the crowd's
week

Remi Wolf
— Mud

album

LP · 9 Oct 2026 · Island

Third album, made between Electric Lady Studios, in New York, and Joshua Tree. After a retreat with friends in Big Bear, a record she herself calls purifying. Skewed pop, with depth.

After Juno and Big Ideas, Remi Wolf arrives at her third album with one question on her mind: what does she really want to say? The answer took shape on a retreat in Big Bear, with a small circle of friends and long-time collaborator Jared Solomon, and was recorded mostly between Electric Lady Studios, in New York, and Joshua Tree. Wolf describes it as a very purifying record to make, and you can hear an artist taking a weight off her shoulders. Across eleven tracks, led by "Bottle", "Champagne", "Twiggy" and "Burn Me Blue", she keeps the skewed, colourful energy that made her name. It is the most pop album on our list, but it has too much personality to be only that, and it is a good bridge to a younger audience.

critics 76 · users 79

Jess Williamson
— A Mile South of Heaven

album

LP · 9 Oct 2026 · New West

Produced by Shooter Jennings, recorded at Sunset Sound, in Hollywood. Country without the posturing, written after leaving Los Angeles. Joan Didion is in there too. Goodbye, LA.

Jess Williamson had already got us used to carefully written folk, but here she embraces her country side without hang-ups. A Mile South of Heaven, her first record for New West, is produced by Shooter Jennings and was recorded at the legendary Sunset Sound, in Hollywood. The starting point is her move away from Los Angeles, and the title points to a simple idea: valuing where you are instead of chasing what you can't reach. "Goodbye To All That" borrows its title from Joan Didion's essay and is the best way in, but there is more across the twelve songs, such as "Country Mile" and "Texas Time". It is a record that smells of dirt roads, by a songwriter with her head screwed on. For those at Crowdmusic who like alt-country and good songs, it is a natural pick.

critics 75

featured

Cameron Winter
— Live at Carnegie Hall

live

Live · 9 Oct 2026 · Partisan

The Geese frontman alone at Carnegie Hall. A cracked voice, silence, a whole room holding its breath. The live record nobody asked for that everybody will want to hear.

After putting Geese at the centre of the conversation and releasing his solo record, Cameron Winter took the stage at Carnegie Hall in 2025, and the night was captured on record. The result is the kind of live album that rarely justifies its existence: what matters is capturing an artist at one exact moment. Winter's unsteady, unpredictable voice, now fragile, now tearing loose, takes on another dimension in a hall that size, where the audience's silence becomes part of the arrangement. Released on Partisan, it has the week's highest score, from critics and listeners alike. For the Crowdmusic community, it is a way into one of the most talked-about names in indie right now, and a heads-up for anyone already following Geese: this man is worth hearing on his own.

critics 87 · users 92

Ovrkast.
— STRIKING

album

LP · 9 Oct 2026 · three times LOUDER

East Oakland rapper and producer, 18 months of work, 12 tracks. Jazz, samples, Madlib and Dilla in the DNA, with Kendrick and Jay-Z as a compass. The Bay Area speaking softly and hitting hard.

After While The Iron Is Hot, the 2025 project that got him noticed, Ovrkast. went back into the studio for an album that started as an extension of the previous one and, after about 18 months, became something else. The East Oakland rapper and producer makes sample-heavy, jazz-scented hip-hop, in the line of Madlib, J Dilla and the whole Bay Area school. He cites Kendrick Lamar's DAMN and Jay-Z's 4:44 as inspirations, and gives them his own reading, more intimate and more musical. The record was fine-tuned during a week of writing in Los Angeles with long-time collaborators such as Grant Lapointe, Like and string arranger Aaron Paris, and features guests such as Niontay and Self Proclaimed Narcissist on "Wata" and "PANE". It is out on Brooklyn's three times LOUDER. It is our pick for the week's most carefully made underground hip-hop.

users 77

HAAi
— DIGITiSE

album

LP · 9 Oct 2026 · Mute

New album on Mute, conceived as a DJ set that lasts all night. With Pat Alvarez, Skybreak, James Messiah and a Colombian children's choir. A dance floor with soul.

HAAi came up behind a DJ booth, and it shows. DIGITiSE started as an extension of HUMANiSE (2025) and ended up taking on a life of its own, with a clear idea: to range across several styles, like a set that lasts all night. Released on Mute, the album brings together Pat Alvarez, Echonomist, Skybreak, ILA, James Messiah, Kaiden Ford and the Colombian children's choir Cantoalegre. The title track, with Pat Alvarez, is the core of it all, and for HAAi the dance floor is still a place of community and connection. The score is more modest than those of the other records on the list, but it is our dance-floor representative, for those who like electronic music that also thinks.

users 70

saoirse dream
— grimdark

album

LP · 9 Oct 2026 · Lauren Records

From hyperpop to heavy emo: eight songs about grief, rage and collapse. Catherine Egbert trades the shine for distortion. An internet cult favourite finding its way to guitars.

saoirse dream is the project of Catherine Egbert, which started in hyperpop, gained an online cult following and turned into an emo band, with more than 80 shows across North America and Europe. grimdark, on Lauren Records, has eight songs that the label describes as a descent into grief, rage and imagined collapse. In place of the glossy electronics of the early days come heavier textures, bursting guitars and chiptune synths, with harmonised vocals on top. The single "death vs dying" is built around a fictional narrator reliving an old trauma, a way Egbert found to reach a rage that is hard to voice in the first person. There are guests such as Left at London and estelle allen on "dolled up". It is our discovery pick of the week, for those who want to hear an artist shedding her skin.

users 77

Basht.
— Poor Advice

album

LP · 9 Oct 2026

An Irish debut of noise-rock, punk riffs and the Catholic Church at its centre. "Keira Knightley" is the poppiest single. Noise with a sermon.

Basht. emerge from the growing Irish scene with a debut album that gives no respite. Led by Jack Leavey, they mix off-kilter rhythms, sinister guitars and an attitude somewhere between noise-rock and punk. Poor Advice opens with "Dive", all syncopated drums and heavy riff, and takes in "Keira Knightley", the catchiest single, and "Terror TV", a punk track with a left-wing political message. "Superchurch" deals with disillusionment with the Irish Catholic Church, the central theme of an almost concept record that still ends on a note of hope. Clash gave it 8/10. For the Crowdmusic audience, who like to discover bands before everyone else, it is one to see live.

users 76