Stream Real Lies’ We Will Annihilate Our Enemies and more projects for New Music Friday

It would be easy to view We Will Annihilate Our Enemies, the third album by U.K. duo Real Lies, as comforting rave nostalgia for millennials raised on a diet of chemical excess. The musical touchstones throughout hark back to pre-livestream eras when dance culture existed in squats, warehouses, and illegal raves. Listen closely to Kev Kharas as he spins a stream-of-consciousness over the top of the propulsive mix of techno and synth-pop, though, and We Will Annihilate Our Enemies takes on a new form. Across songs like “Loverboy,” “Towards Horses,” and album highlight “LOVERWORLD,” Real Lies confront the changing face of a digital world and embrace it. Euphoria and romance can be found in a landscape populated by group chats, sports betting, e-girls, gooners, and drainers. The result is an album that uses the past, not as a preferred destination, but a buffer against modern life’s unsteady new foundations.

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Nick Corson and Duncan Troast go rogue on their sophomore album, Like Cartoon Vampires. After debuting in 2021 with Accelerator as a Prince-indebted funk fusion project, the New Orleans duo, who also tour as members of long-running local favorites Video Age, reinvented themselves completely. Instead of the meticulous, pre-planned sessions that produced their first record, they turned to the raw guitar music of their youth, with Troast, who’d largely played keys in the past, getting behind the drums and joining Corson on guitar. Thus came songs that sound much more like the Fall’s “Totally Wired” than they do “Little Red Corvette” or “1999.” The spontaneity of these sessions courses through tracks like catchy standout “I Got Exactly What I Wanted,” as well as more contemplative cuts like “Western Pepsi Cola Town” and “2022,” on which Corson muses on a late-capitalist society where self-driving cars cruise “like cartoon vampires” through the streets of our cities. — Raphael Helfand

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

If you’re a frequent player of games like Stardew Valley, RuneScape, and Animal Crossing then you’re familiar with the type of softly zen music they all have in common. This is the gist of diamond amulet (a title that also feels snatched from a fantasy land), a sweet little instrumental EP from Mia11112233 and watch free now, musicians from NYC and Amherst, Massachusetts, who crafted this (fittingly) over the internet. It’s 10 small, escapist worlds filled with whimsical synths, glitches, and bloopy N64 flourishes. “Sashimi” makes me imagine tending to my beloved pixelated farm, plucking carrots from the ground. “Polywhirl,” with its warm languid fuzz is the soundtrack of some underwater level. “Wish” is the only song that breaks the LP’s charming bubble with a sudden Carly Rae Jepsen sample that, in the end, fits the record’s cute but savvy aesthetic. It’s 22 minutes of lower-your-cortisol music without having to boot up your Switch. —Steffanee Wang

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

The new mixtape from Atlanta rapper kushbabykeys is one of the most intriguing underground projects I’ve heard so far this year. Unlike another lengthy project released from the Georgia capital this year, $outh$ide VI‘s variety of styles doesn’t feel like a cynical ploy to find something that sticks; kushbabykeys’ explorations of melody feel both more innovative and more sincere. That’s not to say that the tape is not indebted to other sounds: $outh$ide VI spans ambient trap, Goth Money Records, SahBabii-indebted strangeness, and more; on a couple of songs, kushbaby sounds like The Weeknd. His slurried sing-raps may be difficult to understand, but the vibes are easy to catch. — Jordan Darville

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Soundcloud