7 New Releases You Should Listen To Now [September 2025]
Fresh drops more than worth your time.
Well, well, well. Here we are again. Another month, another edition of my new(ish) release radar column, where I round up the latest albums that have impressed me. No idle background music of playlist filler. At least a few of these records will be on the longlist of “best of” contenders at the end of the year.
No more preamble, just a reminder to subscribe if you’re enjoying content like this and want more of the best music of all time (and right now) delivered straight to your inbox every week.
Let’s dive in:
1. “Baby” by Dijon
Genre: R&B, Soul, Pop
Label: R&R / Warner Records
Release Date: August 15, 2025
Vibe: 🤩🤩🤩🤩
Dijon’s second studio LP builds on the success of 2021’s Absolutely, blending warm neo-soul and R&B with impressive bedroom pop instincts to create a sparkling, inviting collage. With that said, Dijon also expands his creative palette here, resulting in a noticeable leap forward in terms of songcraft and sequencing.
Little sample loops and vocal modulations seem to always snap into focus at just the right moment from song to song. “Higher!” stacks layered harmonies sky-high, while my favorite cut, “Yamaha,” rides a sticky groove with some seriously satisfying guitar and synth work. “Kindalove” ties everything together at the end with a wonderful closing glow-up.
2. “Live Laugh Love” by Earl Sweatshirt
Genre: Hip-Hop, Experimental
Label: Tan Cressida
Release Date: August 22, 2025
Vibe: 👽
Is there nothing that Earl Sweatshirt can’t do as a rapper? After his excellent 2023 collaboration with the Alchemist, Voir Dire, the Windy City native is back with a new record that’s looser than his previous solo outings, yet maintains the “less is more” ethos of his most recent work. Clocking in at a scant 24 minutes, this album is nevertheless full of verbose flexes and left-field production choices.
At this point in his career, Live Laugh Love serves as a comprehensive distillation of Earl’s enduring appeal with hip-hop heads who prefer their bars cooked to a different temperature. “Tourmaline” and “Well Done!” meander in the all the right ways, while “Crisco” is an excellent example of how the space around his bars fills in more blanks than you realize. This LP ranks among his best work to date.
3. “Love Language” by Ali Sethi
Genre: Pop, South Asian Fusion
Label: Zubberdust Media LLC
Release Date: August 1, 2025
Vibe:
Fresh off a run of successful singles and collaborations, Ali Sethi’s debut full-length threads Punjabi folk and Sufi inflections through bright, high-gloss pop. It’s a colorful, high-energy set that leans into a mostly club-ready aesthetic while keeping one foot in classical lineage. Underneath those vibes, it’s a record about love, community, and, most of all, identity.
While the record loses some of its momentum in the back half, the hooks arrive fast and stay pretty consistent throughout. The slinky “Lovely Bukhaar,” which pairs a soaring vocal with some tight Western pop production, is one of the highlights here, as is the trap bop “Hanera,” a showcase for how elegantly he puts a contemporary spin on Indian music traditions. It’s an exciting statement from an emerging voice.
4. “Ain’t No Damn Way” by Kaytranada
Genre: Electronic, House, Hip-Hop
Label: Kaytranada Music & Publishing, Inc.
Release Date: August 15, 2025
Vibe: 🪩🪩🪩🪩🪩
Kaytranada has always made dance music feel deeply personal. Equal parts Montreal basement party and global main stage (a dichotomy I got to see live when he opened for the Weeknd this summer). Ain’t No Damn Way, his third studio LP, leans harder into hip-hop textures while keeping his signature house thump intact. It’s less a stylistic pivot than a reminder of just how fluid his sound can be.
Spin “Dance Dance Dance” and “Spirits Up” and you’ll hear why he’s one of the best at marrying body-moving rhythms with emotional pull. Both tracks distill the record’s vibe: groovy, humid, and hypnotic without ever going anonymous.
5. “Landscapes from Memory” by Rival Consoles
Genre: Electronic, Ambient, Experimental
Label: Erased Tapes
Release Date: July 4, 2024
Vibe: 🌌
Ryan Lee West, the producer behind Rival Consoles, has carved out a reputation for making electronic music that feels tactile in a hand-sculpted way. His latest, Landscapes from Memory, continues that trend, piecing together granular textures into sprawling compositions that sound massive and intimate in equal measure.
Tracks like “Coda” and “Echoes” were standouts for me, slow burns that reaches beyond atmospheric fro something altogether more meditative. West builds tension not through jarring shifts in approach or tone, but by layering elements on top of each other methodically until they hum with physical weight. I was impressed by how much I felt this one in my gut.
6. “Black Star” by Amaarae
Genre: Afro-fusion, R&B, Pop
Label: Interscope
Release Date: August 8, 2025
Vibe: 💃💃💃💃
Ghanaian-American singer Amaarae is back with the follow-up to her much-acclaimed (not just by me, by the way) *Fountain Baby. Black Star is* a record that gleams with confidence. It’s simultaneously glossy and experimental, pulling inspiration from Afrobeat, R&B, and pop trends of the moment without settling into one lane. Her voice, airy and elastic, anchors the shifts beautifully.
For all the radiant hooks in the vocals and instrumentation, the darker edges to Amaarae’s persona show up more on this record, adding depth to what could’ve been more of a victory lap of a party record. It’s that duality that makes Amaarae so magnetic. She’s a legit star.
7. “The World is Still Here and So Are We” by Mclusky
Genre: Punk Rock, Noise Rock
Label: Ipecac Recordings
Release Date: May 9, 2024
Vibe: 🤘🤘🤘
Two decades after their initial breakup, Welsh trio Mclusky have roared back into our lives with The World is Still Here and So Are We. It’s brash, loud, sardonic, and, as I’m sure you can tell from the title, instantly relatable. Thankfully, the band hasn’t changed much in the intervening years. The same qualities that made their early-2000s records cult favorites are still intact here.
What surprised me is how hungry and angry this LP sounds. “Unpopular Parts of a Pig” and “Chekhov’s Guns” explode out of your speakers with this distinctive, breathless feral energy that longtime and new fans alike should love. Unlike so many rock bands who built a following 20-plus years ago, Mclusky aren’t content to rest on their laurels. Not one bit.
What recent releases have you been bumping? Let me know in the comments.
Noise lives on! A style nobody thought would still be here, nobody. KilPig bassist STAB stevegabe.substack.com
Adding Dijon and Rival Consoles to my queue immediately! You always make me add more music.