In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on January 16, 2026:
A$AP Rocky, Don’t Be Dumb
A$AP Rocky’s first album in 8 years, Don’t Be Dumb, is here. The rapper’s genre-blurring fourth studio album features guest appearances from Tyler, the Creator, Doechii, Bossman Dlow, Brent Faiyaz, Gorillaz, Jon Batiste, Slay Squad, Thundercat, Westside Gunn, will.i.am, and more. It spans 15 tracks, including the recently released ‘Punk Rocky’, which arrived with a Winona Ryder-starring music video, and ‘Helicopter’. The album’s cover art was designed by Tim Burton.
Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore, Tragic Magic
Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore have toured and worked together on music in the past, but Tragic Magic is their first collaborative album. Recorded over a period of nine days in Paris, with access to the historic instrument collection at Musée de la Musique, it’s an enchanting capsule of time that was also influenced by the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. “We wanted to honor the past while making music that we feel is a true expression of ourselves,” Barwick explained in press materials. The album was co-produced by Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House).
Jana Horn, Jana Horn
Jana Horn has released her self-titled album. She wrote the follow-up to 2023’s The Window Is The Dream during her first year of living in New York, where she moved after completing a creative writing MFA in Charlottesville. “Moving to New York after graduation had felt almost too right, like an arranged marriage,” Horn reflected. “I was pretty unhappy for a while. My life was still in Virginia, where my friends were, in Texas, where my mother was learning to live again after years of being passed from one hospital to the next… I drifted through the city in pajamas, at midday.” Slow-moving and tender, it’s full of intimately poetic revelations.
Sassy 009, Dreamer+
Sassy 009, the project of Oslo musician Sunniva Lindgård, has unveiled her debut album, Dreamer+. Building a dreamworld of muffled intimacy, the record features guest appearances from like-minded artists such as Blood Orange and yunè pinku. Drawing inspiration from Gorillaz and Boards of Canada as well as Nirvana and Lil Wayne, Lindgård felt herself finally “stepping into that producer role” and imagining herself writing for a live band instead of “being lost in the chaos of 200 layers.” It includes the early singles ‘Someone’, ‘Mirrors’, ‘Tell Me’, ‘Enemy’, and ‘Butterflies’.
Courtney Marie Andrews, Valentine
Courtney Marie Andrews’ new album Valentine is a stunning, dynamic affair, which is evident as soon as it opens with ‘Pendulum Swing’. The singer-songwriter describes it as “a record in pursuit of love,” adding that love “is a lot more than I gave it credit for. It’s built over years, it’s built with trust, with changes, it becomes something new and unrecognizable, the deeper you go.” The record was co-produced
with Jerry Bernhardt and recorded almost entirely to tape. “I was in one of the darkest periods of my life, and songs were the only way I could reckon with it,” Andrews recalled. “I felt cursed, and the only mental cure felt like songwriting and painting.”
Sleaford Mods, The Demise of Planet X
Sleaford Mods have returned with their first LP in three years, The Demise of Planet X. It features contributions from Aldous Harding, former Life Without Buildings singer Sue Tompkins, reggae artist Liam Bailey, UK grime rapper Snowy, actress Gwendoline Christie, and Big Special. “The Demise of Planet X represents a life lived under immense uncertainty, shaped by mass trauma,” frontman Jason Williamson explained. “When we wrote the last album, it was about stagnation, a country that felt like a lifeless corpse. Three years later, that corpse has been split open by war, genocide, and the lingering psychological fallout of Covid whilst social media has mutated into a grotesque, twisted form of digital engineering. It feels like we’re living among the ruins. A multi-layered abomination etched into our collective psyche.”
Peaer, Doppelgänger
Doppelgänger is New York slowcore trio Peaer’s first new album in almost seven years, following A Healthy Earth. “The songs spanned such a long time that it really feels like a different person wrote the first song versus the last song,” bandleader Peter Katz reflected. “In some ways that is what this is about: Literally changing over time, then looking back to see how different you were. These songs are about reflection and reckoning with your mental projection of yourself vs. who you literally are. The concept of a Doppelgänger immediately resonated with me for this reason.”
Other albums out today:
Xiu Xiu, Xiu Mutha Fuckin’ Xiu: Vol. 1; Oxis, Oxis 8; Madison Beer, locket; Cavetown, Running With Scissors; Cindytalk, That We Must Pass Through This Life.
