In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on November 21, 2025:
Oneohtrix Point Never, Tranquilizer
As far as Oneohtrix Point Never records go, Tranquilizer’s most immediate antecedent is Replica, an album that’s almost a decade and a half old. While that collection saw Daniel Lopatin wistfully repurpose sounds from bootleg DVDs compiling TV commercials from the ‘80s and ‘90s, Tranquilizer mines from a set of commercial sample CDs preserved on the Internet Archive. The flimsiness of that maintenance – the page was taken down, then suddenly came back – is part of what inspired the producer and differentiates his follow-up to Again, the way swathes of potentially soulful music can be lost to and resurface through time. Read the full review.
Tobias Jesso Jr., s h i n e
Tobias Jesso Jr. has returned with his first new album in over a decade. s h i n e, the understated, demo-ish follow-up to the singer-songwriter’s 2015 debut Goon, was announced just a week ago and features no more than eight tracks, including the previously released ‘I Love You’. The record was mixed by Shawn Everett. “The eight songs are about himself, his mom, his son, a breakup and his life at this moment in time,” according to a press release, “with some help from Danielle Haim, Eli Teplin, Julian Bunetta, Justin Vernon, Rosie Hamilton, Tommy King and a psychic.”
Keaton Henson, Parader
“Prior to being a mostly quiet musician I played in hardcore and emo bands,” Keaton Henson notes in the press release for his new album Parader. Though his lyrics remain as introspective as ever, he pays homage to those heavier sounds, going as far as to enlist Wednesday collaborator Alex Farrar on production. He also collaborated with Ratboys’ Julia Steiner on the early single ‘Lazy Magician’. “It’s not me pretending to be anything I’m not,” Henson explained. “I think it’s just me accepting that part of me is this. It’s louder and brasher, but not from a performative point of view. Maybe I’m just accepting that that is all part of me as well.”
Sharp Pins, Balloon Balloon Balloon
Kai Slater has had a busy year. He had his 2024 debut as Sharp Pins, Radio DDR, reissued by K Records’ Perennial imprint, and his other band Lifeguard also released its debut album. Slater is closing out the year with Balloon Balloon Balloon, another collection of lo-fi power-pop gems – 21 of them, to be exact. “I recorded this album basically whenever I had time, which was not that much, compared to the average Joe,” he told Rolling Stone, using guitars he described as “a fake Vox Phantom” and “a fake Rickenbacker,” as well as a boombox-style cassette deck brought to its breaking point.
WRENS, Half of What You See
Brooklyn jazz-rap outfit WRENS have unveiled their playful, audacious new record, Half of What You See. It follows their 2023 debut, alligator shoes [on flatbush]. “There’s a long-standing aroma around the concept of the sophomore album that, for some, triggers involuntary vomiting of ‘what if it’s not’’s and similar brown notes,” Ryan Easter reflected. “The interesting thing about WRENS, same with many ensembles that are rooted in a constant through-line of reactive improvisation, is that the very essence of what is heard is rooted in three things: how good are they on their own, how good are they at knowing each others’ individuality, and what did they eat that day? This record is, as decided by the casually grown men involved, sinister.”
De La Soul, Cabin in the Sky
De La Soul have dropped their first album since the 2023 death of David Jude Jolicoeur, the group’s founding member also known as Trugoy, Dave, and Trugoy the Dove. The vibrant 20-track effort features production contributions from DJ Premier, Super Dave, and Pete Rock, as well as guest spots from Killer Mike, Little Dragon’s Yukimi, Common, Nas, and the Roots’ Black Thought. “Cabin in the Sky lives in that space between loss and light,” Posdnuos said in press materials. “It’s about the pain we carry and the joy that somehow still finds us. This album is therapy and celebration at the same time. There’s a vulnerability in these songs, because everything we’ve been through has brought us to this moment, to this album, honoring what we’ve lost and lifting up what still remains. That duality. That’s life, and that’s De La.”
Haley Heynderickx and Max García Conover, What of Our Nature
“What do you want me to believe, and what can I not?/ What of our nature have we done forgot?” Haley Heynderickx sings on ‘to each their dot’, a haunting highlight off her new collaborative album with Max García Conover. A pensive, revolutionary spirit runs through What of Our Nature, the follow-up to Among Horses III (Fifth Edition), which the pair released in 2023. Produced by Sahil Ansari, the record was tracked directly to tape in five days in a barn in Vermont, using nothing more than their guitars, voices, and some found percussion.
Glitterer, erer
Glitterer – the band led by Title Fight’s Ned Russin – have followed up last year’s Rationale with a new album called erer. Out now via the band’s own Purple Circle Records, the record once again finds them working with producer Arthur Rizk and features artwork by Andrew Peden. It was led by the single ‘Stainless Steel’, which encapsulates the mood of the album: “How am I supposed to create change/ I want to see?/ It’s not enough/ To sit around and worry/ While the world is blowing up.”
Other albums out today:
Dendrons, Indiana; Shygirl, ALIAS is ME; Twin Shadow, Cadet; S.C.A.B., Somebody in New York Loves You!; Charlotte de Witte, Charlotte de Witte; Lawrence English & Stephen Vitiello, Trinity; Anthony Moore, On Beacon Hill; Glyders, Forever; Sub Focus, Contact; ILUKA, the wild, the innocent, & the raging; SUDS, Tell me about your day again.; The Futureheads, Christmas; doris dana, wild at heart; Tristan Perich & James McVinnie, Infinity Gradient; Ella Eyre, everything, in time; Ioa Beduneau, Mélodies pour Clairons; Gabriel Zucker, Confession; Stray Kids, Do It; Ani Zakareishvili, Neither in the sky nor on the ground.
