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Danny Brown's last albums Quaranta and Scaring The Hoes (with JPEGMAFIA) bookended the end of the XXX era. Enter Stardust - Danny's first album since entering sobriety sees him rediscover his love of music, curating the next wave of star talent, who were heavily inspired by his music while exploring their own journey.
The album features collaborations with underscores, Quadeca, Femtanyl, Jane Remover, Frost Children, 8485, JOHNNASCUS, IssBrokie, Nnamdi, Ta Ukarinka and Zheani — a hand-picked lineup curated by Danny Brown, as diverse as they are in the cohesive in the universe of Stardust. Pitchfork writes "Stardust marks Brown’s full transformation into dance diva, his own 2020s version of Pop 2 that folds all his current obsessions into a freak-flag-flying ode to life and love. It’s a fun and unwieldy spectacle—at times shaky but always full of heart."
Danny Brown - Stardust
Ratboys - Singin' To An Empty Chair
With their fourth album, 2023's The Window, sunset-streaked alternative country-rock outfit Ratboys expanded their audio palette, sometimes reaching into fuzzy guitar pop and adding auxiliary instruments like rototoms and effects to their typically sauntering sound. The growth was helmed by Chris Walla (Death Cab for Cutie), who produced the album at his studio in Seattle. Walla returns for the follow-up, Singin' to an Empty Chair, which instead was recorded in a cabin in rural Wisconsin, at Steve Albini's Electrical Audio studio in the band's base of Chicago, and in nearby Evanston, for deliberate variations in sound. The title refers to a therapy exercise employed by Ratboys leader Julia Steiner while struggling with a personal estrangement that pervades the album. Beginning with the warm and twangy "Open Up" and closing on a song called "At Peace in the Hundred Acre Woods," it's structured around emotional processing. Throughout, Singin' to an Empty Chair feels loose and live, with extended guitar solos, a few band jams, and vocals that ricochet between frustration, bewilderment, hurt, and tenderness. Despite its multi-purpose recording approach, widely varying tempos, and ever-changing moods, it's Ratboys' most cohesive album yet and one that will likely connect with those fruitlessly seeking closure. ~Marcy Donelson, allmusic.com
Bill Frisell - In My Dreams
Bill Frisell wanders the sonic valleys of his creative mind on 2026's In My Dreams. The album, his fifth for Blue Note, finds him working with his longtime trio bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston. Joining them is a string ensemble he also has deep ties with featuring violinist Jenny Scheinman, violist Eyvind Kang, and cellist Hank Roberts. The album’s American West vibe is one that Frisell, who grew up out west himself in Denver and graduated from the University of Northern Colorado, has woven into his musical identity, blending his jazz improv skills with his love of folk and country. Here, he continues to straddle stylistic worlds, leading his string chamber jazz band as if he has one foot in the ballroom and one by a campfire on a cowboy cattle drive. One minute, he's turning his gaze toward the dark sophistication of Duke Ellington's "Isfahan," before sinking into the rustic, fiddle-strewn melancholy of Stephen Foster's "Hard Times" the next. His chimeric vision of the west is perhaps best expressed on "Give Me a Home," where he interpolates the traditional tune "Home on the Range," stretching and elongating each phrase as if repeating a mantra. With In My Dreams, Frisell pulls you into his western reverie, a wagon train journey into his soul. ~Matt Collar, allmusic.com
Oneohtrix Point Never — Tranquilizer
Tranquilizer is something of a hard reset of Oneohtrix Point Never's music. Compared to his albums since Garden of Delete, it does feel back to basics. The link to Replica's reimaginings of forgotten commercials is obvious, but the lush-yet-fragmented sonics of pieces such as "For Residue" -- which finds beauty in the digital detritus of anodyne synth pads, chirping birds, and crying babies -- also hark back to R Plus Seven. And while Lopatin described Tranquilizer as more process-oriented than most of his work since the mid-2010s, it still touches on universal themes. Above all, nothing is perfect, and nothing is permanent. The breathing room Lopatin leaves on the album affords more space for his melodies, which are among his loveliest in some time. "Cherry Blue" is one such moment, a rhapsodic ambient/dream pop hybrid where the wavering guitar sounds like the product of digital decay rather than a whammy bar. There's also more room to reflect on Tranquilizer. The album's melancholy depths rival those of its soulmate Replica, particularly on the shadowy textures and sweeping contours of "Fear of Symmetry" and "Vestigel." But before moving from this territory to the brittle tones of late-'90s electronica on "Rodl Glide," Lopatin detours into what can only be called sexy Weather Channel music, reminding listeners once again that in Oneohtrix Point Never's world, there are no guilty pleasures. He sounds freer than he has in years on Tranquilizer, and within its infinity mirror of transience and permanence, he uncovers the lasting soul within the digital abyss. ~Heather Phares, allmusic.com
Don’t Be Dumb is the fourth studio album from New York rapper and creative visionary A$AP Rocky. His contributions to rap in the early 2010s helped shift the genre on the whole, bringing cloud rap production touches to club-ready anthems for sounds that were exciting and at times unprecedented. Rocky continues his tendency for searching throughout Don’t Be Dumb, bouncing quickly from heavy trap and rage rap tracks to styles that seem wildly unconventional on a rap record. His lyrical prowess is as strong as ever, with clever wordplay and ample charisma on the slow-moving, bass-heavy thickness of “Helicopter” and the distorted rage production of “Stole Ya Flow.” The album also includes cameos from Gorillaz, Brent Faiyaz, Jessica Pratt, and Tyler, The Creator, with tracks that value exploration and expression and deliver hooks that defy expectations. The weird detours and stylistic wanderlust result in an album that somehow makes a lot of sense as a larger statement, with all the dissimilar sounds contributing to a listening experience that demands attention and doesn’t let go once it takes hold. ~Fred Thomas, allmusic.com
A$AP Rocky - Don't Be Dumb
Lucinda Williams — World's Gone Wrong
At heart, Lucinda Williams is a blues singer. The blues isn't the sum total of her influences and passions, but it's the backbone of her music, and never far from what she has to say. The blues is a music that speaks to the lives of ordinary people, their desires and their struggles, and so it makes sense that she would find herself compelled to write about the realities of American life in 2025, with politics carving a deepening divide between the American people and economic inequality widening the gulf between the haves and have-nots. Williams was working on a new album a few months into 2025 when a batch of socially conscious songs began cohering in her imagination, and she decided to instead make World's Gone Wrong, an album that appeared in January 2026 and sounds as timely as the morning's news broadcast. There's a lot that Williams is upset about on World's Gone Wrong; more than anything, she sees a world where basic human dignity and fairness have been tossed aside, and those are the themes that dominate these songs. Williams co-wrote nine of the album's ten songs, the exception being a cover of Bob Marley's "So Much Trouble in the World" with guest vocals from Mavis Staples, who has been singing out against division and want for most of her 86 years. Williams' band play tough, lean, and passionate on these sessions, knowing just what kind of energy these songs demand, and producers Ray Kennedy and Tom Overby give the recordings a no-frills clarity that finds room for depth and just the right amount of atmosphere. If the songs occasionally betray their short gestation period, Williams sings them with all the conviction she can summon, and this presents some of her best vocal work in years. World's Gone Wrong is an album of its moment that addresses issues that have been with us for centuries, and like a good blues song, they never stop being timely -- and worth singing loud and clear, which is just what Williams does here. ~Mark Deming allmusic.com
