Even in the throes of heartbreak, ROLE MODEL’s Tucker Pillsbury can’t help but write golden, luminous hooks. On his sophomore full-length, <i>Kansas Anymore</i>, he sings of love, sometimes, but mostly of love lost. He’s a broken spirit, looking for a way forward, and this angst is perfectly opposed by the sugary sweet deliveries he sprinkles throughout the project.

Take opener “Writing’s on the Wall,” which finds Pillsbury nursing his wounds, unable to explain to his father that his feelings are different from the way his old man felt. “Dad’s on the phone and he’s lecturing me/’Bout a girl that he met when he was 19,” he sings a cappella, before pulsing drums and crunching acoustic guitar chords transport the singer to the rolling hills of Laurel Canyon circa 1970.

On “Superglue,” Pillsbury finds himself in the middle of a fling turned serious, employing stripped-back instrumentation that allows him plenty of room to outline the narrative stakes. “I can make it complicated,” he threatens, before knowing emotions will only cause harm: “You just want a little TLC.” Throughout <i>Kansas Anymore</i>, Tucker Pillsbury is loving the wrong person at the wrong time, wanting dinner when they want coffee, or thwarting off a desperate partner he thought to be a friend.

Summer Walker helps out on the Florida singer’s lovelorn EP.

Endlessly talented sonic nonconformist Saya Gray reveals plans for her debut album SAYA, set for release on February 21, 2025 via Dirty Hit.

Since her first project release, the critically-acclaimed 19 MASTERS, only a couple years ago, Saya Gray has become globally defined by the undefinable – an artist whose work is limitless, beguiling, intimate, exhilarating and truly unlike any other musician releasing songs right now. It’s easy to call something “one of one;” it’s harder to live it, breathe it, encapsulate it, and share it with the world: Saya Gray embodies that rarified space and invites everyone in. SAYA finally came after the dissolution of a troubled romantic entanglement; Gray booked a flight to Japan in the fall of 2023. And like a feel-good movie protagonist, Gray detangled herself from the outstanding psychic ties by journeying solo on a cross-country road trip.

Moved by the vastness of albums by the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, as well as her Canadian folk forebear, Joni Mitchell, Gray kept an acoustic guitar in the passenger’s seat, just in case inspiration would strike. In recording SAYA, Gray sanded and fine tuned the rough edges of records past into more cohesive works of melodic folk songcraft.

The thing about desire is it relies on the not-having of the thing you want; then sometimes you get it, and the whole game changes. In the case of Lucy Dacus—the dreamy singer-songwriter and guitarist, best known these days as one-third of indie-rock supergroup boygenius—the conundrum could apply to any number of current-life situations, among them her unexpected success as a Grammy-winning rock god. “I think that through boygenius, it felt like, ‘Well, what else? I don’t want more than this,’” Dacus tells Apple Music. “I feel like I’ve been very career-oriented because I’ve just wanted to play music, satisfy my own drive, and make things that I can be proud of. Getting Grammys and stuff, I’m like, ‘Well, I guess that’s the end of the line. What is my life about?’”

On her fourth solo album, <i>Forever Is a Feeling</i>, Dacus takes a heartfelt stab at answering that question, and in doing so, opens another desire-related can of worms. While the record explores the intoxicating, confusing, fleeting qualities of romance, it simultaneously functions as a fan-fic-worthy relationship reveal. (She went public with her relationship with boygenius bandmate Julien Baker weeks before the album’s release.) On <i>Forever</i>, Dacus dives headfirst into the implied complications, recruiting co-producer Blake Mills for subversive, swooning folk-pop numbers that revel in the mysteries of love, and what precedes it.

Dacus’ songwriting has always been vulnerable, though perhaps never this much, nor in this way. “What if we don’t touch?” she begins the super-sexy “Ankles” by proposing—instead, she imagines hypothetical bitten shoulders, pulled hair, crossword puzzles finished together the morning after. (“It’s about not being able to get what you want,” Dacus says of the song. “You want to get them in bed, but you also want to wake up with them in the morning and have sweet, intimate moments, and you can’t. So, you just have to use your imagination about what that might be like.”) She explores the in-between stages of a relationship on the wispy “For Keeps,” takes a quiet road trip through the mountains with her partner on “Talk,” and on “Big Deal,” she wonders to a star-crossed lover if things could ever go back to how it was before, though the climactic final chorus suggests otherwise.

Writing <i>Forever</i> brought Dacus closer to an answer to the question she posed to herself earlier, and she doesn’t care how cheesy it may sound. “I want my life to be about love,” she explained to Apple Music. “It feels corny to say. But that’s part of what this project is—the idea that talking about love is corny. I don’t think love is all you need, but I do think you need it amongst everything else.”

<i>Rarely Do I Dream</i> is Trevor Powers’ fifth album as Youth Lagoon and second since he reemerged in 2023 with <i>Heaven Is a Junkyard</i> after a seven-year break. Finding Powers sifting through the universe he’s created, discovering joy in what others paint as mundane, it begins with a shuffling drum groove and an audio sample taken from a home movie, setting the DIY, homespun tone for the album. “Speed Freak” features a distorted bass melody and clanging drums accented by a dash of cassette-tape hiss. “Parking Lot” is a gorgeous piano ballad that puts its title in a romantic light. “What a parking lot,” he marvels. “Eight little spaces/Don’t let him lose/Let him cruise for the spot.”

Everything Is Recorded 这个代号背后的主脑，是资深制作人兼 XL Recordings 创始人 Richard Russell。他创立的这个音乐计划旨在汇聚风格各异的合作者，共创出令人难忘的声音。在第三张专辑《Richard Russell Is Temporary》中，Russell 邀请了 Florence Welch、Bill Callahan、Sampha 和 Kamasi Washington 等音乐人，以及奥斯卡提名演员 Samantha Morton（他们之前曾以 SAM MORTON 的名义发表过专辑），通过提炼他们的声音，探讨人类存在的宏大命题，直面生命的脆弱。

这张专辑的极简风格中弥漫着存在主义的不确定性，它调和了众多声音的表达，同时也探讨了地球之外生命存在的可能性。“我想，最通俗易懂的说法是‘精魂’（spirit）。”Russell 说道，“David Bowie 去世时，每个人都很悲痛，因为事实证明他并非永生不朽，但我们也不必太惊讶，我们知道他所做的一切是永恒的。他的影响，他的爱与他带来的启迪将永远存在。”

这样的理念在与 Callahan 合作的《Norm》中得到了充分体现。这首歌致敬了已故喜剧演员 Norm MacDonald，并采样了他在 2011 年一次表演中对死亡的调侃：“当该死的死神把镰刀架在我脖子上时，我会变得非常懦弱，我连坐摩天轮都害怕。”MacDonald 以他标志性的暴躁风格开起了玩笑，随后 Bill Callahan 幽灵般低沉的声音再次浮现，唱道即使在 2021 年去世后，MacDonald 的“声音和面容依然长存”。Russell 表示，采样他对生命最后阶段的诚实表达，提醒了人们“幽默对一切是如此重要，在生活中，幽默就代表着一种理性”。

网罗全明星阵容的《Richard Russell Is Temporary》是一张难得一见的作品，凝聚了一群人的创造力和好奇心之魂。“我并不想代表任何合作伙伴发言。”Russell 说道，“但我能感觉到他们真的很享受参与这个项目。也许是因为他们都有自己的事业，而事业伴随着压力，因为你必须考虑一切。而在这张专辑里，他们不需要考虑太多，因为我会去思考。所以，他们只需要走进房间，尽情发挥就好。”

过去的三年对于蒙特利尔乐队 Arcade Fire 来说是一场兵荒马乱的跋涉。沉淀三年，乐队终于奉上这张《Pink Elephant》，以极富画面感的三分钟持续音开场，似是要召唤电子音乐先驱莫顿 · 萨博特尼克，探索宇宙未知之境。值得注意的是制作名单中的“Daniel Lanois”，Lanois 是 Win Butler 和丽金 · 沙萨涅的加拿大同乡，在近半个世纪的乐史中，曾经为 U2、Bob Dylan、布莱恩 · 伊诺的专辑施展锦上添花的魔法。而今身为联合制作人的 Lanois，为 Arcade Fire 的第七张专辑添上了立体声延迟等各式各样幽深而绝妙的效果。专辑的 10 首歌中，共有三首纯器乐曲，除了上述开场曲《Open Your Heart or Die Trying》，还有在精彩的滑奏之上肆意堆叠采样的《Beyond Salvation》，以及如同天音降临的《She Cries Diamond Rain》。

2022 年发行专辑《WE》之后，Arcade Fire 历经了一系列人员变动，成员们的个人心境也多有挣扎。通过新专辑里的无言歌，他们不仅试图在当下设想未来的样貌，也意图探寻乐队本身的前景。专辑同名曲布下一张忧虑的罗网，Butler 望世界兴叹，对周遭的一切持悲观论。而在主打单曲《Year of the Snake》里，Lanois 复现了制作《The Joshua Tree》时使用的几种技巧，让沙萨涅与 Butler 满怀惆怅、慨叹路在何方的对唱也变得忧郁而壮阔。两人重复着“你若感觉异常，或许反而无恙”（If you feel strange, It's probably good），交替唱出后一句词，语气时而给予慰藉，时而又刺痛人心。

《Circle of Trust》在晦暗的氛围中持续舞动，《Ride or Die》以原声器乐渐进奏出澎湃之音，它们代表着 Arcade Fire 对新风格的实验。最后一曲《Stuck in My Head》则重拾乐队荣光岁月的星辉，跳动的贝斯与凶猛的鼓点催促 Butler 面对心灵的重担，思考下一步的航向。“理清思绪，赶紧从床上起来吧”（Clean up your head/Get the fuck out of bed），他在歌曲的高潮部分一遍又一遍地大喊着，仿佛 Bruce Springsteen 突然被一股朋克的能量攫住那般唱道，“理清你的心”（Clean up your heart）。