New Music for Your Playlist — October 9, 2026

Cilker makes the kind of country-folk music where the people in the songs matter as much as the person singing them. Her third album, co-produced with Bruce Robison and recorded in Lockhart, Texas, pairs close attention to ordinary lives with pedal steel and spare arrangements. Bandcamp’s review singles out “Molly and Me,” a friendship story with a devastating turn. Steven Hyden’s enthusiastic Indiecast recommendation makes this a good place to begin the week.

Start with: “Molly and Me,” then “Pauline.”

If you came to Williamson through Plains, her collaboration with Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield, here’s a reason to follow her solo work. Produced by Shooter Jennings, the new album puts her voice at the center of a fuller country sound, with twelve songs that bring together her Texas roots and her life in Los Angeles. The title track offers a quick introduction; “Tracking the Tropics” takes you further into the record.

Start with: “A Mile South of Heaven” and “Tracking the Tropics.”

The Geese frontman’s December 2025 Carnegie Hall performance gets its own release: twelve tracks, Winter alone at the piano, reworking songs from Heavy Metal and introducing three previously unreleased compositions. It’s a useful second entrance into his solo music, with the arrangements pared down to his singing and playing. Begin with the opener, “It All Fell in the River,” before returning to the familiar “Love Takes Miles.”

Start with: “It All Fell in the River” and “Love Takes Miles.”

Richard’s latest completes the New Orleans sequence she began with New Breed and Second Line. R&B, soul, hip-hop, and jazz meet in a record built around the city’s culture and her own heritage. KEXP highlights its energy and its themes of family, resilience, and self-worth. This is the pick to move toward when you want more rhythm after the quieter opening stretch.

Start with: “groove city” and “baby, can we?”

A poster above a dorm-room bed, corners curling, music turned up while someone gets ready to go out. Imperial Teen’s seventh album lives in that room. The artwork could be on the wall; the songs have the same bright, slightly unruly energy. Guitars rub against electronic beats, voices crowd around the microphone, and the hooks keep finding another way in. The four musicians have been doing this for more than thirty years and now live in different cities, but you’d never mistake this for a band going through the motions. There’s something cheering about people with that much history still making music that wants to leave the house.

Start with: “Overdrive” and “Hands All Up.”