New Music Drops: March 2025

​New Music Drops is a monthly series on T&E where we share some of our favorite new releases from this year in rock, pop, metal, punk, hip-hop, and global music. For the March installment, you'll discover sci-fi-themed improvisational free jazz, electro-clash inspired synth pop, experimental cumbia, d-beat Dutch hardcore, and so much more!

All selections for this month's blog was curated and written by Parisa!
New Music Drops is always presented on Bandcamp Friday.

Pop/Rock
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Los Pirañas - Una Oportunidad más de triunfar en la vida
Genre: Cumbia
Colombian group featuring members of Meridian Brothers, Frente Cumbiero and Romperayo, taking grooves from Bogota’s underground music scenes with their own unique twists. Great oddball energy!
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Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Crreatures
Genre: Ambient
The promo for this album started off this sentence that I’m pasting verbatim because it just nails it wonderfully: To listen to Ichiko Aoba is to be drawn into a world as intimate as a warmly lit home, but cosmic in scale. It’s so gentle, yet firmly grounded through the jazzy-folk textures. RIYL: sitting by a windowsill contemplatively, holding a warm mug while a cold breeze sweeps underneath you 
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Q Lazzarus - Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus
Genre: Pop, new wave
Like most people, Q Lazzarus is a name I’m only familiar with because of the iconic scene in The Silence of the Lambs. A new documentary explores the life of the enigmatic singer who lived just outside of the margin of fame. I have yet to see the documentary, but the soundtrack is enough to make me want to watch! While some of the music is not my taste, I’m so intrigued by her unusual voice and it’s great to uncover what else she released during her career. Fav song: “Love Lust”
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Martin Circus - Evolution Francaise (1969 - 1985)
Genre: French pop
Martin Circus was a pioneer of the French “Pop Musique” genre that turned away from the cool, calm, collected ye-ye stylings of the time and instead embraced some goddamn FUN! There’s so much, maybe even too much, packed into his music - glam, disco, new wave, soul, rock - that boogies only in a way that the French can. 
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Trinka - EP 
Genre: Brazilian music
A new Lisbon-based Afro-Portuguese trio whose lead singer is a spiritual practitioner of Candomble, an African diasporic religion that developed in Brazil during the 19th century. Singer Dandara Modesto states how she uses her spirituality to provide a framework for the band’s musical identity, something that is evident through its rich textural palettes.  
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V/A - Tokyo Bliss - Japanese Funk, Boogie & City Pop from King Records 1974-88
Genre: City pop
I’ll be straight with y’all and say that I do not enjoy city pop. However!! I wanted to share this release because I know many people do, and if it is indeed your jam, you should definitely check out this new compilation. This label, WeWantSounds, is always carefully researched and expertly curated, so I can definitely appreciate this collection even though it’s not my particular taste. 
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Electronic
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Ela Minus - D​Í​A
Genre: Electronica
Whereas Minus’ previous release was all about confronting pain through dark, moody synth beats and dance-crying in a dark club, this new album is all about emerging into the light with bright, big sounds full of confidence. While I’ll always be more attuned to the former vibe, this album is still fabulous and showcases a whole new side of Minus’ incredible talent. 
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Citron Citron - Maréeternelle
Genre: Synth pop
A release from late last year that I’m including because I somehow missed this. A lovely Swiss-French synth pop release from a brother-sister duo group. Pulsing analog grooves courtesy of a ‘70s EMS synth with that classic airy but slightly melancholic French pop sensibility. 
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Marie Davidson - City of Clowns
Genre: Electropop
A brilliantly fun and inspired album from Canadian indie dance producer Marie Davidson. Massive sounding bouncing, metallic beats topped with blasé vocal delivery and sarcastic wit, for fans of electroclash with a modernized themes of hypersurveillance. For fans of Charlotte Adigery and Bolis Pupil 
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Lagartijeando - 7 Caminos
Genre: Folktronica
An organic blend between heady,  trance-like electronica with South American folkloric spirit. A rich weaving of cumbia, Andean folk with modern dance production. 
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AMMAR 808 - Live at Another Sky Festival
Genre: Bass music
A live album from one of my favorite contemporary producers, AMMAR 808, who combines traditional Tunisian music with super heavy 808s for some of the hardest dance music you’ll hear out in the scene. This live set seamlessly blends many of his notable tracks with top notch energy. It’s literally impossible not to dance to this. 
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Kinlaw - gut ccheck
Genre: Electropop
I was pretty sold on checking out this record when I read that Kinlaw is like a hybrid of Jenny Hval, FKA twigs, and Cate le Bon. This album is definitely influenced by those artists, but also finds its own unique space using hard hitting trap beats throughout the album. Unfortunately a good chunk of the album is way too clean sounding for my taste (in the way of “something you’d hear while shopping at a boutique store”), but still sharing this because the first half of the album is solid and “Hard Cut” is currently on repeat for me.
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Punk and Metal
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Oust - Rather be a fuck up
Genre: Hardcore
I’d rather be a fuck up than a fascist!! What a motto to start off this release. I generally don’t listen to a lot of midtempo hardcore, but this rips as much as it grooves and I’m here for it. The vocal delivery is slow and drawn out, in a way that makes every word feel like it’s painfully being pulled out of the singer’s gut. Up the shitty Dutch punx!! 
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Saint Vengeur - Sex and Repression in Higher Society
Genre: Industrial
An industrial album carrying influences of witch house, black metal, dungeon synth and baroque music. If you’re like me and grew up listening to the 1986 classic NES Castlevaniya soundtrack, then you will certainly love this. 
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Changeling - “Abyss” 
Genre: Progressive death metal
The lead single from the upcoming Changeling album shows a lot of promise. Led by Berlin-based guitarist Tom Fountainhead (previous member of Defeated Sanity, and also notably known for playing guitar on Obscura's Akroasis),  it’s a masterclass of progressive metal and technical craftsmanship. The liner notes previewed that there’s a 50-piece ensemble on this record so you can be guaranteed it’ll be extra as hell!!
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Ande - De Schemering Werelden
Genre: Atmospheric black metal
An introspective atmospheric black metal album that “portrays dusk as a metaphor for staying true to oneself amidst the chaos of the modern world.” Lyrically and sonically sways between day and night, body and mind, nature and spirit, but doesn’t stray into folky territory as releases of this type normally do. 
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Vacuous - In His Blood
Genre: Death metal
A stand out record from the past month, UK death metal band Vacuous examines ideas of violence and voyeurism with sharp, angular riffs and intensely fast speeds. The band has stated in the press release how this album contemplates the internet’s role in how we perceive death and the normalization of horrifying images. “The internet is like a graveyard of people’s trauma,” adds guitarist Michael Brodsky. “Seeing all that does something to you as a person.” Coming from a generation that surfed on sites like rotten.com - I can verify that it sure does!! But perhaps all that horror binging as a kid led me to enjoy this album today, so I guess there’s that!
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Decrepisy - Deific Mourning
Genre: Death metal
Portland-based death metal band featuring members of Thanamagus, Vastum, Acephalix, and Ascended Dead delving into themes of grief and loss. Doomy vocals, strangely dissonant guitar parts, unexpected time signature shifts…it’s got a lot of ingredients for a short LP but it definitely cooks! One of my metal releases of the past few months. 
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Necrotech - Necrotechnology 
Genre: Death doom/industrial
Debut EP from Brazilian group Necrotech that explores cyber dystopian themes and “the oppressive ruin of capitalist industrialization” through an industrial soundscape with death doom-style vocals. Very much inspired by the likes of Godflesh and takes the theme to a cinematic level, though a B-horror flick cinematic level. 
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Délirant - Thoughteater
Genre: Dissonant black metal
The sophomore release from the reclusive one-man black metal project based in Spain. In the true nature of dissonant black metal, it is deeply cerebral, densely layered, and claustrophobic. Guitar riffs are constantly twisting and turning, and although I usually expect some moments of eerie quiet in albums like this to further unnerve the listening experience, Délirant doesn’t let up with the chaos and keeps the blast beats going the whole time. It’s exhausting, check it out! 
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Hip-hop and R&B
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Silvan Strauss - Flukin’
Genre: Jazz/hip-hop crossover
German jazz drummer Silvan Strauss collaborates with a myriad of international performers for a suuuper slick collection of tracks that range from hip-hop to jazz to soul to traditional global music. Songs like “Sudan” featuring Mehdi Qamoum incorporate ancient North African Gnawa traditions with crisp, modern hip-hop influenced jazz beats.  And when I tell you the song “Chulas” has been on repeat for me - I mean it’s on RE-PEAT! 
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Jeshi - Airbag Woke Me Up
Genre: Hip hop
London rapper Jeshi returns with his most ambitious release to date, bringing a whole new sense of self and vulnerability to his storytelling. The album lyrically explores him emerging and recalibrating from tough times and backed by a variety of soundscapes - like big beat inspired “BAD PARTS ARE MY FAVORITE”, melancholic, hazy trip-hop sounds of “STUCK ON LOOP” and good ‘ol fashioned London hip hop. 
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Laíz & The New Love Experience - Ela Partiu
Genre: Brazilian hip hop
Another release from late last year that I’m sneakin’ in here ‘cause I accidentally missed out! Debut EP from the Brazilian hip hop group, rooted in tropicalia sounds but a fully international release with rappers and musicians from South America, Europe and Africa. Such a vibrant and lively album!
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Black Milk & Fat Ray - Food From the Gods
Genre: Detroit hip hop
Amazing chemistry between two fixtures of the Detroit rap scene. Milk brings the bright, Dilla-esque boom-bap beats, Fat Ray contrasts with deep baritone vocals and heavy lyricism. 

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Jazz and Soul
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Ebo Taylor, Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad - Ebo Taylor JID022
Genre: Afrobeat

At 88 years of age, the Ghanian highlife and afrobeat pioneer Ebo Taylor traveled to the US for the very first time to perform at the now iconic Jazz Is Dead concert series, selling out venues across the country. It was during this time that Ebo recorded a psychedelic afrobeat album alongside Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad. This mind-blowing collaboration is one that could not have been anticipated by Ebo fans worldwide and will surely satisfy connoisseurs of classic West African funk.
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Dromedaries & Alexoteric - The Burning Bright Light
Genre: Free jazz
A phenomenal collaboration between improvisational free jazz trio Dromedaries (saxophonist Keir Neuringer of Irreversible Entanglements, Shayna Dulberger on double bass and percussionist Julius Masri) and sci-fi writer/vocalist Alexoteric (Alex Smith). Re: the liner notes “With no rules set in advance, each participant brought their entire creativity to bear on a session that birthed a constellation of shimmering stories narrated through equally deep music and words. While it retains all the power and excitement of a spontaneous meeting, the album also reveals deep and atypical shared affinities that are simultaneously sonic, musical, social, political, and cosmic.” This kind of improvisational energy is so fucking mindblowing to me and honestly am already projecting it to be my favorirte jazz release of this year. Free jazz, queer afrofuturism, sci-fi fantasy…a holy trifecta! 
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Kuna Maze - Layers
Genre: Fusion
I don’t always love synthy, fusion-type jazz. There’s always a fine line between a weird groove I can get into and ‘80s cheese that’s got the wrong kinda funk. This album, however, is just the right kind of stink that I can get into. It’s smooth as hell, and incorporates synth through unexpected house and dub effects. If you’re a fan of the UK improv jazz scene, like Ezra Collective and what have you, you’ll definitely dig this. 
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Parchman Prison Prayer - Another Mississippi Sunday Morning
Genre: Soul, gospel, hip-hop, blues 
A sequel to the 2023 album Some Mississippi Sunday Morning, the prison-recorded release produced by Ian Brennan (my favorite producer!). Raw vocal recordings from twelve men in the Parchman Farm maximum security prison, ranging in ages 23 to 74, recorded during the prison’s Sunday service. All first takes, no overdubs, all live, all original music, all heart, all soul. As with the first album, any and all artist proceeds benefit Parchman’s chaplain services program.

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