Best new music this quarter

Editor’s note: From Beck to Carly Rae Jepsen to Leon Bridges, we bring you an eclectic mix of must-listen albums. Filled with bangers, ballads, and catchy bops, our roundup has all the best music releases—new and upcoming—from September and October. And we have a special playlist for you to mark the occasion.

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The Fatal Flaw by Paris Paloma

September 4

In 2023, Paloma saw an extraordinary response to her breakout single, ‘Labour’, which dissected gender roles and the mistreatment of women—it’s still routinely used as the background music in social media videos even today. This year, she released her sophomore album, The Fatal Flaw, and it has exceeded expectations. The music here is reminiscent of the soaring melodies and harmonies of early days Florence + The Machine, coupled with the upbeat and almost overwhelmingly complex production typical of 2010s pop. The record is also peppered with references to artists and art movements, such as on tracks like ‘Rothko’, or ‘Pre-Raphaelite’.

Adam Saraswati Rawlings writes for The New Feminist,

…The Fatal Flaw is a seminal musing on power, love, and womanhood. It feels like an observation about how we picture our lives differently from how they end up. The things we thought would haunt us don’t [sic] but the things we didn’t expect are fatal. Perhaps most significant, though, is how The Fatal Flaw is an expression of power. Paloma does not dilute herself but instead doubles down on her own perspective. It culminates in a project that is cutting, liberating, and revealing.

Half-Told Tales by Arab Strap

September 4

Scottish indie rock duo Arab Strap take things up a notch on Half-Told Tales; Aidan Moffat’s sing-speak poetry about the state of the world and his mind still remains at the heart of this rather idiosyncratic band, where the words are set over sparse, repetitive rhythm attacks and wandering guitar and synth lines. But here, we get more expansive ornamentation around his musings, with rich, often quite densely layered arrangements dictating the many mood swings on the record. “Much like its name, Half-Told Tales,” writes The Quietus, “these deeply felt, descriptive and lived-in songs are amongst the formidable Scottish duo’s finest and most immediate work.”

King of Having Fun by Medium Build

September 4

Nicolas Carpenter, who goes by the stage name Medium Build, is an American singer-songwriter who has been on the up-and-up for a while, adding to the long list of independent folk rock musicians making their mark in the industry today. This is his fifth album, and recorded entirely live, posing a sonic contrast to his otherwise intimate, almost lowkey albums. It manages to retain, however, the same ability to connect with the listener—or, in Carpenter’s own words, this record contains, like the others, “weird journal-entry songs”. It offers listeners something that country and country-folk music has espoused for decades now—an undeniable sense of humanness. The music on the album is energetic; like it was written to be played live, with messy, honest, and sometimes even humorous moments woven into the lyricism.

Distance in Static by Bonobo 

September 11

Could this be the end of the road for UK electronic producer Simon Green’s decades-long work as Bonobo? In his words, it could be the final “traditional” record he’s made, an ambitious, sprawling album containing all his hallmark statements. Warm, downtempo arrangements with tentative synth melodies and lush ambient tones, set over searching vocals; Distance in Static, in fact, has songs in English, Urdu, and Japanese, with Aroof Aftab lending her voice to ‘Fire on the Water’. And Green is equally adept at picking up the beat, a skill honed over years of headlining dance festivals. He’s always been hard to pin down in terms of sound, constantly switching and playing around with genre and form; Distance in Static is no different. 

Pylon by beabadoobee

September 18

Bea Kristi, or ‘beabadoobee’, made her start with a string of EPs, solidifying her space in the alternative music industry. Having opened for musicians like Clairo and The 1975, her music ranges from dream pop to whimsical and lo-fi, with a production that’s sonically grounded in traditional pop and rock. This album isn’t a departure from her previous style at all—in fact, it’s a wonderful exploration of who she is as an artist. It’s grungier, messier, with more experimentation displaying her vocal prowess and songwriting skills. The record features the influence of some alt rock heavy-hitters, such as Paramore’s Hayley Williams (who is featured on one of the tracks), Deftones’ Chino Moreno, and Pinegrove’s Evan Stephens Hall, to name a few.

Day and Night by Carly Rae Jepsen

September 18

Carly Rae Jepsen is a true pop diva—we’ve known this for a while, but this album really sets it in stone, if her past music hadn’t already. While her 2012 single, ‘Call Me Maybe’, set off her career, she has remained a pop darling in the industry, with a loyal and unwavering fanbase. Technically a double album, one half of her new record is filled with some quintessentially pop bangers with a clean, fresh, sunny sound, while the other half digs into a deeper, darker, more nightclub vibe, offering listeners the ultimate dance experience, and reiterating her place in the genre.

Angel by Lizzy McAlpine

September 18

Nothing can really compare to the trajectory of Lizzy McAlpine’s career. In 2022, her popularity skyrocketed after her song ‘Ceilings’ went viral on TikTok. Her 2024 album, Older, further cemented her songwriting and musical ability, with swooping melodies, emotionally charged lyricism, and a depth many musicians only ever dream of. Her most recent album—released only a couple months after her debut run on Broadway as Nellie Collins in the show Floyd Collins ended—may have had some big boots to fill after the success of Older, but it fills them well.

In this record, McAlpine explores love, heartbreak, and—albeit less intensely than in her previous album—grief, with lilting tones that evoke an almost Joni Mitchell-esque style, and a production that is sometimes exciting and upbeat, while sometimes soft and gentle. As she veers toward a folksier sound, she doesn’t quite leave behind the pop styles that influenced her past work, leaving us listeners with a blend that is both thrilling and moving. Miranda Wollen writes for Paste,

On Angel, as in the rest of her growing catalog, McAlpine constructs a distinct, modern indie-folk sound: tender, multilevel guitar loops, twinkling strings, tip-toe drums.

These Killing Times by Emma Ruth Rundle

September 18

Things can sometimes get a little bleak with Emma Ruth Rundle’s music; the singer-songwriter spends time—over gentle guitars, piano plonks, and distorted arrangements—to sing of loneliness and desolation, of trauma, death, and despair. Her new record is a small but intentional departure from those spaces, as she brings in moments of hope and redemption through the misery, after a period of introspection and a search for hope and community. The songs often “vibrate with life”, according to Pitchfork:

Rundle’s best songs over the years have felt doomed, sung from the perspective of a narrator for whom there’s no hope of escaping the misery that befalls them. But These Killing Times feels a little different; across the record, there’s a clear belief in redemption.

Ride Lonesome by Beck

September 18

The restlessness that Beck embraces as an artist has an almost philosophical grounding. By design, he’s forever trying different avenues of expression—jumping from indie rock to cheesy ‘80s synth to electronica to whatever this sublime harmonium-rattles-chopstick-bongos meditation can be classified as. It’s what’s sustained him through a remarkable career and 15 studio records. But Beck with just his voice and an acoustic guitar, minus all the formal experiments, is where the heart in his music truly comes to the fore. He achieved that disarming honesty and sincerity, to spectacular success, on Morning Phase and Sea Change. And now, with Ride Lonesome, we have a third in this trilogy of acoustic Beck albums. And it’s just as powerful. It’s his first album in seven years, where he confronts growing older in the aftermath of personal turmoil and a divorce. Writes The Guardian:

Unfortunately for Beck, Ride Lonesome does little to dispel the aforementioned theory about his best work being born out of unhappiness. There’ll be consolation in the fact it’s also that rarest of things: a sequel to a sequel that’s every bit as good as its predecessors.

Happiness Anytime by Leon Bridges

September 25

Known for his retro R&B tunes and his unmistakably warm and welcoming voice, Bridges brings us an album filled with collaborations with other artists just like himself. Much like his past work, this record is deliciously groovy. Get ready for a record that sounds more like a landscape being constructed out of thin air right in front of your eyes. The music feels like it embodies a constant flow and movement, as Bridges plays around with the lyrics, as well as the bass and percussion at whim. 

Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes for Pitchfork,

Groove is at the heart of Happiness Anytime, providing the album with its mission and unifying pulse. The emphasis on rhythm reflects how Bridges built every track upon loops created with Josh Lloyd-Watson and Lydia Kitto, members of the British neo-soul outfit Jungle who have shared festival bills with the singer in the past.

Popstar by Tinashe

September 25

Pitchfork has already called this the “best pop album of the year”; Tinashe’s eighth studio record, Popstar, is alive in the most thrilling of ways. The music is self-aware but not cloyingly so; the melodies are crisp and adventurous; the songs are designed with intention , and they make their exits when their time is up. She has her finger on the pulse, drawing from pop, electronica, and dance music, while leaving things just a little bit exciting through some weird experiments in there too. “Popstar is so effective not because it’s the nth album to walk the pop-girl tightrope in first-person POV,” writes Pitchfork, “but because the very bravest parts feel seasick, like we’re up there with her and can’t stop looking down.”

Everyone Gets What They Want by Tom Morello

September 25

It’s safe to say that, for as long as it’s humanly possible, Tom Morello will speak out against injustice and inequality everywhere. The guitar player—whose violently volatile guitar style complemented Zack de la Rocha’s words of anger perfectly during Rage Against the Machine’s golden years in the ’90s—has continued to use art, and the platform it affords him, to raise his voice. Everyone Gets What They Want, too, remains defiantly political in its material, as Morello collaborates with the likes of Serj Tankian (System of a Down) and Kneecap, among others, to take aim at the establishment. 

Passing the Cup of Sorrows by William Basinski

October 23

Avant garde composer William Basinski, perhaps best known for the hauntingly beautiful series of albums called The Disintegration Loops, has a new piano album out this month. It consists of one single piece, called ‘Passing the Cup of Sorrows 1.1’, that clocks in at a mere 40 minutes. Check out an excerpt below: 

Perfecth by Queens of the Stone Age

October 30

“Nothing in this world is perfect, but everything seems to be ‘perfecth’. And that title is funny when you're in a group, but it ain't so funny when you're alone.” Thus explained frontman Josh Homme the origin story of the new record. We’re not quite sure what it means. But whatever; there’s a new Queens of the Stone Age album out soon. And that’s reason enough to be excited.

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Like this list? Here's a playlist with music from the above mentioned albums.