Here’s a rundown of new releases, including new albums and EPs on DSPs and physical releases in record shops this week.
Nialler9 keeps a rolling list of Irish album releases for 2025.
New Albums and Releases
New Albums
Earl Sweatshirt – Live Laugh Love
An 11-track 24 minute surprise sixth album from one of the finest rappers, Earl follows up 2023’s Voir Dire. It’s got that trademark Earl wooze, and some sunny samples and bright sounds.
As a scene kingpin of rap’s otherground, alongside the likes of MIKE, Billy Woods, and Armand Hammer. Earl remains a singular magnetising talent operating on his own level, spinning rap music for a parallel world.
Wolf Alice – The Clearing
The band’s fourth studio album is the sound of a band rejuvenated and expanding into more classic songwriting styles drawing on country, ’70s pop and rock with some Fleetwood Mac and Beatles influences, with striking moments and ballads.
It’s the big album release this week.
Water From Your Eyes – It’s A Beautiful Place
“It ended up being about time, dinosaurs and space,” says Nate Amos. “We wanted to present a wide range of styles in a way that acknowledges everything’s just a tiny blip”.
The band play as a foursome on tour, when they hit Dublin in November.
Mac DeMarco – Guitar
Guitar is the sixth studio album from the Mac, written and recorded in its entirety over 12 days in November 2024 at his home in Los Angeles, after scrapping another album. Smooth guitar and vocal jams are the vibe here.
Nourished By Time – The Passionate Ones
Baltimore musician Marcus Brown’s alternative project Nourished By Time draws on shoegaze, electronica and R&B
The Passionate Ones, out on XL “tackles love, labor, existentialism, dreams, disillusionment, and hope through the lens of metamodernism, documenting an American story of an artist using their vices to keep them afloat while they follow their passions and dreams.”
I previously loved ‘Max Potential’.
Tour dates take in Dublin as it’s last date on November 24th in Whelan’s, after a series of dates in Sweden, Italy, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France and four UK dates also.
Tebi Rex – Fin
The final album from the Irish hip-hop, alt-rap, trad, pop and spoken word duo of Max Zanga and Matt O’Baoill is a poignant curtain-closer for sure – social commentary, dark humour, soul-baring torch songs and their trademark charming demeanour with reflections on on love, loss, legacy and appropriately, letting go.
“As with the whole album, the lid has been lifted on the creative process with snippets of studio conversations and ideas left in. It’s the live director’s commentary that accompanies a film, the process of turning disparate words into a poem. Each track on the record will deal with an ending of some sort and ‘Fin.’ is no exception, setting the musical and lyrical tone for what is to come. It draws on feelings of nostalgia, of childhood dance parties, of playing with your friends, of a time passed and long dead.””
Tebi Rex will play their final headline show on December 22nd at The Button Factory, Dublin.
Rún – Rún
Rún is an Irish word that “can mean secret, mystery, or love, or perhaps some elusive combination of the three”.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – GUSH
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is a classically trained American composer, performer, and producer from the Pacific Northwest. Her music is a form of auditory interpretation, powered by curiosity and her toolkit of modular, analog, and rare synthesizers (including her signature Buchla), orchestral textures, and voice. Since her first self-releases in 2012 (Tides), she has explored the endless possibilities of electronic instruments and the relationship between sound, shape, color, body movement, and expression.
GUSH is her latest, and probably her shiniest and therefore poppiest sounding from what I’ve gleaned so far.
EDEN – Dark
Emma Louise & Flume – DUMB
Also released this week
- Adrian Sherwood – The Collapse Of Everything
- Deftones – private music
- Ghostface Killah- Supreme Clientele 2
- Hand Habits – Blue Reminder
- James Yorkston – Songs for Nina and Johanna
- Kerala Dust – An Echo Of Love
- Kingfishr – Halcyon
- Pino Palladino & Blake Mills – That Wasn’t A Dream
- The Dare – Freakquencies: Volume 1
- TOPS – Bury the Key
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
