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, we have a list of seven new releases we'd like to key you into as you head into the weekend. Check them all out below.

Ba bam!

Broken Social Scene – Remember The Humans [Arts & Crafts]

On their first record in nearly a decade, Broken Social Scene have found themselves itching to get back to what makes them happiest: having fun with your friends. Remember The Humans is a call to action as much as it is an album title. Flurries of woodwinds and Kevin Drew's sparse lyricism arrive as a timely reminder of the beauty in creative human collaboration; after all, it's the ideal the group was founded on. Broken Social Scene's glory days are admittedly behind them, but the decreased pressure results in unadulterated fun. Read our interview with them here. – Leah Bess

Cola – Cost Of Living Adjustment [Fire Talk]

The Montréal rock trio Cola are back with a semi-self-titled record, Cost of Living Adjustment (C.O.L.A.), an in-your-face label for an album that's almost the complete opposite. Taking on a piecemeal sound — jangle pop guitars, punk drums, light dashes of modern synths, steely rock bass licks, and a melancholic and poetic vocal and lyrical style — the latest installment attempts to find some ground amidst the shakiness of our current reality. It contradicts itself constantly, coping with loss with nostalgia in the pining and mournful "Conflagaration Mindset," only to cross that thought entirely with a fire red pen in the upbeat, Smiths-esque finale, "Skywriter's Sigh." Other songs like "Fainting Spells" and "Haveluck Country" flash with musical personality, either through the almost theatrical, mandolin-like guitar introduction to the former, or the all out classic punk pep that laces the latter with anger and wit. C.O.L.A. is another installment in the 'solid indie rock album' catalogue, with the big three (lyrics, vocals, instruments) working in harmony to move the listener. – Victoria Borlando

Juçara Marçal e Thais Nicodemo – Dessemelhantes [YB Music]

Last year, I caught one of the first glimpses of what would eventually become Dessemelhantes. In a small venue in São Paulo, Thais Nicodemo and Juçara Marçal played beautiful covers of contemporary Brazilian songwriters, in only voice and piano. They are, of course, the perfect duo for the task: Juçara is one of the most important voices in Brazilian contemporary music though her solo albums and her work with experimental band Metá Metá, and Nicodemo is an inventive pianist who, for this album, put objects like paper strips and metal cans on her piano strings to achieve different textures. The result is nine amazing versions of inspired songs — the highlights include “Maria”, a beautiful track originally written by artist Maria Beraldo, and the equally hilarious and incisive “Eu Lacrei”, one of many masterpieces by singer/songwriter Negro Leo. – Amanda Cavalcanti

Namasenda – Limbo [Year0001]

The cover of Namasenda's Limbo does plenty storytelling: as if trapped behind crystal glass, the Swedish avant-pop star, enveloped in pure white, touches an etching of the word "Limbo." She's at the border of a very thin veil between the mud and the stars, and with a dance record that reconstructs EDM pop from first principles, she slowly but resolutely taps at her own pressure points to liberate her burning potential. With dance bangers like "Cola," "Madonna," and "Clermont Twins" — songs whose lyrics wrestle with wanting to impress others, achieving her ideal look and career, yet not wanting to lose sight of herself — the tension gets ironed out with clean, minimal production. Relying on just a few synth stems, Namasenda still makes a bodied record; "Love Island" beams with crescendoing glides until a subtle kick drum crashes into a thumping and bright percussive break. Likewise, "Alright" concludes the record with a lullaby-like vocal, before the melancholic pop song fades into a glistening, energetic dance track. Exhilaration, transformation, introspection: hold these three words close to your heart as you tune into this beautiful, pristine new album. Read our interview with her here. —Victoria Borlando

Olof Dreijer – Loud Bloom [dh2]

After years spent making pointedly political, sometimes po-faced work as one half of The Knife, Olof Dreijer’s long-awaited solo debut leads with a rush of liberation and generous sense of joy. Across Loud Bloom’s 70+ minute runtime, he gleefully bends familiar dance music forms into strange, often dazzling new geometries that nod towards the avant garde and microtonal electronic scene but, by and large, keep both feet firmly in the club. As a sci-fi fan, Dreijer treats dance music in much the same way as the great genre writers treat the future, imagining other ways of being alive. Loud Bloom lurches, sweats, and improvises its way forward, invested in ideas of transformation, fluid identity, and collective movement that blossom through revisiting his early love of techno and breakdance. Guest vocalists on the album include Cairo-based Sudanese singer MaMan (“Echoed Dafnino”), South African MC Toya Delazy (“Makwande”), and Colombian–Swedish percussionist and DJ Diva Cruz (“Acuyuye”). – Alan Pedder

Sara Parkman – Aster, atlas [Supertraditional]

This fourth album from Swedish folk maverick Sara Parkman is structured around the concept of a secret walled garden, a hortus conclusus, in which she moves deliberately through three distinct sonic terrains: a sacred cloister (choirs, chanting), a pastoral meadow (Scandi folk, melodies clear as a mountain stream), and an electronic Eden of drones and distortion. Sung in Swedish and a sprinkling of Latin, Aster, atlas is dense with symbolism that might go over the heads of Anglocentric listeners, but the music has a gutsy, very physical immediacy to it that, I think, communicates Parkman’s boldness and creativity just as richly as her words. Parkman sees her garden – both in metaphor and in real life – as a place where work and rest go hand in hand, and where acts of care can carry infinite meaning, much like motherhood and like music itself. Again and again she returns to the question of why music moves us at all and comes back with the sort-of-answer that the wonder is the point. – Alan Pedder

Thaiboy Digital - Paradise [B.O.S.S.S, swedm®]

Legendary member Thaiboy Digital is back after four years with a loving family, production from swedm®, and more to say on Paradise. The record's shift to dance rather than continuing the established Drain Gang trap beats isn't necessarily Thaiboy discarding a music style he's been working with for over ten years, but a conscious shift towards free movement and a desire to experiment more with the genre. His idyllic lyricism, punctuated by two Bladee features and background vocals from Malibu, evoke scenes of endless heavenly skies – just before cutting to his classic themes of partying and loving his lady. Paradise is freedom on Thaiboy's terms; after years of fighting for his dream life, he wants us to just sit back, relax, and enjoy the destination. – Dana Badii