With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new drops available on streaming services. This week’s batch includes new albums from Twisted Teens, Bassvictim, Shygirl, and more. Subscribe to Pitchfork’s New Music Friday newsletter to get our recommendations in your inbox every week. (All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our affiliate links, however, Pitchfork earns an affiliate commission.)
Twisted Teens: The Holy Cross Tigers [Sub Pop]
Focusing on Twisted Teens’ relentless output in 2026 misses the point. Instead, track the fluidity of their strut through garage rock, country, and traditional folk; on The Holy Cross Tigers, that effortless sway of hypnotic steel guitar over shuffling drums presents like an old jukebox standard that you’re hearing for the first time. Place your trust in that timelessness. Caspian Hollywell and RJ Santos steer their New Orleans band like a pontoon boat: balanced, unadorned, and old-school in that it reinforces only the bare-bones necessities required for a good time.
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Bassvictim: Peace + War [Warner]
Bassvictim’s electroclash brings the lopsided, derelict genre to a new audience with all of the mess and less of the sex. Vocalist Maria Manow flips between feeling happy and sad, then fat and skinny, on “Happysad,” while she admits to feeling shit when she wakes up over the crushed-up industrial beats of “Wake Up.” The album’s production scuttles from laptop twee and bloghouse to freewheeling experimentations like “No. 33 piano,” which wobbles through febrile piano loops.
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Shygirl: Swallow! [Because]
There’s a reason that time-honored rave aphorism “PLUR” has an L: even the staunchest club kids need love, too. London scene veteran Shygirl’s latest album, inspired by a blossoming relationship, relishes in that sweet spot between dancefloor deliverance and dream-pop catharsis, drawing as much on Miss Kittin and Mazzy Star. Reuniting with Club Shy co-producer Karma Kid and bringing in Oklou’s right-hand man Casey MQ, Shy unfurls a clean record that’s sultry and soft in equal measure, like any romance worth its salt.
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Lil Baby: Fresh [Quality Control/Motown]
Since he dropped his debut studio LP on Quality Control in 2018, Lil Baby has kept his sound local, staying loyal to melodic trap and a close-knit crew of producers from the region. His new album, Fresh, tests that hometown devotion out on poppier songs, including his first collaboration with Pharrell. Features from Future and Young Thug—the only guests on the album save labelmate Rylo Rodriguez—basically spell out the crossover Baby’s looking to emulate. “If I can’t make hits,” he told the New York Times’ Popcast last week, “I ain’t gonna make music no more.” (Lucky for him, the lead single “Dead Fresh” just became his first Top 40 single since 2022.)
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Sufjan Stevens: Worst Christmas Ever! [Asthmatic Kitty]
When the holiday season rolls around, Sufjan Stevens is all-in on cover songs and original tracks to deck the halls. What originally took shape as Songs for Christmas, Vols. 1-5 in 2006 eventually led to the 2012 box set Silver & Gold, featuring dozens of new songs alongside the old material. Stevens’ commitment to Christmas cheer is extensive, to say the least. That’s why he’s now compiled Worst Christmas Ever!, which distills those holiday hits and fan favorites from his Christmas catalog into a single collection. Already know “Sister Winter” and “Put the Lights on the Tree” like the back of your wreath? Fret not, for there’s a special present tucked away just for you: the new original song “On This Christmas (It Only Gets Better).”
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Skepta: The Fork and Knife [Epic]
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Skepta hasn’t dropped a full-length solo project since 2019 but the grime star has stayed plenty busy, collaborating with Fred Again.. an EP, pulling up for a surprise set at Glastonbury, and releasing more than a dozen singles—including new tracks “Pandora’s Box” and “Gas Me Up (Dilligent),” which detail the ups and downs of success. The Fork and Knife might be Skepta’s first album in seven years, but the North London MC treats it like he has nothing to prove.
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Daine: In Endless Awe & Agony [Pack/Create]
At the tender age of 23, the Australian singer-songwriter Daine has already lived a few different musical lives, from teenaged emo pop-rap offerings (now relegated to YouTube) to a requisite hyperpop baddie era. Next is their debut studio release In Endless Awe & Agony, which leans into the unfiltered texture of their voice. The record, Daine’s first project sans Auto-Tune, is an introduction to their feathery mezzo-soprano. But it also reaches for bigger pop hooks in the lineage of mid-2010s acts like Passion Pit and the Naked and the Famous.
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Oso Oso: An Exchange of Information [Feral Twin]
Six albums into their basement-platinum emo-pop project, Long Island’s Oso Oso are their own blueprint. An Exchange of Information, the follow-up to 2024’s Life Till Bones, marks the inaugural release on Hop Along drummer Mark Quinlan’s new label. Turns out, you take yourself wherever you go: the new project harkens all the way back to Oso Oso’s 2015 debut, ripping into familiar territory with fresh energy. Led by singer-songwriter Jade Lilitri, the band closes out an indie-rock walkabout with a rediscovered passion for the head-banging pop punk that brought bristle to their earlier work.
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Sam Gendel: Advanced White Trash [self-released]
If you’ve heard Sam Gendel’s jazz-forward albums like The Room, Cookup, and Audiobook, you might be surprised by his latest, Advanced White Trash. The album mostly abandons the saxophone, the instrument Gendel is known for, instead opting for Auto-Tuned rap, glitchy R&B, and corroded 808s. Partly inspired by the hours of YouTube the musician has watched, it’s the sound of brainrot with pockets, like the mellifluous “Pattern Dance,” reminiscent of his colorful acoustic work.
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Untitled (halo): Untitled (halo) [Dirty Hit]
Untitled (Halo) is a band born out of “lack of a scene or music in LA.” The group of Ariana Mamnoon, Jack Dione, Jay Are, and Nicholas Noneman have set to carve out a DIY space in Los Angeles through their party series, and now with their debut album. Untitled (halo) is likely to draw comparisons to Bar Italia, while their occasional Auto-Tuned whispers might remind listeners of Chanel Beads. But the band has plenty more to offer, like bloghouse (“Sex”), trip-hop (“Thief”), and indie pop (“Easy Rider”).
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