Here’s a rundown of new releases out today, 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
Jill Scott – To Whom This May Concern
As the Philly neo-soul singer and hip-hop artist attests on the opening track of her first album in over a decade, “I do dope shit.”
Jill Scott does indeed do dope shit, on her own terms, and this sixth studio album bursts out the speakers with brassy intent – literally on the empowering swirl of ‘Be Great’, with her trademark soul highlighted with imaginative Outkast-esque production, even dipping into house on the DJ ode ‘Right Here Right Now’, produced by Om’Mas Keith, blues jazz on the admonishing ‘Pay U On Tuesday’ and the Baby and Clipse’s ‘What Happened to That Boy’-sampling ‘Me 4.’
Guests include fellow Philly Tierra Whack, Ab-Soul, JID and Too $hort are let into Scott’s brightly hued world, along with production by DJ Premier among others.
To Whom This May Concern has a vital urgency, filled with much of the neo-soul that made her name with a refreshing eclecticism that serves Scott well.
Charli XCX – Wuthering Heights
A cinematic regal pop soundtrack from Charli serving as both a soundtrack to the Emerald Fennell film version of Wuthering Heights starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, and a followup to the mega-successful Brat.
Drawing on orchestral sounds, electronic pop, stabbing booming basslines, and Charli’s innate pop melody sensibility, Wuthering Heights is a fine low-stakes return for the artist, which sidesteps and feels unburdened by post-Brat expectation. It brings in the disparate voices of alt-pop artist Sky Ferreira on ‘Eyes of The World’ and the Welsh legend John Cale on the craggy and industrial opener, with the album overall less experimental than the Cale-featuring opening song ‘House’.
Danny L Harle – Cerulean
The British PC Music producer Harle considers this release his true debut album over 2021’s Harlecore. Cerulean is certainly wide-reaching in scope – a showcase of Harle’s electronic pop production – drawing from hyperpop, trance, early 2000s dance, maximalist pop and with a guestbook of mostly female artists he has worked with – Caroline Polachek, Pink Pantheress, Oklou, MNEK, Clairo, Julia Michaels, Dua Lipa, kacha and his own daughters to sing vocals.
The presser describes it as “a blend of megalophobic* majesty and raw humanity inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, existing on the threshold between dreams and reality,” with influences from hedonistic rave to the Dark Souls video game series, Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, and Renaissance and Elizabethan composers like Monteverdi, Thomas Tallis, and William Byrd.
Harle plays Button Factory on February 20th.
*
Megalophobia is a specific phobia characterized by an intense, irrational, and persistent fear of large objects, such as skyscrapers, statues, massive vehicles, or large animals. It causes significant anxiety, panic attacks, and avoidance behaviors that can impair daily life. Common triggers include expansive structures, deep water, and large, unfamiliar, or overwhelming items.
Nashpaints – Everyone Good is Called Molly
The Irish shoegaze and dream pop artist Finn Carraher McDonald aka Nashpaints who features on Maria Somerville’s Luster record last year just quietly put out a new full-length album released on Mirror World (Henry Earnest, famous tex).
Everyone Good is Called Molly features dreamy indie music that recalls Cindy Lee and Ariel Pink, alongside lo-fi shoegaze, and ambient pop.
Seán Being and Henry Earnest play on the record and Mel Keane designed the record artwork.
Cardinals – Masquerade
Cork indie-rock band Cardinals have quietly being building up a reputation in the international music media with publications like Stereogum paying attention the band’s retro scuffed indie rock sounds.
Masquerades is released on So Young Records and was recorded with producer Shrink (NewDad) at RAK Studios in London. I highlighted recent song ‘Big Empty Heart’ reminding me of early 90s rock, and the title song giving Pavement or Grandaddy, and there’s definitely a debt to the era with American influences like REM felt throughout.
Cardinals are brothers Euan and Finn Manning, their cousin Darragh and their former schoolmates Oskar Gudinovic and Aaron Hurley.
Błoto – We Remember J Dilla
Everyone’s favourite Polish jazz band release an album of J Dilla covers to mark the Detroit producer’s recent birthday, which would have been his 52nd, and this year is 20 years since he passed.
For several years now, his work has been celebrated each February by Błoto, masters of rebuilding music from its own deconstruction, a band that perfectly feels the pulse of modern jazz and hip-hop. It all began on February 7, 2020, with one modest concert at the Surowiec club in Wrocław, which grew over the following years into a true celebration of “Dilla Month”. Last year, the quartet Błoto honored Jay Dee’s music with eight concerts, including performances at Jassmine in Warsaw, Vertigo in Wrocław, Hipnoza in Katowice, Paul’s Boutique in Kraków, Blue Note in Poznań, Salon IKSV in Istanbul, and two shows at Monk in Gdańsk.
The reinterpretations of J Dilla’s beats in the quartet’s original, improvisation-rich arrangements were recorded in the Tri-City during the final concert of the tour. From that night, the band selected the essence, 40 minutes of music captured on the cassette mixtape you are holding in your hands. It was one of those evenings when the classics collided with fresh energy, reviving a legend in the process.
Momoko Gill – Momoko
London producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Momoko Gill was last heard collaborating with electronic avant producer Matthew Herbert, Alabaster DePlume, Matthew Herbert, Coby Sey and Tirzah but Momoko is her solo debut album.
Modern jazz songwriting is at the heart of it, an album of contemplative perosnla music.
David Keenan – Just For Today
Dundalk singer-songwriter David Keenan made this album with producer Cian Synnott, a in one day last week, it was recorded in a period of 6 hours, spurred on by Bandcamp Friday last week.
Largely acoustic with piano, like on the title track featuring Megan Nic Ruairí (Big Love), it is a quick followup to last year’s Modern Mythologies which came out in late November.
Sotomayor – WABI SABI
Mexican sibling duo Raúl and Paulina Sotomayor return with their first album in six years drawing on electronic beats and Latin American rhythms, blending house, afrobeat, cumbia, dancehall, plena, and kuduro, drawing inspiration from artists like Jamie xx, Polo & Pan, Lewis Of Man, and Nu Gene.
Felsmann + Tiley – Protomensch
German synthesizer and producer duo come across as ambient men in polo becks and monochrome in their press photos, Dominik Felsmann and Patrick Tiley’s music is in the contemporary classic electronic vein with trance, synthwave and IDM textures, and guest vocalists including London’s Pet Deaths and Australian artists The Kite String Tangle, Woodes, and Laius.
Caitlin Orla Eve – Space, Weight, Colour (Origins)
Companion ambient EP to the recommended EP from the West Cork 24-year-old artist from last month.
Origins returns to the earliest moments of the EP’s creation to reconnect to the initial atmospheric textures, loops, and fragments that inspired each track. Finding herself continually returning to these elements of pure feeling and colour long after the songs were finished, Caitlin felt compelled to let them to exist as their own expressions, reworking them into ambient compositions.
The Single Cells – We’re in Great Shape
The Single Cells is the recording project of Dublin long-time friends Ian Meagher and Thomas O’Reilly. We’re in Great Shape was recorded with Daniel Fox in Sonic Studios “a long time ago” and cited as influences are American indie rock stalwart records – Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime, Pavement’s album Wowee Zowee, and Guided by Voices’ ’90s albums.
Cypress, Mine! – pulling all the clouds apart
The Cork band who formed in 1984 and operated for five years reconvened last year, This album marks a 38-year gap from the recording of the band’s 1987’s debut Exit Tashtown and largley features mature jangle-pop songwriting with influences drawn from obscure American alt-folk to a bit of Kraftwerk.
Also released this week
- Anish Kumar – AK Cuts Vol.2
- Ásgeir – Julia
- Brent Faiyaz – Icon
- Chet Faker – A Love For Strangers
- Colin Stetson, Greg Fox & Trevor Dunn – Nethering
- DJ Tennis – Fabric presents..
- femtanyl – MAN BITES DOG
- Gavin Friday – The Church of Love and Dancing EP
- Gogol Bordello – We Mean It, Man!
- hemlocke springs – the apple tree under the sea
- Howling Bells & Juanita Stein – Strange Life
- Jeff Buckley- Live at Sin É boxset
- Mariachi El Bronx – Mariachi El Bronx (IV)
- Ransom, Boldy James, Nicholas Craven – Salvation for the Wicked
- The Beach Boys – We Gotta Groove – The Brother Studio Years (Super Deluxe Edition)
Recent posts on New Albums:
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.
