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The best new albums out June 13

VPM | By Stephen Thompson and Nate Chinen

Published June 13, 2025 at 4:01 AM EDT

A new timeless voice: Los Angeles singer-songwriter Annahstasia.

It’s Friday, and we’re happy to report that a handful of truly great albums were released at midnight. Los Angeles singer-songwriter Annahstasia — who you may have seen as Kendrick Lamar’s love interest in the video for his No.1 hit “luther” — blew us away with her blend of gravity and grace. Celebrated jazz guitarist Mary Halvorson — who won a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2019 — has a new album produced by Deerhoof’s John Dieterich. Jazz harpist Brandee Younger might have hit a new career high with her new album, on which she plays Alice Coltrane’s harp.

We get into those three and a few more on the June 13 episode of New Music Friday. Nate Chinen of Philadelphia public radio station WRTI joins host Stephen Thompson to share their favorite records of the week.

The Starting Five

Our hosts share the backstories and best songs from the following albums:

💿 Annahstasia, Tether (Stream)

Recommended If You Like: Tracey Chapman, Nick Drake

💿 Mary Halvorson, About Ghosts (Stream)

RIYL: Bill Frisell, Peter Bernstein

💿 Brandee Younger, Gadabout Season (Stream)

RIYL: Alice Coltrane, Shabaka Hutchings

💿 Joe Armon-Jones, All The Quiet (Part II) (Stream)

RIYL: Ezra Collective, Makaya McCraven

💿 The Cure, Mixes for a Lost World (Stream)

RIYL: The Cure, Orbital

New Music Friday is a feature of NPR’s All Songs Considered podcast. Hear the discussion on the NPR App, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Lightning Round

Terri Lyne Carrington & Christie Dashiell. / Candid Records

Five more albums we wish we had time to discuss on the podcast:

💿 AJ Tracey, Don’t Die Before You’re Dead

💿 Theo Croker, dream manifest

💿 Cosey Fanni Tutti, 2t2

💿 Terri Lyne Carrington & Christie Dashiell, We Insist 2025!

💿 Ella Hanshaw, Ella Hanshaw’s Black Book

Listen to each album’s best songs on our New Music Friday playlists on Spotify and Apple, or wherever you stream music.

The Long List

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Maclay Heriot / p(doom)

For those who want to dig even deeper, here are the week’s new albums sorted by genre:

Rock/Alt/Indie

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Phantom Island
Queens of the Stone Age, Alive in the Catacombs EP
Grateful Dead, Gratest Hits
Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts, Talkin to the Trees
Bloodshot Bill, So Fed Up!
Common Holly, Anything glass
Guy Blackman, Out of Sight
Jahnah Camille, My sunny oath! EP
Lipsticism, Wanted To Show You
Patrick Wolf, Crying The Neck
Puffer, Street Hassle
Self Improvement, Syndrome
Steve Queralt (of Ride), Swallow
WPTR, Redness and Swelling at the Injection Site

Country/Folk/Americana

Mister Romantic (John C. Reiilly), What’s Not To Love?
Dierks Bentley, Broken Branches
Joseph Allred, Old Time Fantasias

Electronic/Out There

Lyra Pramuk, Hymnal
Adrian Sherwood, The Grand Designer EP
Dummy, Bubbelibrium DLC
Gabriel Brady, Day-blind
Polygonia, Dream Horizons
gyrofield, Suspension of Belief EP
Holden & Zimpel, The Universe Will Take Care Of You
Kate NV, Room for the Moon (Live)
LSDXOXO, DGTL ANML

Global

BALTHVS, Flesh and Soul EP
Buscabulla, Se Amaba Asi
V/A, Pōpoloheno: Songs Of Resilience And Joy
WITCH, SOGOLO

Jazz

Dee Dee Bridgewater & Bill Charlap, Elemental
Brittany Davis, Black Thunder

Pop

Calum Hood, ORDER chaos ORDER
Mikayla Pasterfield, Heritage Listed EP
salem ilese, growing down
V/A, Smurfs (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Van Morrison, Remembering Now

R&B/Soul

Maiya Blaney, A Room With A Door That Closes
Natanya, Feline’s Return

Rap/Hip-Hop

Leikeli47, Lei keli ft 47 / For Promotional Use Only
EST Gee, My World
onefour, Look At Me Now
Lil Tecca, Dopamine
Cymarshall Law & Slimline Mutha, The Peaceful Warrior 2: Raw Self Expression
Yamê, ÉBĒM

Classical

Juri Seo, Obsolete Music

Credits

Host: Stephen Thompson
Guest: Nate Chinen, WRTI
Producer: Simon Rentner
Editor: Otis Hart
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
Vice President, Music and Visuals: Keith Jenkins

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Stephen Thompson

Stephen Thompson is a host, writer and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist and guest host on All Songs Considered. Thompson also co-hosts the daily NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created with NPR's Linda Holmes in 2010. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)

In 1993, Thompson founded The Onion's entertainment section, The A.V. Club, which he edited — alongside duties as The Onion's copy editor — until December 2004. In the years since, he has provided music- and pop-culture-themed commentaries for NPR programs such as Weekend Edition, All Things Considered and Morning Edition, on which he earned the distinction of becoming the first member of the NPR Music staff ever to sing on an NPR newsmagazine. (Later, the magic of AutoTune transformed him from a 12th-rate David Archuleta into a fourth-rate Cher.) Thompson's entertainment writing has also run in Paste magazine, The Washington Post and The London Guardian.

During his tenure at The Onion, Thompson edited the 2002 book The Tenacity Of The Cockroach: Conversations With Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders (Crown) and copy-edited six best-selling comedy books. While there, he also coached The Onion's softball team to a sizzling 21-42 record, and was once outscored 72-0 in a span of 10 innings. Later in life, Thompson redeemed himself by teaming up with the small gaggle of fleet-footed twentysomethings who won the 2008 NPR Relay Race, a triumph he documents in a hard-hitting essay for the book This Is NPR: The First Forty Years (Chronicle).

A 1994 graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Thompson now lives in Silver Spring, Md., with his girlfriend, their three cats and a room full of vintage arcade machines. (He also has two adult children who've headed off to college but still call once in a while.) Thompson's hobbies include watching reality television without shame, eating Pringles until his hand has involuntarily twisted itself into a gnarled claw, using the size of his Twitter following to assess his self-worth, touting the immutable moral superiority of the Green Bay Packers (who returned the favor by making a 22-minute documentary about his life) and maintaining a fierce rivalry with all Midwestern states other than Wisconsin.

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