Spoon

Beginning this week, NPR Music kicks off the new year with full advance streams of several highly anticipated albums weeks ahead of their release dates, including Vampire Weekend‘s Contra, Spoon‘s Transference, Patty Griffin‘s Downtown Church, Charlotte Gainsbourg‘s Master’s Hand and Beach House‘s Teen Dream.

All five albums will be available for free, on-demand listening in January here as part of the site’s Exclusive First Listen series. The entire series – which includes full albums in all genres – is available here.

Complete track listings and album information are available at NPR Music, where there are also extensive archives of concerts, interviews and reviews with artists of all genres.

NPR Music introduced its Exclusive First Listen series last year with Bob Dylan‘s 2-CD set Tell Tale Signs. The series is now one of the site’s most popular features, and has offered pre-release streams of albums from artists such as Wilco, Bjork, Rosanne Cash and The Dead Weather. In addition to the streams detailed in this release, the series also currently includes Laura Veirs‘ July Flame and is frequently updated with new material.