the crowd's
week

Wishy
— Nature's Pill

album

LP · 2 Oct 2026 · Winspear

Second album from the Indianapolis band, again produced by Ben Lumsdaine. Half recorded live, in a single room in Los Angeles. Sugar-coated dream-pop with grunge in the mix. Have you heard "Lovesick" yet?

Wishy formed in Indianapolis around Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites, friends since high school, and after the EPs Mana and Paradise and the debut album Triple Seven (2024) they now arrive at their second record. Nature's Pill is out on Winspear, again with Ben Lumsdaine producing. They recorded in Los Angeles and cut half the songs live, in the same room, drawing on the chemistry built up on tour. The sound mixes 90s dream-pop and alt-rock with 80s college rock and 2000s indie, in a sugar-coated grunge that doesn't take life too seriously. "Lovesick", sung by Pitchkites, has the bright pop of a more laid-back The Cure or The Sundays on top form. The underlying theme is an unpredictable, overwhelming world that is still full of possibility, met with defiant joy. For anyone who likes guitars with a shine, this is a record to play with the windows open.

critics 80 · users 72

Swans
— Newly Sentient Being

live

Live · 2 Oct 2026 · Young God Records

The last "Big Sound". Recorded in Berlin on 28 November 2025, it closes 15 years of reinvention. Five tracks, two and a half hours of music. Brace yourself.

Newly Sentient Being documents the last concert of the phase Michael Gira calls Swans' "Big Sound", recorded in Berlin on 28 November 2025. Released on Young God Records, it closes the cycle that began in 2010, when Gira decided to reunite the band and follow a demanding, far from accessible sonic path that won a devoted audience. It is around two and a half hours of music across five pieces, among them "The End of Forgetting", "The Merge" and "Paradise Is Mine", including material not yet recorded in the studio. There is also a video record, directed by Marco Porsia and Peter Harton. The user score, the highest of the week, says a lot about the record's weight. It is a plunge into volume, repetition and trance, ideal for the more adventurous and experimental side of our community.

users 90

featured

Fat Dog
— Cancel Me (I'm Tired)

album

LP · 2 Oct 2026 · Domino

Second album from London's most frantic band. Electro-punk, art-pop and space country on the same track. Born of a tour that left the band wrecked. Can you keep up?

Two years after WOOF, south London septet Fat Dog return with Cancel Me (I'm Tired), their second record, released on Domino. Its ten tracks are filed by the band themselves, jokingly, under "electro-punk-art-pop-rock'n'roll-space-country", and it was written after Joe Love came back to London from a gruelling world tour. It deals with addiction, love and family, but also with aliens and H&M shops. The title track draws on John Lennon's "How Do You Sleep?" and on the idea of how Turkish band Altın Gün would sound on a dance floor. They keep the controlled chaos, the insistent synths and the dark humour that have made them one of the most talked-about live bands of recent years. It is music for the part of the Crowdmusic community that likes to sweat, laugh and lose their breath at the same gig.

critics 72 · users 76

Johnny Marr
— The Age of Everything

album

LP · 2 Oct 2026

Fifth solo album, the most "cathartic" by his own account. Ten songs about overstimulation, led by "Spin". The ex-Smiths man still has plenty of guitar to give.

Johnny Marr releases his fifth solo album and describes it as his most cathartic yet. The title, The Age of Everything, comes from a feeling shared by many people: being permanently overloaded with stimuli, technology and culture. Even so, Marr refuses a purely negative view and leaves room for optimism and possibility. There are ten songs, from "Spin", the first single, to "Beyond The Rain", "Ophelia" and "All In A Life". The guitar has that unmistakable touch that made him one of the great figures of British indie. In a line-up full of discovery names, this is the familiar pick, the one that brings together generations of our audience.

critics 76 · users 61

Dev Lemons
— hunting what we already killed

album

LP · 2 Oct 2026

Second album: eleven tracks about the end of a relationship, produced by Emmett Kai. Intimate R&B, distorted guitars and screams on "another word you say". Start with "eat the pavement".

Dev Lemons started out posting songs under the name Miss iPad and built an audience on YouTube with covers of songs she had never heard before, from Charli xcx's "Vroom Vroom" to Death Grips' "Get Got". She is also known for her short, absurd horror films on TikTok and for lyric visualisers that look like 90s adventure games. hunting what we already killed, her second album, follows the end of a relationship across eleven tracks, from devotion to bargaining, from guilt to resentment and acceptance, written over about a year and a half. Production is by Emmett Kai, co-owner of Unisex Records, and pushes the sound towards alternative rock, with intimate R&B grooves, distorted guitars and screams in the heaviest moments. Radiohead and Deftones were in her headphones while she wrote. "only one way to know" opens the record, "eat the pavement" is the brightest single, with a violent cartoon-style video, and "another word you say" ends in a screamed breakdown. It follows SURFACE TENSION (2025), which leaned more towards pop and rap.

users 82

The Koreatown Oddity
— Purdy

album

LP · 2 Oct 2026 · Stones Throw

Fourth album on Stones Throw. Fatherhood, partnership and a child's logic, from knights in battle to tending the lawn. Unconventional, deeply human rap.

Los Angeles rapper The Koreatown Oddity releases Purdy, his fourth album on Stones Throw. The record mixes out-of-the-ordinary stories with reflections on fatherhood, partnership and growing responsibility, all filtered through the playful logic of a child's imagination. It moves from a knight's first battle to an appreciation of a well-kept lawn, and on to workplace etiquette. It is a portrait of the artist and the man behind the name: inventive, funny and deeply human, with one foot in the everyday and the other in the absurd. For the Crowdmusic community, it is the week's alternative hip-hop pick, far from formula and close to the label's best tradition.

users 74

Forrest Nolan
— Indie Movie Soundtrack

album

LP · 2 Oct 2026

Born in 1998, also known as Ponyboy FTO. Pop-rock, noise pop and garage that sound like an indie film soundtrack. "thank you i guess" is the way in.

Forrest Nolan, an American musician born in 1998 and also known as Ponyboy FTO, has been quietly building a career, with around a dozen releases across albums, EPs and singles. Indie Movie Soundtrack is the record that puts him in the spotlight, with a good response from listeners. The sound takes in pop-rock, indie pop, garage and noise pop, with the scruffy charm of someone who records eagerly and without ceremony. "thank you i guess" is the most-played track and the best way into the record. As the title suggests, it all sounds like the soundtrack to an indie film that doesn't exist yet. For those who like discovering artists on the fringes, it is a small gem.

users 79