Welcome to another installment of Today's Release Highlights, where the TND writers room gathers up some brand new projects they want to draw your eyes and ears to.

Today's a big release day, and we have eleven (10!) releases we'd like to key you into as you head into the weekend. Check them all out below.

Ba bam!

Angine de Poitrine – Vol. II [self-released]

Pitchfork's esteemed Christopher R. Weingarten says "it just happens to sound like Lightning Bolt trapped inside Pee-Wee's Playhouse," which probably can't be improved on but for the biggest (and grooviest) crossover prog band in decades, Angine de Poitrine, it's worth a try. Black MIDI pilot a time-traveling Delorean back to post-Communist Romania? King Crimson hold up the most minimalist post-punk band at gunpoint and force them to perform their labyrinthine compositions? Nigerien guitar ensemble Tal National reinvent themselves as a No Wave combo? Marc Ribot drinks a ton of espresso and convinces Man Man in 2006 they'll be viral stars 20 years later if they trade the beards for polka dots? — Daniel Aaron

Bruce Hornsby – Indigo Park [Zappo Productions/Thirty Tigers]

It’s always interesting to get a retrospective album from a longtime legend, especially when it takes a left-of-center approach to memory-building. Indigo Park by Bruce Hornsby doesn’t just go back to the early days of the Grateful Dead — though, his final collaboration with the late Bob Weir finally finds a home in the jaunty and sweet, Sgt. Pepper-channeled love song, “Might As Well Be Me, Florinda”. As we saw with the titular track, Indigo Park literally warps back in time with a synthesizer to Hornsby’s childhood, cementing fleeting memories as turning points in his artistic career. His past also becomes a thing of legacy, as “Memory Palace”, feat. Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, has him engaging and harmonizing with the next generation of alt rockers, people who have taken on his songwriting and composition techniques and put their own spin on it. (Side-bar, I do love how much Hornsby loves working with Koenig; appearing on the Time Crisis podcast four times is very cute.) Indigo Park is sparse, relying mainly on a woody, plunky piano and light dustings of synth notes. Yet, it’s a lyrically rich record that maps like our real memories: hazy, slightly surreal, tangling around each other, and warped by future knowledge. –Victoria Borlando

Earl Sweatshirt, MIKE & SURF GANG – POMPEII // UTILITY [Surf Gang]

You better be patient, because this one is going to take a while to take in. MIKE and Earl Sweatshirt unite with New York collective Surf Gang on this double album, in which each rapper lands their voice to half of the tracklist. It's cool to see experienced rappers such as MIKE and Earl collab with a young, fresh collective like Surf Gang – the new ideas are definitely there, and it's safe to say the rappers and producers have great chemistry in their low-key, lo-fi approach to hip-hop. I guess the tracklist could use a bit more energy from time to time, but nonetheless it's an exciting project – one that moves slowly and has a lot to say, as a typical Earl or MIKE tape does. – Amanda Cavalcanti

ionnalee – ionnalee’s Mouth of a River, pt. 1 [to whom it may concern.]

For those deeply embedded in the extensive lore of the ionnalee/iamamiwhoami universe, this week’s release of the first in a three-part, interconnected album series is a major event. Longed for all these years, Mouth of a River was originally conceived in 2011 during a period of heartache, isolation, and uncertainty. Not knowing if the iamamiwhoami project was going to continue after the media whirlwind surrounding their first release, 2010’s bounty, Swedish artist Jonna Lee threw herself into reimagining what a solo career might look like, eventually writing more than 60 songs that ultimately got pushed aside when iamamiwhoami moved onto album two (a few were repurposed for other releases over the years, if we're to get our facts completely straight). When Lee eventually did reimagine her solo career as synth-pop seeker ionnalee, work on MOAR went on in secret, developing into the trilogy that's now coming into play. It's the sum total of 15 years of sporadic finessing and sharpened production, but not to a fault. There’s still an appealing rawness to the songs of this first installment, with its stalking sense of loneliness and flooded unrest. – Alan Pedder

Los Thuthanaka – Wak'a [self-released]

What a year it's been for Los Thuthanaka. After releasing a highly praised self-titled debut record last year – one that took Pitchfork's album of the year spot, becoming perhaps the first non-streaming release to do so in the streaming era – the duo are set to do an extensive tour through the US and Europe, and Joshua Chuquimia-Crampton has also released a solo record last month. To cap off this victory lap (or, perhaps, to start a new one), Los Thuthanaka return with Wak'a – a more low-key, lighter project compared to their debut. Across this EP, their characteristic guitars and synths feel dronier and less chaotic, with a sense of optimism running through them. As one commenter on Bandcamp put it, "this sounds like sunlight flooding a valley!" – Amanda Cavalcanti

Wara Wara (capo-kullawada), by LOS THUTHANAKA

from the album Wak’a

LOS THUTHANAKAcyrano deimos cole

Makthaverskan – Glass & Bones [Welfare Sounds & Records] 

While some bands fall over themselves to move forever forward in stylistic leaps and bounds, Gothenburg’s Makthaverskan seem content with tracing shallow zigzags drawn out over several years. Glass & Bones, their fifth LP, tracks along largely unsurprising lines. There’s an almost anti-progress progression to it, as if to say that, sure, glass and bones are easy to break, but the Makthaverskan formula – surging new wave meets Scandinavian dream-pop – has the tensile strength of something like graphene. But who’s to say that a sense of continuity isn’t exactly what we need in unprecedented times such as these, when spectacle is everywhere and is frankly getting exhausting? Glass & Bones offers something more refined in its explosiveness than your average doomscroll, giving a feeling (illusion?) of control that's rooted in the album's tight, melodic churn. Singer Maja Milner remains the band's superpower, clawing at the edges of the mix as if meaning to rend it apart completely. Vulnerability and force in equal amounts? Well, if it ain’t broke… – Alan Pedder

Maria Taylor – Story's End [Million Stars]

Azure Ray co-frontwoman Maria Taylor is back with her first solo album since 2019's self-titled record. Story's End features acoustic guitars, light strings, and electronics across its ten songs, and includes "Sorry I Was Yours" featuring longtime friend and Bright Eyes mastermind Conor Oberst. After years of writing and recording demos, it was a "spark of conflict" that urged Taylor to finally finish the record. "After spending years working on this record, an irrevocable fracture in both my marriage and a friendship gave me the urgency to finish it," she syas. "I think I needed to make something beautiful as things fell apart around me." Longtime fans of Taylor's will be pleased with her return, surely, and let's hope it isn't seven more years until the next! – Jeremy J. Fisette

Robber Robber – Two Wheels Move the Soul [Fire Talk]

Vermont quartet Robber Robber released their sophomore record today, and it may be, this writer's opinion, the best rock record of the year so far. It comes from the frustration and uncertainty that marred the band after their apartment burning down left them displaced. Singer Nina Cates’s light, airy vocals dance in contrast with sometimes heady instrumental choices, be it discordant guitar stabs or breakbeat drumming. Two Wheels Move the Soul reckons with the intangibles of life and what remains sacred amid instability without forcing commentary that may have otherwise dated the record. – Leah Bess

sunn O))) – sunn O))) [Sub Pop]

Want your drone metal fix as pure as it gets? Look no further. This is the first LP by sunn O))) which features just its founding members, Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley. A recent New York Times feature revealed that some compositions on their full-length Sub Pop debut pack in 130 tracks of guitar. Mmm, tasty. You'll occasionally hear some bass and synth among those six-string layers, plus sounds of nature recorded around the studio – and, in the case of closer "Glory Black", a piano played by both Anderson and O'Malley at once. – Tyler Roland

Tiffany Day – HALO [self-released]

Tiffany Day has come a long way from posting acoustic guitar covers from her childhood bedroom. Her sophomore album HALO blossoms with the determination of a young woman ready to shout from the rooftops. Much like her electro-pop contemporaries, Day speaks of heartbreaks, anxieties, and feeling adrift in Los Angeles; however, her razor-sharp lyrics pulls you into her shoes which run to and from parties after parties – ones where you're not quite sure how you got invited, and even more unsure on if you're even welcome to stay. These murky feelings explode over her self-produced beats like cries for help on the dance floor, but Tiffany's gearing up to fight those demons on HALO. - Dana Badii

Wendy Eisenberg – Wendy Eisenberg [Joyful Noise]

Personally, I love the significance of a mid-career self-titled record, whatever form it takes. It could be an artistic reinvention (The Beatles, as a terribly obvious example), a distillation (let’s say Townes van Zandt), or a simple reintroduction (like Slowdive, which arrived after a 22-year break). Or, in the case of the new Wendy Eisenberg album, a bit of all three. Between their many solo albums, bands, and collabs, no one could accuse them of not being prolific, but Wendy Eisenberg reintroduces the virtuoso artist in a different way: through talking to their younger self from a place where they are living a more openly queer life, anchored in acceptance. The result is a time-traveling 43 minutes of flickering compassion wrapped in exploratory folk that hits with more warmth and melody than Eisenberg has ever shown us before. That’s not to say it’s straightforward at all, but the songs feel less like constructions to parse and more like states of mind, often woozy, sometimes bittersweet. A new alternative folk classic in the making. – Alan Pedder