5 albums you need to hear this week

In the age of streaming, it’s never been easier to listen to new music — but with over 60,000 new songs added to Spotify every day, it’s also never been harder to know what to put on. Every week, the team at Rolling Stone UK will run down some of the best new releases that have been added to streaming services.

This week, we’ve highlighted records by Michael Kiwanuka, Jazzy, The Snuts, Clara Mann and Shovel Dance Collective.

Michael Kiwanuka – FUDGE

Though Michael Kiwanuka’s new album, FUDGE, was written and completed years ago, it’s impossible to listen without the shocking context with which it was recently announced. The London-born, Southampton-based songwriter told fans that he had suffered a stroke after a bleed on the brain, one that has led him to undergo intensive surgery and spend time in ICU, before entering a rehabilitation facility where he remains today. Kiwanuka said in his message that his health issues will “heavily hinder and get in the way of me making music for the foreseeable future,” and FUDGE – recorded in tandem with his 2024 album Small Changes – arrives as a bittersweet but beautiful reminder of his songwriting brilliance. 

Read our full review of FUDGE here.

Listen on: Spotify | ‎Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music

Jazzy – Peace & Patience

“A lot of people are still learning about where I come from,” Jazzy tells Rolling Stone UK in the new issue of our magazine. “It’s a big part of who I am.” Making her name as the vocalist on chart-topping house smashes and now as a superstar DJ in Ibiza, at Glastonbury and beyond, the Dubliner born Jasmine Byrne now wants to peel back the curtain to show the family-orientated person behind these sumptuous dance tunes. Peace & Patience balances this ear for a viral hit with reflections on home, family and history.

Listen on: Spotify | ‎Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music

The Snuts – Joy in Short Moments

On their fourth album, The Snuts offer a much needed antidote to the drudgery of everyday life. The soaring ‘Defibrillator’ encourages us all to take joy in the things that really matter, while the lead track ‘Joy In Short Moments’ employs a similar mantra. It’s reliably great stuff from one of Scotland’s sunniest bands.

Listen on: Spotify | ‎Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music

Clara Mann – Wishbone

While Rift, the 2025 debut album from folk singer Clara Mann, focused on repairing and finding hope, its follow-up, Wishbone, starts from a place of positivity and balance. Inspired by Marina Abramović’s performance Rest Energy as well as Leos Carax’s 1991 romance Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, it’s a record that comes to terms with, and delights in, the idea of growing into yourself as you age. It’s presented via songs that keep the special songwriting that was at the core of Rift, fleshed out with striking arrangements that echo the growth presented in the lyrics.

Listen on: Spotify | ‎Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music

Shovel Dance Collective – Everything in Readiness

The nine-piece Shovel Dance Collective are one of the leading lights in the emergent scene of young British musicians embracing traditional folk music. New album Everything in Readiness treats its source material with reverence but also a willingness to wrestle the songs into exciting new shapes. “he arrangements we have made over time have just got bolder as we have become more fearless, not scared to ‘push the boat out’ and try out quite radical ideas at the arrangement stage,” the band say.

Listen on: Spotify | ‎Apple Music | TIDAL | Amazon Music