The best new albums out Sept. 5

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NPR

Music

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Big Thief. David Byrne. El Michels Affair. WFUV's Alisa Ali joins Stephen Thompson to discuss their favorite albums coming out Friday, Sept. 5.

The Starting 5:

• Big Thief, 'Double Infinity'

• El Michels Affair, '24 Hr Sports'

• Curtis Harding, 'Departures & Arrivals: Adventures of Captain Curt'

• Lucrecia Dalt, 'A Danger to Ourselves'

• David Byrne, 'Who Is The Sky?'

The Lightning Round:

• Saint Etienne, 'International'

• james K, 'Friend'

• Ivy, 'Traces of You'

• Anaïs & The Hoops, 'Growing Pains'

• V/A, 'I Will Swim To You: A Tribute to Jason Molina'

See the long list of albums out Sept. 5 and sample dozens of them via our New Music Friday playlist on npr.org.

Credits

Host: Stephen Thompson
Guest: Alisa Ali, WFUV
Audio Producer: Noah Caldwell
Digital Producer: Elle Mannion
Editor: Otis Hart
Production Assistant: Dora Levite
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, I'm a Sally at a late night die far.
0:04.9	She don't dance, but she downs her drinks.
0:08.2	Happy Friday, everyone from NPR Music.
0:10.5	It's New Music Friday.
0:12.0	I'm Stephen Thompson here with Elisa Ali from WFUV in the Bronx, New York.
0:17.0	You and I used to hang out back at the Newport Folk Festival probably a decade ago.
0:21.1	It is a pleasure to see you. You and I have not aged a day. No, not at all. As far as you can tell from the podcast, we're really supple. Yeah, if anything, I'm kind of Benjamin buttoning back to infancy. Yeah. That's my goal. So, Alisa, you know, we're recording this show. This is the first Friday after Labor Day. So we're no longer talking about summer music. We're talking about fall music. And I thought it might be a nice way to kick off the show if you give us your song of the summer. What song are you taking with you from the summer of 2025? Well, first of all, summer is not technically over yet, and I'm going to hang on to every last scrap of it that I can.
0:58.0	I believe, I firmly believe, that the song of the summer
1:01.9	is Sally when the wine runs out from Role Model.
1:06.2	It is just so much fun, and every time I play it on the radio,
1:09.3	I have to say that was Salé. Love it. And as you noted, summer not technically over. That's a good reminder. All right, first album we're going to talk about that's out today. September 5th, Big Thief has a new record. It's called Double Infinity.
1:42.4	Night, I'm asleep. has a new record. It's called Double Infinity. Subconscious I only ever have
2:01.6	alone
2:02.6	Never half alone
2:05.6	This mind
2:06.6	Selfconscious
2:09.6	It takes so much
2:15.6	time To find a day line Big Thiefs and their new album, Double Infinity is such a wonderful record.
2:32.7	This is their sixth studio album, their first as a trio since the departure of their bassist, Max Oliarchic.
2:41.1	So we've got Adrian Lanker, Buck Meek, and James Krivchenia. And they have been making music for quite some time now.
2:49.5	And interestingly, when they first started working on this album,
2:53.6	they were intending it for it to be a hard rock album.
	...

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