In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on May 22, 2026:
Bleachers, everyone for ten minutes
Bleachers‘ new album, everyone for ten minutes, contains some of the band’s most uproarious, tangled, and poignant music to date, often in the same breath. Following the Jack Antonoff-fronted band’s 2024 self-titled LP, the record was previewed by the singles ‘i’m not joking’, ‘you and forever’, and the especially ambitious ‘dirty wedding dress’. “It’s very rare that I write from the perspective of an everyone-ness,” Antonoff told NPR. “Obviously, the album is about my personal life, but when I was writing it, I was like, ‘We’ve never disagreed more. We’ve never been more torn apart.’ And yet there’s one core thing that everyone agrees on, which is: this version of modernity is trash. No one’s having a good time.”
Thomas Dollbaum, Birds of Paradise
Florida-born, New Orleans-based singer-songwriter Thomas Dollbaum has unveiled his new album, Birds of Paradise. Guirarist Josh Halperm, bassist Nick Corson, and MJ Lenderman (drums, guitar, and backing vocals) join him on the LP, which was recorded in Water Valley, Mississippi in 2023 with producer Clay Jones. “Once I sent them the demos – I really only sent them phone recordings,” Dollbaum recalled of the process in our Artist Spotlight interview. “The songs were done, basically. There were a couple things we worked out, but they just have really good ears about what to play, and it’s super fun and collaborative to talk about figuring it out, do a different take or try different things. But we didn’t really change too much.”
Lowertown, Ugly Duckling Union
Look, I’m biased. In Greek, my last name means “duck.” Growing up, The Ugly Duckling was both one of my favorite and most anxiety-inducing stories. So when Lowertown, a New York duo I’ve interviewed twice, come out with a concept record about a duckling protagonist and his companions as they attempt to defeat a tyrannical media corporation, you know they’ve got my attention. But while the album is accompanied by a playable Minecraft world, a handbook, plush dolls, and drawn comics by Doctor Nowhere, the focus is still Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg’s playfully ramshackle songwriting, which curdles from infatuation to paranoia. It’s great. Subjectively, of course.
Ed O’Brien, Blue Morpho
Named after a butterfly native to Brazil, Ed O’Brien’s second solo album, Blue Morpho, is sweepingly intricate and gorgeous. The Radiohead guitarist worked on the Earth follow-up with producer Paul Epworth (Adele, Rihanna), enlisting backing vocalists ESKA and Awsa Bergstrom, Estonian composer Tõnu Kõrvits, string players The Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Radiohead drummer Phil Selway, guitarist-bassist Dave Okumu, and jazz luminary Shabaka Hutchings. It was completed between his studio in Wales and The Church Studios in London, with sequencing assistance from Flood and mixing by Ben Baptie.
Mabe Fratti and Bill Orcutt, Almost Waking
Mabe Fratti became aware of Bill Orcutt’s music when the veteran improviser released his 2017 self-titled record. “I connected a lot with his music and I had no idea that years later we would be collaborating!” the Guatemalan artist recalled. “It was a total surprise that we started chatting on the internet of collaborating! — we bounced ideas back and forth, all starting with a series of guitar solo stuff that Bill sent me. I had a great time with the pieces and in some of them had the honor to collaborate with I.” The resulting LP, Almost Waking, feels eerily intimate and lived-in. “The album ended up having this nostalgic vibe to it,” Fratti added. “I am so happy on how it turned out and grateful with the crazy coincidence that made it happen!”
Hyd, Hold Onto Me Infinity
Hayden Dunham, a New York-based artist and former PC Music affiliate, is back with a new album under the Hyd moniker. Following her solo debut CLEARING, Hold Onto Me Infinity was primarily recorded while Hyd was doing research in Iceland. Collaborators on the LP include Hudson Mohawke and SOPHIE’S brother Benny Long, while the album cover was shot by Michael Bailey Gates, made without artificial effects using a glass sculpture made by Dunham, pyrotechnics, mirror reflections, and a sunset poking through a pierced window.
Other albums out today:
fakemink, Terrified; My Precious Bunny, A Moment in My Eyes; Visible Cloaks, Paradessence; Hammock, The Second Coming Was a Moonrise; aja monet, the color of rain; Ali Sethi & Gregory Rogove, Room Jhoom; Aho Ssan, The Sun Turned Black.
