Prolific New Orleans rapper Curren$y links up with producer and frequent collaborator Harry Fraud for the duo’s fifth project together in as many years. Led by the singles “Dream Machines” (featuring Premo Rice) and “Airport Industries” (featuring Wiz Khalifa), Never Catch Us pairs Curren$y’s laidback but densely detailed bars with jazzy, breezy boom-bap beats that are tailormade for luxury boat rides exactly like the one depicted on the album’s cover.
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Bambara: Birthmarks [Wharf Cat]
Bambara stand right at the intersection between two of the most overexposed genres right now: post-punk and shoegaze. But the Brooklyn-based trio have enough gravitas and dynamic range to stand out from the pack. On their fifth studio album, Birthmarks, a song like “Letters From Sing Sing” builds to a nearly power-pop climax, complete with blasts of trumpet, while “Face of Love” wades deeper into the muck of trip-hop. All the while, frontman Reid Bateh serves as our sometimes-seductive, sometimes-menacing guide to Bambara’s seedy underworld.
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Hekla: Turnar [Phantom Limb]
It’s not every day one comes across the words “theremin virtuoso,” so, when you do, it’s best to pay attention. On her new album, Turnar, Icelandic electronic musician Hekla Magnúsdóttir wields her signature instrument—alongside cello, vocal, and organ accompaniment—in service of spine-tingling, alien soundscapes. The title of recent single “Ókyrrð” translates to “Turbulence” in English, so the fact that it’s one of the album’s least tumultuous tracks should speak volumes in and of itself.
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