Solid month of new music from August. Ninajirachi and Oli XL are by far standing out to me. Feeling good about music in 2025… who’d have thunk it?

The Beths – Straight Line Was a Lie [Anti-]
Digging your way out of a spiral but admiring the sights on your ascent back to reality.

Blood Orange – Essex Honey [Domino / RCA]
Flipping through tattered diary entries of an old traveler, found wrapped in wax paper under a rock in a riverbed. 

Cassandra Jenkins – My Light, My Massage Parlor [Dead Oceans]
Rich floral oils swirl as your rest upon a nest of plush, warm towels, weary muscles releasing.

Dijon – Baby [R&R Digital]
Staying up all night to watch the sunrise, worshipping its warming light in a delirious state.

Earl Sweatshirt – Live Laugh Love [Tan Cressida]
Settling on your couch on a Saturday morning, feeling a sense of soul compression start to release after a period of personal turmoil.

For Those I Love – Carving The Stone [September Recordings]
Being stripped of your parts but still completing executive functions only thanks to the power of your love for family and friends.

Ninajirachi – I Love My Computer [NLV]
All your accumulated old tech you’ve hoarded over the last two decades all connect together when you’re not home and have a rave, then secretly implant their DJ sets on your current audio player.

Oli XL – Lick the Lens, Pt. 1 [Warp]
The mirror is also a trampoline, it’s also a cheese cloth to extract the amniotic juices incubating us in a simulated world.

Rooster – Rooster Slipped [Self-Released]
Sitting alone in your house after hosting a party, staring out into the snowy darkness still spiraling from drinking too much.
[CONTENT WARNING FOR VIDEO BELOW]

Scree – August [Ruination Record Co.]
Spending a summer and winter working as concierge at an old world luxury hotel, serving some of the most eclectic and worldly individuals in the world, listening to their stories.

TOPS – Bury The Key [Ghostly International]
A beleaguered night shift worker encounters every one of their ex lovers on their way home, turning into a high speed race away from each one of them at sunrise.

GR8 TRACKS OF AUGUST 2025::

• amaarae – “Kiss Me Thru The Phone Pt 2 (with PinkPantheress)”
• The Beths – “Metal”
• The Beths – “Straight Line Was A Lie”
• The Beths – “Til My Heart Stops”
• Blood Orange – “Life (feat. Tirzah & Charlotte Dos Santos)”
• Blood Orange – “Vivid Light”
• Blood Orange – “The Field (feat. The Durutti Column, Caroline Polachek, Daniel Caesar & Tariq al-Sabir)”
• Cassandra Jenkins – “Delphinium Bliss”
• Cassandra Jenkins – “Only Relaxation”
• Dijon – “Automatic”
• Dijon – “Yamaha”
• Earl Sweatshirt – “FORGE”
• Earl Sweatshirt – “Static”
• Earl Sweatshirt – “TOURMALINE”
• For Those I Love – “Carving The Stone”
• For Those I Love – “Civic”
• For Those I Love – “I Came Back To See The Stone Had Moved”
• For Those I Love – “Of The Sorrows”
• Ninajirachi – “All I Am”
• Ninajirachi – “Battery Death”
• Ninajirachi – “Infohazard”
• Ninajirachi – “iPod Touch”
• Nourished By Time – “9 2 5”
• Oli XL – “Drift Regalia (feat. James K)”
• Oli XL – “Go Oli Go!”
• Oli XL – “Mute the World”
• Oli XL – Nosebleed Melody”
• Rooster – “Best Friend?”
• Scree – “Either Way”
• Scree – “My Life Through The Eyes of a Cat”
• Scree – “Zikra”
• TOPS – “Call You Back”
• TOPS – “Outstanding In The Rain”
• TOPS – “Standing At the Edge of a Fire”
• TOPS – Your Ride”