8 Select L Ps With Release Dates You Might Rely On

While Frank Ocean and Sky Ferreira keep you guessing, Mykki Blanco, Crystal Castles, and MIA nail down real release dates.

Predicting album release dates is like herding cats. Drake, Radiohead, or Beyonce can drop new records whenever, however. Major labels switched from Tuesday to Friday for new releases, as if they’d follow their own rules, which they haven’t. So it’s anyone’s guess when 2016-scheduled LPs by LCD Soundsystem, Haim, Kelela, Phoenix, How to Dress Well (“Care,”) or Sky Ferreria (“Masochism”) might drop. Maybe today.

Case in point: Frank Ocean’s Boys Don’t Cry didn’t appear in July as expected and is now slated for November 2016. Ocean’s major role in Calvin Klein’s fall campaign may account for the delay, although Ocean could take another year to follow up 2013’s Channel Orange. Don’t @ him.

Like Ocean, MIA also announced a July LP release date that came and went. Her recent single “Go Off” didn’t help anyone’s patience, either. New release date for the finally titled “A.I.M.” album is now September 9.
If the bangin’ “Big Big Beat” single off her May mixtape is any hint, Azealia Banks may have something more formal up her sleeve. If she’s not busy being suspended from Twitter. Or busy releasing nifty covers of Brazilian boss nova classics.

Those are the known unknowns. The knowns:

DJ Khaled “Major Key” (EPIC)
Release Date: 7/29 

Those familiar with DJ Khaled only as the “human meme” from his primetime snapchat vids may think he’s branching out with his LP “Major Key.” It’s his ninth. And if you’re Khaled, signing a management deal with Roc Nation means Jay-Z appears on your lead single, ”I Got The Keys,” while Drake is so, so sadly relegated to your second single, “For Free.” Expect a totally videosnapped tour.

Delroy Edwards – Hangin’ at the Beach [L.A. Club Resource]
Release Date: 8/05 

No stranger to moving bodies, LA-based DJ Delroy Edwards has far more going on than getting dancefloors lit. Even on 2015’s aggressive, foulmouthed “Kickin Butts!” EP, melodic waves and tones lurked within his beats, akin to that same melancholy-techno itch Aphex Twin often scratches. Recent singles “Born Rebels and “Horsing Around” take this further, each track’s head-nodding techno turned inside out and beamed lo-fi through an old television. Edwards has long-haul biz plans, having begun a label, LA Club Resource, as well as co-founding Gene’s Liquor, a more ambitious online store/distributor/reissue label whose EDM releases disappear from shelves with lighting speed.

Crystal Castles – Amnesty
Release Date: 8/19

Drama precedes this release, namely the exit of singer Alice Glass and the entrance of singer Edith Francis. For a duo, that’s a big personnel change. For Crystal Castles’ sound, it’s not that much of a change, although recent singles like “Concrete” or “Char” do exchange CC’s kinetic, kitchen-sink synthpop, for a flush, atmospheric darkwave. New singer Francis’s high-ranging vocals echo The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson, which isn’t a bummer.

Amnesty (I) Artwork:

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani: Sunergy [RVNG]
Release Date: 9/16

You can bet your favorite shoes that nothing will dislodge Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s recent ambient pop masterpiece, “Ears” from electronic music top tens for 2016. Ciani ranks as a pioneering legend of contempo-electronica, ripe for a resurgence, or at least more heroine worship. Single “Closed Circuit” showcases a seamless weave of their talents for ambient-electro.

Preoccupations: Preoccupations [Jagjaguwar]
Release Date: 9/16

After the disbanding of Women and then the death of Women’s Christopher Reimer, bassist Matt Flegel and drummer Mike Wallace formed Viet Cong, releasing a spectacular debut s/t in 2015. Track “Continental Shelf” was easily one of the best rock songs of 2015. Following a justified name change, Preoccupations continue their darkwave-tickling guitar investigations. Lead single “Anxiety” pulls the double trick of tension and catchiness atop an unbeatable fuzzbox-sounding bed garnished with crystalline keyboards and nearly murmured vocals.

Mykki Blanco -Mykki
Release Date: 9/16

Blanco stays busy. Born Michael David Quattlebaum Jr, she wears many hats (and shifts her gender pronoun preferences often): actor, published poet, performance artist, member of Terry Richardson’s Happy Socks campaign, and foremost a rapper, a trap star whose “Gay Dog Food” mixtape had to be heard to be believed. In 2015, Blanco publicly confirmed her status as HIV positive, a first for a rapper, as far as admissions. Recent singles “The Plug Won’t” and “HighSchool Never Ends” traffic in ominous tones, Blanco’s clear phrasing either auto-tuned into oblivion or spit so swiftly as to defy easy comprehension.

Merchandise – A Corpse Wired For Sound
Release Date: 9/23  

Quick on the heels of 2014’s “After the End,” Merchandise’s “A Corpse Wired for Sound” promises more uneasily classified postpunk pop. Call it pop goth, maybe. Grooving melodies battle against walls of guitar while vocalist Carson Cox croons like a loverboy vampire, or the younger brother of Sisters of Mercy singer Andrew Eldritch. Lead singles “End of the Week” and “The Flower of Sex” both exhibit an improving jones for building toward dramatic moments. It also sounds like they’ve bought some nifty new guitar pedals.

Jenny Hval: Blood Bitch [Sacred Bones]
Release Date:9/30

On top of her shapeshifting and conceptually fearless electronic pop, Hval’s videos simply bring it: her NSFW video for 2013’s “Innocence is Kinky” is not yet matched, nor has any recent artist attempted the disturbing, Cindy Sherman-like dreams depicted in Hval’s video for “The Battle is Over.” “Blood Bitch” lead single “Female Vampire” conjures a whispery crypt of voice and synths, and while it isn’t an in-your-grill landmark track like “Innocence is Kinky,” it’s no less sinister when matched with its jaw-dropping video of skin-stretching party ghouls.