This Friday, March 13, Tinariwen and The Notwist also release new records.
James Blake Trying Times (Good Boy Records/Virgin Records/Universal)
For James Blake, grace is all that matters. Especially when the zeitgeist resembles a diffuse buzz infiltrating our saturated lives and becomes the frame with which one must break. Here, the contemporary vertigo of these trying times (“trying times” in English) permeates the textures, strains the sonic fabrics — largely recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios after two and a half years of contemplation.
Kim Gordon Play Me (Matador/Wagram)
The artistic project behind Kim Gordon unfolds on the cover of her new album: a photo of her in black shorts, hands ringed, pressed against a wall, legs crossed out by the title Play Me. A waist-length crop. A nod to both sexuality (“play me”) and music (“play this record”), and a sharp comment on the dematerialized world of music. Gordon returns with Play Me, a haunted record of acidic rock and reflections on a world that’s sliding toward oblivion.
The Notwist News from Planet Zombie (Morr Music/Bigwax)
There are bands that form around a few references and, from that starting point, carve out a fairly logical path, between apprenticeship and emancipation. And then there’s The Notwist. Since their emergence at the very start of the 1990s, the German group has undergone a succession of metamorphoses, almost rivaling Radiohead in the realm of musical curiosity and risk-taking. To the point that, without the dreamy, melancholic voice of Markus Acher guiding the thread, one might mistake them for several separate entities.
The Sophs Goldstar (Rough Trade Records/Wagram)
Plucked last year as one of our most solid hopes for 2026, the Californian group confirms: we may have finally found the missing link between The Strokes and Weezer. When was the last time we got so excited about a debut album? Bright Green Field (2021) by Squid? Dogrel (2019) by Fontaines D.C.? Oracular Spectacular (2007) by MGMT? Is This It (2001) by The Strokes? Okay, we’re exaggerating a bit (not exactly our usual lane), but not by much.
Tinariwen Hoggar (Warp/Kuroneko)
Between acoustic riffs and firelight choirs, the Tuareg pioneers celebrate their roots with fervor. The rock worn smooth by time resurfaces in the arid landscape. At the foot of the Hoggar mountain range, one of the central Sahara’s most significant massifs, in southern Algeria, lies Tamanrasset, the capital of Algerian Tuaregs. It is here that Tinariwen began making music in 1982, when they were refugees. And, for the first time, the pioneers of Tuareg music record an album in this city, titled Hoggar, a choice that feels obvious.
