5 new releases we love: Juliana Hatfield sings The Police, DJ Shadow rocks it, and more

Yeule, Serotonin II

[Bayonet, October 25]

London-based producer Yeule perfects her glimmering, holographic dream pop with her debut, Serotonin II. The record’s aesthetics are rooted in the MySpace-era internet, Final Fantasy, and Donna Haraway’s cyborg feminism, but Yeule’s lyrics contrast and deepen her cyber-pop fixations with strikingly intimate poetry. Her voice throughout is carefully chopped and pitch-shifted, a digital persona constantly bleeding into its physical source. “Poison Arrow” and “An Angel Held Me Like A Child” anchor melancholic melodies against thumping bass; on “Eva,” Yeule chops her voice singing “Soft, soft, softly you” over a queasily oscillating organ. There are songs to dance to, songs that simply drift, and songs that collapse into overwhelming noise, but the record as a whole yearns for the ephemeral; for lives lived online that leave no trace when they’re gone. [Astrid Budgor]

Bonnie “Prince” Billy, I Made A Place

[Drag City, November 15]

Musically, there is no rulebook or modern antecedent for Will Oldham, a.k.a. Bonnie “Prince” Billy. Monikers change, collaborations seemingly take place on a whim, as releases occur in manners utterly impervious to commercial concerns. These entropic proclivities continue on I Made A Place, his first album of originals in over eight years. It’s a twilit, baroque, and largely gorgeous album, one that certainly ranks amongst his best, and takes many listens to sink in. The album does bring to mind, in spirit, the line that opened his 1996 LP, Arise Therefore: “How could one ever think anything is permanent?” It’s a conundrum that’s guided Oldham’s entire artistic oeuvre, and one engendered with quixotic elan throughout the beguiling I Made A Place. It’s a place without answers, where gestures of sublime beauty reign supreme. [John Everhart]