You’ve got a month’s worth of music to get through next week. And you’ve got it easy — I’ve got to get through it all right now. So let’s skip the blither-blather and get down to the nitty-gritty. Here are your plays of the week:
Marc Ribot
Map Of A Blue City
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “When she was a child and he a young father, Marc Ribot’s daughter drew a map of a city in deep, rich, vivid blue. When he praised her blue map, she corrected him: It’s not a blue map, but a map of a blue city. That distinction stuck with him and eventually inspired the title of his latest album. Map Of A Blue City bears the weight of its history gracefully, incorporating recordings made over nearly half of Ribot’s life and reflecting on how he got to this particular moment. “Working on this album for so long, I’ve seen the world change dramatically and not really change at all. Some of the issues today are the same ones I thought about when I was just starting the album, but some are things I couldn’t have dreamt of at the time. But I think that’s why I was so determined to get the production values right. Recording production is really complicated, but it all boils down to what kind of room the listener feels they’re standing in. There are some hard truths and cold observations in these songs. I wanted the room to be small enough so that we couldn’t turn away: but warm enough to feel like you’re hearing it from a friend.”
Logan Richard
Character Traits
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Logan Richard is one of music’s rarest creatures — a compelling and diverse songwriter who also shreds. The P.E.I. artist has been sharpening both skills since he first picked up the guitar as a pre-teen, building a reputation as a deft, genre-fluid songsmith and peerless hired gun for some of Canada’s most exciting musicians. But his new full-length Character Traits collects the undeniable evidence of Richard’s talents under his own name as he navigates slick pop, spacey R&B, and soulful folk. Throughout the album, Richard navigates the trials and tribulations of youth with clear eyes and an uncommonly honeyed voice. Produced by friends and fellow artists David Myles and Joshua Van Tassel, Character Traits is the inevitable result of commitment to craft, a collection of considered and close-to-the-heart songs that provide a detailed picture of a songwriter hitting his stride.”
Science Man
Monarch Joy
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “After brooding in the shadows of the Rust Belt and extensively touring for the last five years, Science Man have mutated from John Toohill’s brainchild into a relentless, 10-armed, genre-bending monster. They set loose a blend of enigmatic hardcore punk that melts away the restraints of the style, throwing you into their ever expanding distorted reality. Their latest, Monarch Joy, is a chaotic, strange, and deceptively joyous blend of hardcore made for those who only wish to risk moving forward.”
Sparks
Mad!
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “If the world is a cafe, its ridiculous patrons babbling ridiculously all day long, then Ron Mael is the guy on his own in the corner that you don’t notice, quietly sipping his coffee. But he’s watching, listening, making notes. Those notes become songs for his band, the legendary Sparks, to be sung by his brother Russell in his unmistakeable falsetto. Despite the efforts of Edgar Wright’s superb 2021 documentary The Sparks Brothers, which introduced the duo to a wider audience than ever before, the exact creative dynamic between the siblings remains inscrutable, as mysterious and unknowable as their private lives. The one thing we know for certain is that Ron is one of our most acutely perceptive observers of social mores. In a different discipline — dramaturg, cartoonist, novelist, cineaste, chronicler — he’d be a Moliere, a Hogarth, a Fitzgerald, an Altman, a Swift. He just happens to work within the medium of popular song. Another thing we know for certain is that Russell has the asset of a talent to put those observations across in a uniquely arresting manner, captivating as a frontman and gifted with a countertenor voice of extraordinary range. The alchemy between Ron on keys and Russell on vocals — Two Hands, One Mouth, to invoke the name of one of their tours — is simply what they do. And they’ve rarely done it better than on Mad!, their 28th studio album.”
Sports Team
Boys These Days
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “With much of what we consume shorn of context, juxtaposed beside unconnected messages as a billion different fingers scroll through ever-so-slightly different feeds, to make a work of art embracing 21st-century culture Sports Team have dived into the churn at the deep end. After their first two hit records — the Mercury Prize-nominated Deep Down Happy (2020) and Gulp! (2022) — skillfully charted individual thoughts and feelings, for new album Boys These Days, the London six-piece have taken a wider view. Allying a seer-like lyrical insight with the band’s most dynamic musical performances to date, Sports Team are piercing the content abyss. A carousel of 21st-century sins, this witty and insightful examination of modern life is both a critique and a celebration of its times. Yes, Boys These Days takes aim at everything from advertising hype to relationship dysfunction, stationed at the point where the digital tide crashes onto IRL shores, but their perspective is fuelled by immersion in that landscape as Sports Team are scrolling along with the rest of us.”
The SteelDrivers
Outrun
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Steeldrivers celebrate their 20th anniversary with their seventh studio album Outrun. The Nashville bluegrass band simultaneously defies the traditions of the bluegrass genre and redefines it for generations to come, expertly weaving in rock, soul, blues and Americana. Call it that SteelDrivers sound. Those already initiated with the two-decade-running, Grammy-winning quintet will know exactly what it means — the bluesy-leaning, stomp inducing, singular style that’s made fans of folks from Adele to Bill Murray to hundreds of thousands more fans across the globe for the past two decades. Between The SteelDrivers’ unique thump and chop of the rhythm section and seamless harmonies and vocal delivery, the Americana sum becomes greater than its bluegrass parts, an X factor that’s still present.
Stereolab
Instant Holograms On Metal Film
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Are you having aerial troubles with your colour TV? We can’t help with the technical issues, but we are able to take your minds off the problem with news of a brand new Stereolab album. Their first new record in 15 years, it features 13 songs written by Laetitia Sadier and Tim Gane, and performed by Laetitia, Tim, Andy Ramsay, Joe Watson and Xavi Muñoz, who comprise the current touring lineup of the band. The album also features guest contributions by Cooper Crain and Rob Frye , Ben LaMar Gay, Ric Elsworth, Holger Zapf, Marie Merlet and Molly Hansen Read. It’s been approximately 302,352 hours since Stereolab started, 126,672 hours since they released their last album, Not Music and it’s only another few dozen hours until Instant Holograms On Metal Film arrives.”
These New Puritans
Crooked Wing
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Crooked Wing is These New Puritans’ long-awaited fifth album — their first in six years. Produced by Bark Psychosis pioneer Graham Sutton and Jack Barnett, and executive produced by George Barnett, it features an unpredictable lineup of collaborators, from Caroline Polachek to veteran jazz bassist Chris Laurence. The cult duo returns with one of 2025’s boldest and most immersive records, shifting from the brutal to the beautiful. Crooked Wing cements TNP’s status as visionaries — defying genre, rejecting convention, and delivering their most moving, powerful work yet. “This album is both more surreal & somehow more direct than anything we’ve ever done,” says George. “A crooked wing is an ear, you have one on each side of your body, and they have a rippled shape. Maybe if you’re lucky they can help you fly.”
Turtle Skull
Being Here
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Turtle Skull’s new album Being Here is a lush and gritty exploration of neo-psych with indie and alt-pop sensibility. With Being Here, Turtle Skull have evolved. A new lineup. A fresh approach. A leap forward. While the album builds on the sonic foundations of 2020’s Monoliths, it’s a different beast. Still hefty and considered but more immediate. Made for
the moment. A record that values gut instinct over perfection. Tracked live at NoWave in Mullumbimby, with a paired-back approach to studio tweaking, Being Here captures that lightning-in-a-bottle energy that happens when a band fully locks in. New member Ally Gradon’s synths inject fresh energy, swirling around meaty riffs and driving rhythms. It’s expansive yet raw, drawing from the likes of Black Moth Super Rainbow, Idles and Cause Sui with a nod to the cinematic sprawl of Spiritualized and Flaming Lips. A heavy, heady blend of melody and atmosphere.
Thalia Zedek Band
The Boat Outside Your Window
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Thalia Zedek’s considerable body of work demonstrates a clarity of vision, a singular performance style, and an expansive range. Her ability to deliver raw emotions through her vivid stories of loss and hope, strife and triumph is unmatched. Zedek has long been a melodic songwriter in a series of heavy bands. That contrast, along with her distinct blend of both direct and poetic lyrics, allows her to sing of the most difficult of life’s moments in ways that are both elevating and devastating. Out and proud her entire career, Thalia never hesitates to speak truth to power. A commanding presence, Zedek wields her band like a storm, hurling tempests and cutting through the mist with precision, the ensemble swelling and unspooling in sync with her every gesture. The Boat Outside Your Window finds Zedek contemplating absence and distance, with songs as spirited as they are profoundly moving.”
