the crowd's
week

Michael Kiwanuka
— FUDGE

albumsoul · UK

LP · 23 Oct 2026 · Polydor

Fifth album, recorded before the stroke that kept him off stage in 2025. Self-produced with Joe Connell, with Dom Monks producing later and Rosie Danvers on strings. "Love In My Heart" is the moment not to miss.

FUDGE is Michael Kiwanuka's fifth album and it arrives with a weight nobody saw coming. It was recorded in a studio near his home in Southampton, before the stroke he suffered in July 2025, which forced months of recovery and the cancellation of his summer shows. Heard now, it is the portrait of an artist in the middle of a turn, still with a playful, experimental side. Production is by Kiwanuka himself with trusted collaborators, among them multi-instrumentalist Joe Connell, with later contributions from producer Dom Monks and strings by Rosie Danvers. NME singles out "Sing", "California" and "Drowning in Your Heart", and "Love In My Heart" for its changes of direction and its closing piano. It is out on Polydor and scores 79 with critics and 78 with users. It is auteur soul, moving without being heavy, and one of the most human records of the week.

critics 79 · users 78

featured

Caroline Rose
— Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall

albumindie pop · US

LP · 23 Oct 2026 · SUCK Records

Produced by John Congleton, after a record made in GarageBand on a phone. Eleven songs about outsiders, and "Chow Mein", trying to be cool with everything going wrong. Raises the bar.

Caroline Rose has never made the same record twice, and Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall confirms it. After year of the slug, recorded in GarageBand on a phone, Rose raises the bar and hands production to John Congleton. There are eleven songs, released on SUCK Records, Rose's own label, peopled by outsiders who often come out of real situations. "Chow Mein" is the best example: a portrait of someone trying too hard to be cool and seem normal while everything goes wrong. "Yip Yip Yow", the first single, shows the record's more energetic side. The humour, the theatricality and the taste for strangeness stay, now with more muscle. It has a user score of 80, still on few votes. It is indie pop from someone who doesn't take themselves too seriously, and it deserves a place on our radar.

users 80

Shabazz Palaces
— It's A Style Sport

albumhip-hop · US

LP · 23 Oct 2026 · Sub Pop

Ishmael Butler's eighth album, on Sub Pop. Kassa Overall and Thaddillac among the guests, "Ahh World (I Won The Alpha Bet)" as the calling card. Hip-hop from another planet, with swagger.

Ishmael Butler keeps treating hip-hop as territory to explore. It's A Style Sport is Shabazz Palaces' eighth album, released on Sub Pop, and follows the two sister mini-albums Robed In Rareness and Exotic Birds Of Prey. The single "Ahh World (I Won The Alpha Bet)" has Butler talking about his rise in the third person, somewhere between fantasy and personal honour. Guests include Kassa Overall, Marquette Miller, Thaddeus "Thaddillac" Turner, Evan Flory-Barnes, Gerald "Tugboat" Turner and Carlos Overall, which gives the record a Seattle community feel. It has a user score of 70, the threshold for our list, but Butler's work is the kind you discover over time. For anyone into experimental hip-hop, jazz on the edge of the beat and strange production, it is a natural way in.

users 70

Ugly
— The South Façade

albumindie rock · UK

LP · 23 Oct 2026

Debut from the Londoners after the EP Twice Around The Sun. Three years of songs written as a group, recorded in Wales and finished in London. Balázs Altsach producing, "Marina" to start with.

London's Ugly make their album debut with The South Façade, following the 2024 EP Twice Around The Sun. The record took three years to write, with early sessions on retreats in an old coach house and songs growing in rehearsal rooms, bedrooms, studios and on stage. The band talk about "communal songwriting": every track is built from scratch by everyone, trying to avoid the riff loops with little harmonic variation that group improvisation tends to produce. It was recorded in Wales and finished in London, produced by Balázs Altsach, who also did the EP. There are nine tracks, from "Wasteland" to the title track, by way of "Marina", the lead single, and "In Samphedoo". It has a user score of 74. For the Crowdmusic crowd who like discovering young British indie rock bands, it is a risky bet worth hearing.

users 74

FINE
— Jazz Dreams

albumpop · DK

LP · 23 Oct 2026 · Escho

Second album from the Danish producer, made alone: produced, recorded and mixed by her. Thirteen songs put together as a dream collage, with "Everything in the Shade" at the piano. Non-linear.

Danish producer and multi-instrumentalist FINE returns with Jazz Dreams, her second album after 2024's Rocky Top Ballads. Released on Escho, it was produced, recorded and mixed by herself, and is built as a collage of thirteen songs, with a dreamlike structure in which perspectives and musical ideas shift without warning. FINE describes the process as non-linear: accepting the unexpected ideas and following the dream's own logic. "Everything in the Shade" is the piano-led single, and before it came "I Could", "Run", "Moment" and "Portal". It has a user score of 80 from more than two hundred votes, which makes it one of the week's most solid discoveries. It is a record for anyone who likes music made at home, with total freedom and a strange tenderness.

users 80