Stream of the Crop: 6 New Albums for Heavy Rotation

This article originally appeared on Noisey.

The end of the week means a glut of new music to dig into and, while that is Extremely Good, it can be difficult to know where to start. So every week, we at Noisey put together a list of our favorite new albums, mixtapes, and EPs from the past seven days. You can listen to them all on this page and click through to buy them if you'd like. It is neither comprehensive nor fair. We hope it helps.

If you’re willing to look for it, there is hope lingering on Loss Memory, Mat Cothran’s fifth record as Coma Cinema. It’s buried deep—under lyrics about suicidal ideation, cycles of abuse, addiction, and death and his general tendency toward creeping tempos and weepy—but it’s there. On songs like “Ambrosia in the Bitter World” and “Burden,” Cothran sings of the possibility of finding spiritual release, the sort of catharsis his project has always promised. If this is, as he says, the final Coma Cinema album, it’s an incredible image to fade out on: a rising sun after years of darkness. — Colin Joyce

Buy: Bandcamp | iTunes Stream: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

On his third project of the year, rising South Central rapper G Perico is breathless and focused, sounding off about his determination to make it to the top while keeping both eyes on the dangers that presents. On “Affiliated,” he spits: “I need every thing fast for me, it ain’t safe cruising / I’m trying to double up on this little money right quick.” Two tracks later, halfway through celebrating his come-up, he makes sure not to get carried away: “Gotta watch who you with 'cause you never know what he really thinking, or how low he might go.” The 29-year-old strikes the same tone throughout—literally, he can be monotonous—but when that clicks, it can crackle. “One Two” stands out, a smart piece of autobiography that sacrifices none of its snarl to Cypress Moreno’s nonchalant beat. Elsewhere, 2 Tha Left features collaborations with Mozzy, Nef The Pharoah, TeeCee4800, Polyester, Bino Rideaux and production from Cardo, V-12, Poly Boy, Westside Webb, Dupri, and Lee On The Beat. — Alex Robert Ross

Buy: iTunes Stream: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

The vast digital world the the Portland-based duo Visible Cloaks spoke into being on February’s Reassemblage undergoes a renaissance on Lex. The six-track release is shorter, but its just as biodiverse, full of synthesized percussion and swooning electronics that unfold like time-lapse gifs of impossible flora. It’s alive, but artefacting, a painterly landscape of life in the grid world. Pair it with multimedia artist Brenna Murphy’s stunning visual accompaniment Permutate Lex—in which she surveys the strange realm through both telescopes and kaleidoscopes—for a moment of escape. — CJ

Buy: Bandcamp | iTunes Stream: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

Futurist footworker DJ Earl teams with the Fool’s Gold studio-nerd-cum-party-starter Nick Hook for an eight-track burst of weed-hazed dancefloor relaxation. It’s a bit more chilled than you might be used to from either of the duo but not every night out has to be a rager—sometimes you just wanna lean on a wall as Wiki raps his ass off, which he does here on the laid-back “Hook Chop.” — CJ

Buy: Bandcamp | iTunes Stream: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

The first of three EPs from the Scottish twee-pop troupe is wistful and non-confrontational until it’s not. It opens with Stuart Murdoch’s promise that “I want to lend you my ear and diligently be on hand” and rounds itself out with a flute-led, slow-grooved instrumental, but penultimate song “The Girl Doesn’t Get It”—smiley synths bounding over an excitable electronic beat—has teeth. “They'll take profits over people / They will make the country great again / Just as long as it's white and ugly,” Murdoch sings alongside Sarah Martin. Wait, he’s not done: “Fear the immigrant workforce / Fear the kids raised on the internet / They are scared if they can't control you.” Then a mission statement, after a sickly solo: “If compassion was honoured / All our dumb human problems / Would belong in a bin marked history.” If you can’t bear tweeness, you’ll find it a slog; if you love the tweeness, you’re a Belle & Sebastian fan who’s listened to this EP ten times already; if you’re an agnostic who can buy in for 25 minutes or so, you might come away feeling half-breezy and maybe a little riled-up. — ARR

Buy: Matador Records | iTunes Stream: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

Most of this comp feels undercooked and, oh boy, it’s 30 songs long. Lil Yachty doesn’t belong over ominous trap beats— Teenage Emotions was proof enough—and he shouldn’t keep trying to square up to Migos’ strip joint flows. He’s great on the dream-trap of “Movin’ Up” next to Ty Dolla $ign and he has fun alongside Young Thug on the already-released “On Me,” but moments like that are too rare. Elsewhere, Quavo and Nicki Minaj get semi-melodic on “She for Keeps,” which is worth a couple listens; Offset and Cardi B bring their romance to “Um Yeah,” though the track comes and goes without leaving much of a mark. Just think of this as a celebration, however unfocused, of QC’s year which was, by any measure, a huge success. — ARR

Stream: Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

Follow Noisey on Twitter.