Every Friday, 88Nine music director Erin Wolf and Lilliput Records co-owner Tanner Musgrove tell you about the new albums you can’t miss on a new episode of On Vinyl. Check out their top picks and a list of this week’s other releases, and listen to their full conversation using the player on this page or on the 88Nine airwaves at 1 p.m. every Friday.
Debuts, collabs, star producers and exploring the neverending dimensions of songs are just some of the things that make each featured release this Friday a little extra special.
Starting off, we just love a good debut that sounds nothing like what you’d expect from a first-time effort. Manchester indie-rock band Westside Cowboy offer just that: fully formed and easily digestible in the best way.
Next up, longtime pastoral folkie Lambchop ropes in some Midwestern-recognizable collabs for his newest and clumsily-yet-funnily-named record (apparently not a clown fan). Venturing further, we get some delightful distortion-laden indie rock in the form of the newest long-player from Wild Pink. Wednesday fans, take note! And, at our last stop, we test the stretchiness of a song with Julia Holter’s brand-new companion to her 2024 release.
Happy New Music Friday!
Best new albums out Aug. 21
Westside Cowboy, It Goes On
Sometimes, there’s an artist who kinda comes out of left field and sneakily becomes one of your new favorites when you least expect it. Manchester’s Westside Cowboy are pulling that off with an instant magnetism to those of us here in the States.
The band’s edgy energy is equal parts triumphant indie-garage rock and twee-pop qualifiers. While they’re not reinventing the musical wheel, they’ve got that classic jangly-yet-cathartic sound that gets us every time. We also love that they use bizarro instruments like screwdrivers as drumsticks.
It Goes On is their debut record, and they’ve got two options for those looking to pick up a vinyl copy: a standard 140-gram black recycled variant and a limited indie-exclusive recycled red version, both of which come via Island Records with a printed jacket, colored inner sleeve and 12-by-12-inch printed insert.
Lambchop, Punching the Clown
Lambchop is the longtime project of Nashville’s Kurt Wagner, known for his quirky and bookish lyricism and pastoral folk-rock vibe. It’s been a perennial fave among a lot of indie-folk nerds that has attracted heavyweight collaborators like William Tyler and the late Vic Chesnutt.
This time around, Wagner has enlisted some notable Midwestern helpers: Minneapolis-based producers and musicians Ryan Olson of Poliça fame and returning longtime collaborator Andrew Broder of Fog, as well as Wisconsin’s own Justin Vernon on banjo. Recorded at Vernon’s April Base Studios in Wisconsin, Punching the Clown is Lambchop’s first full-length project in nearly four years, and it leans into gospel with a six-part choir, stripping things back to make more of an emphasis on the feeling it leaves with the listener.
Vinyl releases include a frosted clear “peak” and a standard black version from Merge Records.
Wild Pink, Still Coming Down
New York native John Ross (otherwise known as Wild Pink) releases his sixth studio album, and it’s produced by Alex Farrar of Wednesday fame while featuring contributions from Meg Duffy of Hand Habits and MJ Lenderman.
Wanna catch Wild Pink live? You’ll have that chance Oct. 29, when they play Turner Hall Ballroom as openers for Shakey Graves. In the meantime, you can snag the new album on blue vinyl via Fire Talk Records at indie record shops near you or on Wild Pink’s official website, which offers a signed version.
Julia Holter, Materia
Milwaukee-born, L.A.-based Holter is back, releasing her newest album Materia.
The new album from Milwaukee-born Julia Holter is considered a companion piece to 2024 release Something in the Room She Moves. It’s a record that’s also a listening exercise, letting us hear the title track take shape through various forms.
Holter has expressed that after recording this particular song, she felt there were other iterations and wanted to expand on them. On Materia, we see not one but two other versions of the track, denoted as “Materia 2” and “Materia 3.” We love that she could creatively visualize how many different ways the track could take shape — so much so, the full project carries that name.
All those visions are available together on standard black vinyl from Domino Records at a record shop near you.
More of our picks
- Afghan Whigs, Soft Control
- Black Marble, Life in Small Spaces
- Grace Potter, Trespasser
- hey, nothing, Hound
- Sam Smith, Hazel Eyes
- Weezer, Weezer (The Gold Album)
