New Music Friday: Stream projects from Wishy, Tinashe, and more

Wishy’s debut album, Triple Seven, only got made through a series of happy coincidences and chance encounters. Helmed by long-time friends Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites who rekindled their friendship and musical partnership after years apart, the product of their creative chemistry is a record that evokes the sparkling nature of their reconnection, a rock album spanning the wide-eyed, earnest jangle-pop of the Sundays, the romanticism of The Cure, and traces of heavier acts like My Bloody Valentine. “Love On the Outside” is a catchy, noise-pop earworm; “Triple Seven” is wistful and airy, perfect to put on a mixtape; and “Sick Sweet” and “Spit” are laced with emo and pop-punk, Krauter’s voice taking on an Oso Oso-esque delivery while still maintaining their noisy, dream-rock sound. — Cady Siregar. Read our Gen F profile on the band here.

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

Tinashe has been famous since she was 16, but Quantum Baby is her coming out party for Generations Z and Alpha. For the past decade, the Kentucky-born multi-talent has been enjoying the success of a well-regarded, innovative practitioner of slick, well-crafted R&B. But “Nasty Girl,” a strong song-of-the-summer contender that arrived in April and immediately added a new phrase to the popular lexicon, went stratospheric on TikTok, earning her millions of new fans overnight. Tinashe could easily have coasted on the strength of that single and delivered an album of “Nasty Girl” also-rans. Instead, she’s shared a tight eight-track collection that sees her taking measured risks while playing to her strengths. “No Simulation” is a lush, retrofuturist opener somewhere between Brandy and Imogen Heap; “Getting No Sleep” is fast and breathy, but Tinashe is as unflappable as she is voracious, willing to pivot deftly to the next thing the second she gets wronged or bored. Tinashe’s steady pen works against her at points in the album’s late middle, when more lyrical and sonic variance would make the hits shine even brighter. But as soon as the energy starts to flag, “Nasty” whisks in and saves the day, sticking the landing like an Olympian thirsty for gold. — Raphael Helfand

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music

Charly Bliss’s third album is a feelings-first bubblegum rock celebration, sweet, refreshing, and chewy. The band, fronted by Eva Hendricks, paint glittery hearts around bruising self-doubt, friendships old and new, and full-body cringe moments on their most confident body of work to date. The Carly Rae Jepsen-esque “Calling You Out” turns insecurity and self-destructive behavior (“Hard to believe that you need me, Maybe I’ll force you to leave me”) into a totemic anthem while “Nineteen” is a widescreen piano ballad recontextualising a failed relationship from a mature distance. They, like all of the songs on Forever, are delivered with the knowledge that the past is nothing but formative and the future can always be more exciting. — David Renshaw

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

ACTORS keyboardist Shannon Hemmett may be leading the New Romantic revival with Ultraviolet, her first solo offering as LEATHERS. Channeling both goth melodrama and vibrant ‘80s synth-pop, Hemmett makes this odd coupling feel organic on songs like “Phantom Heart” by cloaking the entire record in a seductive sonic haze. So while she may teeter between the angular dissonance of tracks like “Highrise” and the euphoric bliss of “Daydream Trash,” Ultraviolet never feels disjointed, but like an alternative radio hit that sounds like moody Cyndi Lauper listening to Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. — Sandra Song

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp

One of my favorite TikTok accounts is LegoDad, who uses AI-trained voice models of Atlanta legends like Gucci Mane and OJ Da Juiceman to create songs styled in their mixtape era, but about trapping Lego bricks. Perhaps Gucci Mane has read the comments under them, clamoring for someone, anyone, to bring the sound back. Who better than the originator? Greatest of all Trappers is an unapologetic throwback, complete with the Gangsta Grillz stamp and hosting duties from DJ Drama. There are a few nods to a more modern sound (“Leak,” “4 Lifers,” “One Thing About It”), but they don’t undermine the diligent adherence to a certain standard of the Atlanta rap sound at Greatest‘s core. — Jordan Darville

Hear it: Spotify | Apple Music