{"id":1785147,"date":"2026-02-20T14:52:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T11:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1785147"},"modified":"2026-02-20T14:52:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T11:52:57","slug":"9-new-albums-you-should-listen-to-now-baby-keem-hen-ogledd-and-hilary-duff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1785147","title":{"rendered":"9 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: Baby Keem, Hen Ogledd, and Hilary Duff"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/media.pitchfork.com\/photos\/699736b8e00dfa867246d01b\/16:9\/w_1280,c_limit\/Credit_%20Anthony%20Blue%20Jr%20(1).jpg”]<\/p>\n

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9 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: Baby Keem, Hen Ogledd, and Hilary Duff<\/h1>\n
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Also stream new releases from the Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Hattie Lindert<\/span> and Jazz Monroe<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Courtesy of pgLang<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services. This week\u2019s batch includes new albums from Baby Keem, Hen Ogledd, the Messthetics, and Hilary Duff. Subscribe to Pitchfork\u2019s<\/em>New Music Friday newsletter<\/em>to get our recommendations in your inbox every week. (All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our affiliate links, however, Pitchfork earns an affiliate commission.)<\/em><\/p>\n

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Baby Keem: Ca$ino<\/em> [pgLang\/Columbia Records]<\/h2>\n
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Baby Keem may be only 25 but he\u2019s in a reflective mode on Ca$ino<\/em>. His second studio album traces his life from his origins in Carson, California to Las Vegas, where he spent the bulk of his childhood and wrote his first music. Naturally, it’s a family affair; Keem\u2019s older cousin and frequent collaborator Kendrick Lamar appears on the track \u201cGood Flirts.\u201d But as Lamar points out in a series of documentary shorts shared ahead of the release, their family ties bound them to a shared struggle. \u201cThis is a story of a warfare environment,\u201d Lamar noted. \u201cA warfare, psychologically, to try and change our generational curses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen on Apple Music
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Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music<\/p>\n

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Hen Ogledd: Discombobulated<\/em> [Weird World\/Domino]<\/h2>\n
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Richard Dawson and friends are abuzz with puckish energy on their latest as Hen Ogledd, scavenging curios from far-flung genres to produce some of the most galactically mind-bending synthpop around. The follow-up to 2020\u2019s Free Humans<\/em> spans from post-punk odysseys to epic folk song and ambient lullabies, with spoken-word performances from contributors including Matana Roberts. Beneath the psychedelic thrills are undercurrents of political commentary, composed in opposition to a time of widespread \u201cmastery and misuse of language for evil means,\u201d as Dawson puts it. The album, he says, is \u201cnot fighting fire with fire, but fighting fire with slime, or maybe a fine mist. It\u2019s like using a camera lens that sometimes makes things way too crisp, but then shifts way out of focus again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen on Apple Music
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Listen on Amazon Music
Listen\/Buy at Bandcamp
Buy at Rough Trade<\/p>\n

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The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis: Deface the Currency<\/em> [Impulse!]<\/h2>\n
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After playing 150 shows together in one year, post-punk trio the Messthetics and jazz saxophonist James Brandon Lewis have achieved a hard-earned, dazzlingly realized chemistry. Deface the Currency<\/em>, their second album together, was recorded fresh off a European tour, bottling the energy and propulsion of their improvisational work. The album draws its title from a famous quote by Greek philosopher Diogenes, often interpreted as a call to buck convention, and that spirit runs strong through these seven kinetic tracks. Across Deface the Currency<\/em>, Lewis, guitarist Anthony Pirog, drummer Brendan Canty, and bassist Joe Lally rev up free-jazz pandemonium and cool down into soft, rounded solos with equal dexterity.<\/p>\n

Listen on Apple Music
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Listen\/Buy at Bandcamp
Buy at Rough Trade<\/p>\n

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Hilary Duff:\u00a0Luck\u2026or Something<\/em>\u00a0[Atlantic]<\/h2>\n
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Despite the decade that\u2019s passed since Hilary Duff released her last album, she’s remained a cultural tentpole for late millennials raised on Radio Disney. Her latest record, Luck\u2026or Something,<\/em> holds fast to these pop-star-next-door roots while exploring material not safe for the Lizzie McGuire<\/em> set. Co-written and -produced with her husband, Zedd collaborator Matthew Koma, it finds slinkier, grown-up textures in the strummy, sunny pop-rock of her youth. Lead single \u201cMature\u201d addresses a former lover\u2019s naive new girl, who looks \u201ca little like me, just younger\u201d; on the Swiftian \u201cRoommates,\u201d half the fun of a giddy overnight is the fact that she\u2019s no college ing\u00e9nue anymore.<\/p>\n

Listen on Apple Music
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Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music
Buy at Rough Trade<\/p>\n

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Nathan Fake: Evaporator<\/em> [InFin\u00e9]<\/h2>\n
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Nathan Fake describes his new record as a \u201cdaytime album\u201d\u2014or, more specifically, \u201cnot an afterparty album.\u201d Depending on your raving preferences, this could invoke a harsh wake-up call or warm embrace. Evaporator<\/em> sits firmly in the latter category, employing bright but restrained synth work, pop-minded production, and breezy melodics for a sound that might as well be doused in sunlight. The British producer\u2019s taste for pairing old-school software like Cubase VST5 with newer techniques also fits neatly into his narrative. Throughout Evaporator<\/em>, you consistently hear the old meet the new, with both leaving for the better.<\/p>\n

Listen on Apple Music
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Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music
Listen\/Buy at Bandcamp
Buy at Rough Trade<\/p>\n

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Larry June x Curren$y x The Alchemist:\u00a0Spiral Staircases<\/em> [EMPIRE]<\/h2>\n
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Larry June, Curren$y, and the Alchemist have run in the same circles (and united in pairs) for years, but Spiral Staircases<\/em> marks the first time they’ve made things official. June brings the jazz and psych-rock textures of Bay Area hip-hop; Curren$y lays down sharp bars in distinctly Southern cadences; and the Alchemist ties it all together with a characteristically smooth, rich finish. The trio exemplify the kind of swagger that only comes with time, confidence, a healthy sex life, and a hint of therapy\u2014clout chasers need not apply.<\/p>\n

Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music<\/p>\n

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Skaiwater: Wonderful<\/em> [GoodTalk]<\/h2>\n
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In the MCU of modern rage rap, UK-born Skaiwater is a dead ringer for Doctor Strange\u2014a master of the mystic art of imploding 808s and howling in a whisper. Their latest record, Wonderful<\/em>, is their first as an independent artist, and splits the difference between frenzied, blown-fuse cuts and quieter, romantic R&B fare. Exploring new territory like misty post-punk, emo rock, and heartfelt chipmunk soul, the polymath expands their pallet and flexes their Letterboxd list with track titles \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d and \u201cThe Substance.\u201d \u00d8Way flagbearer Tezzus, Los Angeles musician Ti Steele, and Crime Mob affiliate Diamond all feature; Bankroll Got It and North West (yes, that one) have production credits.<\/p>\n

Listen on Apple Music
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Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music<\/p>\n

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Peaches:\u00a0No Lube So Rude<\/em>\u00a0[Kill Rock Stars]<\/h2>\n
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If you\u2019ve placed your bets on a 2026 electroclash revival, it\u2019s hard to imagine a better sign than Peaches\u2019 first new album in over a decade. No Lube So Rude<\/em>, the iconoclast\u2019s debut on Kill Rock Stars, picks up the teaches of Peaches right where she left off, straight-talking about technocrats, venereal disease, and water-based lube over spare, serrated basslines and industrial drums. Recorded with Berlin producer the Squirt Deluxe, it\u2019s the seminal queer artist\u2019s reminder to the world that unabashed horniness can\u2014and, frankly, should\u2014be political. She says it best on \u201cFuck Your Face:\u201d \u201cI\u2019m a horny lil fucker and I\u2019ll bring you to your knees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Tidal
Listen on Amazon Music
Listen\/Buy at Bandcamp
Buy at Rough Trade<\/p>\n

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Moby:\u00a0Future Quiet<\/em>\u00a0[BMG]<\/h2>\n
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\u201cI love bombast,\u201d Moby shares in a press statement on Future Quiet<\/em>. \u201cI love excess and volume. But as the world gets louder and crazier I find myself needing the refuge of quiet, both as a listener and as a musician.\u201d Although his latest album doesn\u2019t dive full-step into silence, it has a meditative quality, rooted in resplendent string work and largely drumless arrangements. Setting the tone is an orchestral rework of his 1995 track \u201cWhen It\u2019s Cold, I\u2019d Like To Die,\u201d which blooms around the heavenly falsetto of gospel singer Jacob Lusk (and recently found a new audience thanks to a feature in Stranger Things<\/em>\u2019 final season).<\/p>\n

Listen on Apple Music
Listen on Spotify
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Listen on Amazon Music
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/media.pitchfork.com\/photos\/699736b8e00dfa867246d01b\/16:9\/w_1280,c_limit\/Credit_%20Anthony%20Blue%20Jr%20(1).jpg”] News 9 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: Baby Keem, Hen Ogledd, and Hilary Duff Also stream new releases from the Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis By Hattie Lindert and Jazz Monroe February 20, 2026 Courtesy of pgLang With so much good music being released all the time, it can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,54],"class_list":["post-1785147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-pitchfork-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1785147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1785147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1785147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1785147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}