New Music Friday: The best albums out Jan. 30

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🗓️ 30 January 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon. Emily Scott Robinson. Blood harmonies from Irish brothers Ye Vagabonds. Stephen Thompson from NPR Music chats with Dre Castillo from KVNF in western Colorado about the best albums out Friday, Jan. 30.

The Starting 5

(00:00) Introduction
(01:21) Emily Scott Robinson, 'Appalachia'
(08:58) Ye Vagabonds, 'All Tied Together'
(16:05) Jordan Ward, 'Backward'
(21:48) Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon, 'As Of Now'
(27:18) Orestes Gomez, 'No me fui porque quise'

The Lightning Round

- Don Toliver, 'OCTANE'
- Lande Hekt, 'Lucky Now'
- By Storm, 'My Ghosts Go Ghost’
- Yumi Zouma, 'No Love Lost to Kindness'
- David Moore, 'Graze the Bell'

Sample the albums via our New Music Friday playlist on NPR.org/allsongs.

Credits
Host: Stephen Thompson
Guest: Dre Castillo, KVNF
Audio Producer: Noah Caldwell
Digital Producer: Dora Levite
Editors: Otis Hart, Elle Mannion
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed

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Transcript

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0:00.0	A quick note before the show, this podcast contains explicit language.
0:04.7	In the quiet of the new year, we will let our old dreams go.
0:12.2	Happy Friday, everyone from NPR Music.
0:15.1	It's New Music Friday.
0:16.4	I'm Stephen Thompson here with Dre Castillo of KVNF in Western Colorado. Welcome to the show, Dre.
0:22.7	Hi. Thank you so much for having me, Stephen. I'm excited to be here.
0:26.7	Honored to have you. We're going to talk more about KVNF a little later in the show.
0:31.5	But how are you doing in general? Are you watching the Grammys this weekend?
0:35.5	Oh, I am. Yeah, definitely. I actually am really excited. I've never been so interested in the
0:42.9	Grammys. And I just also love this time of year for music, January. I feel like we're all still
0:48.1	cocooning. And releases feel intentional this time of the year.
0:58.2	Yeah, this is often a time of year where a bunch of my favorite records come out.
1:03.9	You know, we're getting like kind of the big pop star records rolling out more in kind of February and March.
1:09.5	But a lot of the stuff that I wind up listening to all year comes out right around this time.
1:10.2	Yeah, definitely. It's like heady, the headier stuff, in my opinion, comes out.
1:14.8	It is a little bit of a headier month.
1:17.3	You know who I think should be nominated for a Grammy?
1:19.9	Who?
1:20.4	Our first artist.
1:21.7	Emily Scott Robinson.
1:23.6	Emily Scott Robinson's new album is called Appalachia.
1:27.4	On my heart for Appalachia. Oh my heart for Appalachia,
	...

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