With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services. This week’s batch includes new albums from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alabaster dePlume, DJ Travella, Christian Lee Hutson, Pastor Champion, and Pillow Queens. Subscribe to Pitchfork’s New Music Friday newsletter to get our recommendations in your inbox every week. (All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our affiliate links, however, Pitchfork earns an affiliate commission.)
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Unlimited Love [Warner]
Unlimited Love marks the official return of guitarist John Frusciante to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, having last recorded with his long-time associates on 2006’s Stadium Arcadium. (The band’s previous album, 2016’s The Getaway, featured Josh Klinghoffer on guitar.) The boys of Red Hot Chili Peppers return to their freewheeling, fun-seeking selves with songs that highlight their musicianship alongside Anthony Keidis’ enduring love for outrageous wordplay. Read Sam Sodomsky’s review of Unlimited Love.
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Alabaster dePlume: Gold [International Anthem]
Jazz saxophonist and poet Alabaster dePlume encourages kindness and care on Gold, his first new solo album since 2018’s The Corner of a Sphere. With a subtitle of Go Forward in the Courage of Your Love, the album reckons with the discomfort and rewards of vulnerability. DePlume assembled the record from long improvised pieces that he rearranged and stitched together.
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DJ Travella: Mr Mixondo [Nyege Nyege Tapes]
Hailing from Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, DJ Travella draws from traditional musical styles from his home country for busy, high energy electronic compositions. Mr Mixondo is the debut album from the 19-year-old Hamadi Hassani as DJ Travella, and he released “Crazy Beat Music Umeme 2” as a preview of the record. Mr Mixondo arrives via Kampala’s Nyege Nyege Tapes, which has issued projects by Duma and scores of other African electronic-inclined artists in recent years.
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Christian Lee Hutson: Quitters [Anti-]
Two years after issuing his full-length Beginners, Los Angeles singer-songwriter Christian Lee Hutson returns with his second album, Quitters. The record includes “Strawberry Lemonade,” which Hutson released last fall. Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst co-produced the track, which also features Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy on guitar. He also shared “Age Difference” and “Rubberneckers” from Quitters ahead of its arrival.
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Pastor Champion: I Just Want to Be a Good Man [Luaka Bop]
I Just Want to Be a Good Man is a posthumous release from Pastor Champion, a Southern-reared preacher and musician who spent his adult life in California and died at age 75 late last year. With raw, straightforward guitar arrangements and a resonant singing voice, Pastor Champion infuses songs like “Storm of Life (Stand by Me)” and the title track with heartfelt sentiment. He recorded the soulful, blues-tinged songs to two-track analog tape in 2018.
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Pillow Queens: Leave the Light On [Royal Mountain]
Dublin quartet Pillow Queen chase last fall’s Rats EP with Leave the Light On, a 10-song collection that digs further into the group’s fuzzy, guitar-driven sensibilities. According to singer Pamela Connolly, album opener “Be by Your Side” is “about the mechanisms that are used to hide your vulnerabilities and carry on,” as well as the catharsis of letting out emotions.
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