New Music Friday: Stream albums from Tony Shhnow, Kim Gordon, Bolis Pupul, and more

Watching TikTok discover 70-year-old Kim Gordon has been a surprise highlight of 2024 thus far. “BYE BYE,” built around a dissonant trap beat over which Gordon reels off a list of household chores, was the first pointer that the former Sonic Youth member’s latest solo album would be a left turn in a career made up of confrontational choices. Few could have predicted that she would make something you could genuinely recommend to Playboi Carti restlessly waiting for him to drop his new album, though. The Collective is an album that engages with the contemporary music landscape from the perspective of someone who couldn’t give less of a fuck about being accepted into it. Whether she is skewering toxic masculinity on the industrial crush of “I’m A Man” or pointing to a failed society on the Auto-tune lathered “It’s Dark Inside” Gordon’s work throbs with curiosity and a desire to reflect life in its most unflattering light. “People used to ask Sonic Youth all the time why our music was so intense or dissonant and I just think that’s what’s in life,” she recently told The Guardian. “It didn’t feel like I was making an abrasive record. I just feel like it’s realistic.” — David Renshaw

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

The latest project from Atlanta rapper Tony Shhnow opens with one of the most distinctive voices from the city: the buttery smooth bass tones of Dungeon Family member Big Rube, whose spoken word has graced records by everyone from Outkast to Future to Denzel Curry. It’s not just a co-sign from a legend, but a sign that Tony Shhnow is staking his claim as part of the legacy of Atlanta rap. Shhnow’s sound isn’t exactly throwback Southern rap, though. His beats can be warm and atmospheric, with lightly jazzy woodwinds and gentle piano licks, and sometimes even more intricate, almost ambient textures, like the sound of rolling thunder and trickling streams. The end result is like being perfectly blunted on a drizzling afternoon: laidback and chilled-out, but still hyper-aware of the world around you. — Nadine Smith

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

Existing in the western world as a second-generation Asian is often a strange and alienating experience. Culturally speaking, you’re just like the other kids, but then it’s confusing when you begin to notice you’re treated differently. Eventually though, you’ll start to distance yourself from this part of your identity that “ashamed” you, as Belgian-Chinese producer Bolis Pupul explained in the release for Letter to Yu — at least until you realize the importance of embracing both sides. But sadly, Pupul’s catalyst was the tragic loss of his mother in 2008, which became the basis of Letter To Yu, a sonic ode to his late mother that’s simultaneously playful, uplifting, and deeply emotional. Bringing together Eastern melodies and mixing them with an eclectic set of Western musical influences, there are pentatonic scales and snippets of field recordings from his trips to Hong Kong combined with musical influences like Kraftwerk, Daft Punk, and Belgian New Beat techno staples Soulwax, whose DEEWEE label is releasing the new album. And the result is a breathtaking album with both moments of color and joy, as well richly layered melodies that feel like a true celebration of Pupul’s cross-cultural identity. — Sandra Song

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Tomato Flower are masters of the short form, packing two-minute songs so tight with ideas they’d split in half if the pieces didn’t fit together so well. The 12 tracks on No take less than half an hour from top to bottom, but they administer heavy doses of post-punk, skronk jazz, and confrontational screamer-songwriter, each pushing past the other to drop the needle in. Standouts from side A include the delirious “Saint,” the razor-sharp “Destroyer,” the jittery “Do It,” and the menacingly pretty “Sally & Me,” while the back half delivers with the lush “Harlequin,” the grooving “Temple of the Mind,” and the staggered waltz of “Magdalene.” — Raphael Helfand

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

San Francisco dream-rockers Torrey play with heavy dynamics and sonic opposites. The reverb-soaked vocals are melodic and airy, but the lyrics suggest darker undercurrents and intimations; celestial guitars are anchored by weighty drums. They’ve said that their song “Bounce” is about the push and pull of contradictions, a “call and response between joys and fears”; this applies to their sound and the notion of how even the most upbeat and energetic of songs can act as a mask for something more sinister. Their sophomore record Torrey expands on the dream-gaze universe they’ve established with earlier releases, and they’re a welcome force within the current wave of guitar bands inspired by shoegaze and trying to make it their own. — Cady Siregar

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

The music of gum.mp3 — the North Carolina producer known as DirtyBird until last year — gives the impression of a born artist. If he didn’t have any instruments, I’d be willing to bet that he’d still be making notable work with whatever tools were available to him; he has the stock of a person who would probably make a remarkable film as his first feature if a Bezos-like figure gave him two million bucks and free reign. His powerful font of creativity is nurtured by a deep commitment to Afrofuturism; its ethos of urgent, otherworldly creation runs through his latest album Black Life, Red Planet. Borders between genres are erased on songs like the baile funk acid-house of “Deimos” and “Believe,” an aqueous cut of footwork made in collaboration with swoozydolphin. The entire album is a feat of harmony, both in its notes and the world it builds. — Jordan Darville

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp