New Music Friday: 12/12/25

The holiday season is upon us, and if you give a shit about record release dates, you know what that means: Between now and the new year, hardly anything will make its way to store shelves. All of which is to say that even after listening to Spotify's New Music Friday playlist, skimming everything on Pause & Play's release list, and checking out the new releases Qobuz deigned to highlight, I still didn't end up with ten tracks that perked up my ears — but 'tis the season of giving, so I'll give you some recommendations anyway.

"Old Fort Steel Trail," Mon Rovia
I'd never heard of Mon Rovia before this week, and now I feel like I have some catching up to do. He was born in Liberia, brought to the U.S. by Christian missionaries, and adopted by a Southern family — and based on "Old Fort Steel Trail," his music kaleidoscopically reflects his life's cultural and emotional journey. This is still basically acoustic singer-songwriter stuff, but there are unique subtleties in the way he approaches harmony and fills out the arrangement. I think we're all uncomfortably well aware of how difficult it can be to find fresh musical or lyrical perspectives when you're listening to dude-with-guitar records. After hearing this song, I feel like Mon Rovia might be an exception to that rule.

"GiT Ready," Nas featuring DJ Premier
Just a couple weeks after dropping the excellent new De La Soul album, Mass Appeal is back with the latest in its ongoing series of fresh records from hip-hop legends. This week, it's Nas and DJ Premier's Light-Years, and while I think anybody would be hard pressed to argue that it holds up start to finish or represents either artist's best work, it does have its moments. Tops on that list for me is "GiT Ready," which is basically everything you might hope to hear after finding out that Nas and DJ Premier made a new album together — old-school beat, old-school samples, and Nas flowing effortlessly along with all of it.

"Buzz," Vienna Vienna
Cold War kids know that when shit in the real world starts to get extremely dark, that's when pop stars start to get extremely nihilistic in a fuck-it-let's-just-dance kind of way. What we're going through now makes the anxiety of the Cold War feel like a sitcom episode — which Vienna Vienna acknowledges in the dizzy dancefloor anthem "Buzz," singing "At night when my eyes glaze over / And the nothing comes to get me, I dream of the 80’s / When testing strips were unnecessary / When landing strips were obligatory."

I'd still argue that our current moment continues to wait for its own "1999," but in the meantime, "Buzz" is a smart, catchy addition to the list of songs that cope with overwhelming sociopolitical trauma and anxiety by chasing hedonistic thrills.

"The Devil's Not in Hell," Maggie Antone
I've seen Maggie Antone described as an alt-country artist, which gives me pause — I'm not sure what's "alt" about her sound, other than the fact that she swears and uses phrases like "porn 'stache" in her lyrics — but I do have to admit that I hear strains of Robbie Fulks in "The Devil's Not in Hell." While catchy songs about women sassing men for their multitudinous shortcomings are nothing new, this has some real bite, and it's genuinely funny — particularly the payoff line, which asserts that "The devil's not in hell / He's with the boys at the bar on the east side, baby." Antone's got an appealingly ragged rasp to her voice, and based on these three minutes, I'm inclined to believe her songcraft's sharp as tacks. Although I wasn't overly impressed with her full-length debut Rhinestoned, I'm looking forward to hearing where she goes next.

"Inner Flight," Makaya McCraven
If you're a Makaya McCraven fan, you might be eyeing this entry suspiciously, given that "Inner Flight" was released in 2018, as part of McCraven's acclaimed Universal Beings album. I'm sneaking through a loophole to include it here — McCraven's label, International Anthem, is celebrating its 11th anniversary by putting out "IA11" editions of a series of records, and that series includes Beings. I'm also including it here because prior to this week, I'd never had the chance to hear the album; "Inner Flight" isn't really new, but it's new to me.

McCraven's a drummer and producer who describes himself as a "beat scientist," which goes a fair way toward establishing expectations for what you'll hear here — a taut, tense three minutes of subtle sax and cello, bubbling along over a driving beat. Like SML, featured here a couple of weeks ago, he composes his tracks by editing and shaping improvised jams, but not necessarily in a showy way; listening to "Inner Flight," you could easily believe you're hearing the meticulously planned work of a really focused four-piece, eyes on each other while playing in the same room.

"A Tale About a Shadow," Eyal Talmudi
We close out for the week with a bit of bliss from Eyal Talmudi, an Israeli musician who plays a variety of reed and wind instruments (plus bagpipes!), but settled on the sax for this particular track. "A Tale About a Shadow" comes from the recently released Sonolodge III, the latest installment in a series of records that find Talmudi leading assorted personnel in the pursuit of what he calls "music made for lying down, closing your eyes, and finding inner peace." I had my ups and downs with the record as a whole, but the dreamy, sinuous "A Tale About a Shadow" was a favorite.