator
It’s an impressive new era from this New York dream-pop outfit, with a fully-formed otherworldly sound that sets them apart from the back. The lead single ‘Wish Me Away’ is enough to spark instantaneous escapism.
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music