John Lennon & Yoko Ono at the One To One Concert, August 30, 1972. Photo by Michael Negrin © Yoko Ono Lennon

Every Friday, Relix surveys the wealth of new music released over the past seven days and selects dozens of standouts for the Relix Staff Picks playlist. Read on for the highlights from this week’s batch.

John Lennon was born 85 years ago today. In this moment to reflect on the late legend’s legacy, Universal Music Recordings has shone a light on his New York protest period with Power to the People (Super Deluxe Edition). One key piece of the 12-disc, 123-track box set, which also includes a remaster of his challenging studio work on Some Time In New York City, is an exhaustive retrospective on his 1972 One To One concerts. These benefit performances with Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band at New York’s Madison Square Garden were Lennon’s only full-length concert after departing from The Beatles and his last with his partner. Powerful social messages and the spotlight’s electricity supercharge treatments – some previously unreleased – of classics like “Come Together.”

“That Madison Square Garden gig was the best music I enjoyed playing since The Cavern or even Hamburg,” Lennon told NME in 1972. “It was just the same kind of feeling when The Beatles used to really get into it.”

Makaya McCraven returned in August to announce four new EPs: Techno Logic, The People’s Mixtape, Hidden Out! and PopUp Shop. All four of the offerings, which together represent his first original recordings since his triumphant 2023 album In These Times, were cut from taped concerts and meticulously reshaped with editing and overdubs from his home studio in Chicago. Today, the pioneering jazz drummer and producer has released the long-awaited follow-up as Off the Record, a compilation album of the “distinct yet interconnected” projects available exclusively on vinyl and CD. While a streaming release via International Anthem will arrive on Oct. 31, McCraven gave digital listeners another preview with “What a Life,” pulled from The People’s Mixtape.

Gospel has always been a shade in Robert Finley’s rich sonic palette, but his fourth studio album, Hallelujah! Don’t Let The Devil Fool Ya, sets the acclaimed North Carolina blues journeyman’s sights squarely on sacred songs. Once again released via Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound, the project bolsters Finley’s fiery, soulful tenor with alternately abundant, thundering and rapturous arrangements, including instrumentation and production from the Black Keys frontman himself. While the connection that’s bloomed between the vocalist and label honcho has led to some miracles in the past, their latest collaboration was entirely guided by the creative spirit, with all eight sides written, improvised and tracked within a single day.

Elsewhere in the mix are anniversary expansions for both Patti Smith’s Horses (50 years) and Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats’ self-titled debut (10 years), both of which gift fans a behind-the-scenes look with previously unreleased demos. St. Paul & The Broken Bones have returned with a new self-titled album that signals a reinvigoration, merging the experimentalism of their last few ventures with the vintage rhythm and blues of their debut. Flock of Dimes, the solo project of musician Jenn Wasner, has released the outstanding sophomore offering The Life You Save, full of insightful, inviting and unabashedly candid folk-tinged indie storytelling.

The latest issue of the magazine is represented with Samantha Crain‘s “Boilermaker,” drawn from her spellbinding seventh studio album Gumshoe, and The Wood Brothers‘ “The Trick,” a prime example of their inventive and surprising Puff of Smoke.

This week’s batch of Relix Staff Picks also includes new music from Charles Lloyd, Maggie Rose, Hannah Frances, Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe, Parlor Greens, Preoccupations, Larkin Poe, Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, Black Eyes, Jay Som and Don Was & The Pan-Detroit Ensemble, among many other gems. Tune in here.