New Releases Radar: September 11–18, 2026

Quick scan

Indie / alternative

Beck — Ride Lonesome

• Artist: Beck
• Album: Ride Lonesome
• Label: Iliad Records / Capitol Records
• Genre: Singer-songwriter folk, country-rock, soft rock
• Release date: September 18, 2026 18
• Signal: NPR led its Starting 5 with the album on September 18, and The Guardian's September 14 review calls it "a sequel to a sequel that's every bit as good as its predecessors." Its release-day thread on r/indieheads drew 182 upvotes and 47 comments by Friday afternoon. 1219
• Listening route: Apple Music album page
• Why spend time: Beck's first album in seven years reassembles the team behind Sea Change and Morning Phase: producer Nigel Godrich, the same backing players, and orchestrations by his father David Campbell. The Guardian traces those records' fingerprints across the tracklist — the pedal steel and Julie London reference in the title track, the small-hours drive of "Run Away," the string writing of "Bleed," the sparse country-rock of "Slow Canyon." Its 12 songs run 47 minutes. 218
• First listen: “Ride Lonesome.” The opening track sets the album's frame — softly strummed acoustic guitar, pedal steel, and Beck's voice before anything else arrives. 2

beabadoobee — Pylon

• Artist: beabadoobee
• Album: Pylon
• Label: Dirty Hit / Interscope
• Genre: Alt-rock, grunge-pop, Midwest emo
• Release date: September 18, 2026 20
• Signal: NPR placed it in the Starting 5 on release day, and Pitchfork published a same-day review that describes her fourth album as a decisive move toward heavier guitars. Its r/indieheads release thread had 121 upvotes and 18 comments within the morning. 1321
• Listening route: Apple Music album page
• Why spend time: Bea Kristi traded the horns and piano of 2024's This Is How Tomorrow Moves for tapped harmonics, sludgy riffs and feedback. The guest list follows the same turn: Hayley Williams on "Nothing to Prove," Turnstile's Brendan Yates on "Powerlines," Deftones' Chino Moreno on the closer, plus guitar and writing contributions from Title Fight's Shane Moran and Pinegrove's Evan Stephens Hall, and production from The 1975's Matty Healy and George Daniel on "Write Me a Letter." Fourteen songs, 41 minutes. 320
• First listen: “Switchblade.” Pitchfork singles it out as the album's strongest track, with off-kilter guitars and lazy drumming that land somewhere between mid-'90s alt-rock and post-anger exhaustion. 3

Carly Rae Jepsen — Day and Night

• Artist: Carly Rae Jepsen
• Album: Day and Night
• Label: School Boy / Interscope
• Genre: Pop, synth-pop, disco
• Release date: September 18, 2026 22
• Signal: NPR put it in the Starting 5, and Pitchfork's release-day review treats the double album as the broadest record of her career, with praise for its left-field detours alongside criticism of its length. 14
• Listening route: Apple Music album page
• Why spend time: Jepsen's eighth album is her first as a double, 25 tracks and 85 minutes split by mood: a Day side of '60s folk and '70s psychedelia in live-instrument arrangements, and a Night side of French house, Italo disco and ABBA. She wrote and recorded it through her marriage to producer Cole M.G.N. and her first pregnancy, and Pitchfork notes the record's unusual range for her — bossa nova, a sitar-like solo on "Soft," discordant synth stabs on "Near or Far." 422
• First listen: “Don't Leave Me on the Dance Floor.” Apple Music calls it an instant crying-in-the-club song and the clearest ABBA homage Jepsen has recorded. 422

Slow Pulp — Melodie

• Artist: Slow Pulp
• Album: Melodie
• Label: ANTI-
• Genre: Indie rock, dream pop
• Release date: September 18, 2026 23
• Signal: Stereogum named it Album of the Week on September 15, three days before release; the r/indieheads release thread held 152 upvotes and 19 comments by Friday afternoon. 524
• Listening route: Apple Music album page
• Why spend time: The Chicago band's third album is its shortest full-length yet, 11 songs in 32 minutes, and it arrives on Apple Music's New in Alternative and All Indie playlists the week of release. Two songs carried the run-up, "Better Man" and "Not for Nothing." 23
• First listen: “Better Man.” The advance single and the album's clearest statement of the band's guitar tone and vocal blend. 23

Hip-hop / R&B

Rakim, Kurupt & Masta Killa — The Godbody LP

• Artist: Rakim, Kurupt & Masta Killa
• Album: The Godbody LP
• Label: Holy Toledo Productions / DMG Publishing / Compound Interest
• Genre: East Coast hip-hop, hardcore rap
• Release date: September 18, 2026 7
• Signal: Apple Music put it on New in Hip-Hop, BARS, Rap Heavy Hitters and Flowetry at release; the r/hiphopheads release thread opened on Friday morning. 67
• Listening route: Apple Music album page
• Why spend time: Three rappers in their fifties — Rakim, Death Row-era Kurupt and Wu-Tang's Masta Killa — share a 16-track, 53-minute album co-produced by Rakim and Nick Wiz. The supporting cast reaches across coasts and generations: KRS-One, Kool G Rap, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Snoop Dogg, Daz Dillinger and Buckshot all appear, and the "God Speak" interlude pairs Eminem with Jay-Z for their first track together in 25 years. 725
• First listen: “A Different Kind.” The Rakim solo cut, released ahead of the album with a video, shows the record's working method: his voice over a track built to leave it room. 7

AZ Chike — No Rest for The Wicked

• Artist: AZ Chike
• Album: No Rest for The Wicked
• Label: Warner Records
• Genre: West Coast rap
• Release date: September 18, 2026 9
• Signal: The album drew the day's busiest hip-hop release thread on r/hiphopheads — 766 upvotes and 203 comments by Friday afternoon — and landed on Apple Music's Rap Life, New in Hip-Hop and #OnRepeat playlists. 89
• Listening route: Apple Music album page
• Why spend time: The Los Angeles rapper's Warner debut runs 14 tracks in 40 minutes, and its marquee guest is Tyler, The Creator on "Look Like My Mama," which also has a video. HotNewHipHop flagged the record in its Friday preview, noting speculation about an unlisted Kendrick Lamar feature — worth treating as speculation, since the tracklist does not carry it. 926
• First listen: “Look Like My Mama (feat. Tyler, The Creator).” The single that leads the album's promotion, and the fastest way to hear how Chike's delivery sits against a guest of that scale. 9

Electronic

Actress — Radical Frame

• Artist: Actress (Darren Cunningham)
• Album: Radical Frame
• Label: Ninja Tune
• Genre: Experimental electronic, techno
• Release date: September 18, 2026 10
• Signal: Ninja Tune's release page presents the album as the culmination of Cunningham's catalogue, arriving 18 years after his debut Hazyville. 10
• Listening route: Ninja Tune release page
• Why spend time: Eight tracks, built from the short bursts and zoomed-in sketches that have marked his work, and framed by the label around Fred Moten's argument that the avant-garde is a Black thing. Two guests appear: CASISDEAD on "Live By You" and Rainy Miller. The album's centre, "Overchord," arrived with a video by Anna van der Velde. 10
• First listen: “Overchord.” The album's midpoint, paired with its precursor "Live By You" as the advance release. 10

Boy Harsher — GET MEAN

• Artist: Boy Harsher
• Album: GET MEAN
• Label: Atlantic Records
• Genre: Darkwave, electro-pop, EBM
• Release date: September 18, 2026 11
• Signal: Northern Transmissions reviewed it at 7/10 in release week, calling it a cohesive record that widens the duo's palette; it is their first studio album on Atlantic and their first conventional full-length since 2019's Careful. 11
• Listening route: Apple Music album page
• Why spend time: Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller made the album after ending their relationship in 2024, and the record turns on loss and moving on without abandoning the pulsing synths and drum machines they are known for. New textures enter: softer electronics, guitar and pedal steel on some tracks, and "Ivy's Spiral," where Matthews delivers a spoken monologue instead of a vocal. 11
• First listen: “Hard Beat.” The single holds the duo's driving rhythm while letting the newer guitar and pedal-steel elements into the mix. 11

Classical

András Schiff — Johannes Brahms: Klavierstücke

• Artist: András Schiff (piano)
• Album: Johannes Brahms: Klavierstücke
• Label: ECM
• Genre: Solo piano, late Romantic
• Release date: September 18, 2026 27
• Signal: Gramophone made it an Editor's Choice in its October 2026 issue, writing that Schiff's "timbral distinction between registers yields a telling variety of colours." 12
• Listening route: Presto stream
• Why spend time: Schiff gathers Brahms's late piano music — the Klavierstücke Op. 76 and Opp. 118 and 119, the Fantasien Op. 116 and the Intermezzi Op. 117 — alongside the Albumblatt in A minor, a piece rediscovered in 2012 and given its modern premiere by Schiff. He recorded it in March 2021 in the Kammermusiksaal Hermann J. Abs in Bonn on a Blüthner piano from the 1850s, and the two discs run 1 hour 40 minutes. 12
• First listen: “Klavierstücke, Op. 118: No. 2, Intermezzo in A Major.” Four and a half minutes of the inward, song-like writing that defines this repertoire. 12

Christophe Dumaux, Louise Alder, The English Concert, Harry Bicket — Handel: Giulio Cesare

• Album: Handel: Giulio Cesare
• Label: Linn (CKD792)
• Genre: Baroque opera
• Release date: September 18, 2026 27
• Signal: Gramophone's October 2026 Recording of the Month. Its review says Louise Alder's Cleopatra "charts one of Handel's most satisfying dramatic journeys" and that the set "surely captures Dumaux at the top of his game." 13
• Listening route: Presto stream
• Why spend time: Harry Bicket and The English Concert continue their Handel series on Linn with a complete, unabridged Giulio Cesare, an opera written in 1724 for the castrato Senesino and rarely recorded whole. Christophe Dumaux sings Caesar and Louise Alder sings Cleopatra, with Paula Murrihy, Beth Taylor, John Holiday and Morgan Pearse in the supporting roles. The recording closes an international tour and runs 3 hours 51 minutes across three discs — Carnegie Hall's verdict, quoted by the label, was that the ensemble "sets a standard for Handel performance." 13
• First listen: “Piangerò la sorte mia.” Cleopatra's Act III aria, six minutes of the part Alder is singled out for; the complete recording also includes the overture and both sinfonias. 13

Country / roots

Rhiannon Giddens — Hope Is the Thing with Feathers

• Artist: Rhiannon Giddens
• Album: Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
• Label: Nonesuch
• Genre: Folk, old-time, Americana
• Release date: September 18, 2026 15
• Signal: NPR's Starting 5 on release day, a Pitchfork review on September 17, and placement on Apple Music's New in Americana and Pickers playlists. 11415
• Listening route: Apple Music album page
• Why spend time: Giddens returns to the string-band music of the Carolinas that she started with in the Carolina Chocolate Drops, cutting ten songs live in the studio with collaborators from across her career — Dirk Powell, Jason Sypher, Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu, and fiddler Justin Robinson. Four songs are originals written with Powell; the rest reach into the tradition, including Elizabeth Cotten's "Freight Train" and Ola Belle Reed's "High on a Mountain," both reworked rather than re-created. "Wish in Vain" addresses the refugee crisis, and "Walk with Me" is a gospel duet with her sister, Lalenja Harrington. 1415
• First listen: “Carolina Rain.” The lead single and the album's broadest tune, a homecoming marker before the record works back into older material. 14

Jake Xerxes Fussell — The Old Beloved Path

• Artist: Jake Xerxes Fussell
• Album: The Old Beloved Path
• Label: Fat Possum
• Genre: Contemporary folk, traditional song
• Release date: September 18, 2026 28
• Signal: NPR named it among the lightning-round picks it could not fit into the podcast; the label bills it as a raw, close-miked record. 116
• Listening route: Apple Music album page
• Why spend time: Fussell's sixth album sets nine songs — 32 minutes — in stripped arrangements made with producer Ben Whiteley in North Carolina. The material is traditional and mostly borrowed, which is the point: he takes on "Rock Island Line" and bends it to his own fingerpicking rather than reproducing a known version. 1628
• First listen: “Rock Island Line.” The advance single and the clearest sample of what Fussell does to a song everyone has heard. 16

Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts — Second Song

• Artist: Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts
• Album: Second Song
• Label: Reprise
• Genre: Folk-rock, roots rock
• Release date: September 18, 2026 29
• Signal: Mojo's review calls it a late-career classic, and it followed the harder Talkin' to the Trees from 2025 with the same band. 17
• Listening route: Apple Music album page
• Why spend time: Seven songs in 42 minutes, with the title track running 11 of them. Apple Music hears the record returning to the warmer end of Young's catalogue, and points to "The Foggy Edge of Time" as a survey of his own life and to "Soon I Might Be Going" as its elegiac counterpart. 29
• First listen: “Second Song.” The long title track sets the album's pace, and everything after it is shorter. 29

First clicks

1. Beck — Ride Lonesome on Apple Music for the week's best-reviewed album and the cleanest entry into it.
2. Rakim, Kurupt & Masta Killa — The Godbody LP on Apple Music for three veteran MCs trading verses across coasts.
3. Rhiannon Giddens — Hope Is the Thing with Feathers on Apple Music for the week's roots record, played by a full band in one room.