Tracks we love right now, in no particular order.
Each week, The FADER staff rounds up the songs we can’t get enough of. Here they are, in no particular order. Listen on our Spotify and Apple Music playlists, or hear them all below.
Pig The Gemini, “Window Pane”
Taken from her upcoming Lover Girl project (out February 14, of course), “Window Pane” catches Pig The Gemini on the back foot as she tries to reconnect with her partner after a fight. “Everytime we beef we make up,” she reminds them as the storm intensifies. Melancholy piano and a patina of Auto-Tune only add to the strife she’s going through on a song that stands out for its striking earnestness. —David Renshaw
Léa Sen, “Home Alone”
“I took a plane out of my bedroom” is how London’s Léa Sen describes the transportive powers of her dreams on “Home Alone,” her first new music in almost two years. Flying high above everyday mundanity, Sen splices gentle acoustic strumming with harsher electronic moments to recreate the dichotomy between reality and the endless possibilities that exist when the lights go out. —DR
Maz, “Kiss Kiss Boom”
Indie pop artist Maz introduces herself with a soft bang on “Kiss Kiss Boom.” Written after she reunited with an ex, there is a low-slung energy to the electronic beat that gives the song a nonchalance while her lyrics reveal someone quietly freaking out beneath the surface. “I’m so magnetized by your touch,” she sings with an obsession hiding as ice-cold detachment. —DR
Larum feat. Bill Orcutt, “O Virga Mediatrix”
Brooklyn experimental duo Larum have announced a sequel to 2022’s The Music of Hildegard von Bingen, returning to the work of the eponymous medieval composer, writer, philosopher, mystic, medical practitioner, and abbess (the nun-in-chief at an abbey). On its first single, guitar legend Bill Orcutt plays brooding electric chords over a trickling stream of static and field recordings, growing bolder with spurts of shredding and waves of reverb but no catharsis can be found. The dread that’s present from the start hangs like a dark cloud long past the song’s final notes. —Raphael Helfand
Anika, “Hearsay”
In 2021, British-born, Berlin-based artist Annika Henderson released Change, a certified cult classic produced by Geoff Barrow (Portishead, Beak>). She’s now announced a follow-up titled Abyss, and its first single rides in on a driving drum/bass line and a shreddy guitar, recalling Sonic Youth at its most straightforward. Above the controlled fracas, Anika’s voice is as icy as ever, even when she’s singing about her constant frustration with media spin cycles and the cascade of misinformation that floods our synapses 24 hours a day. —RH
Tapeworms, “Playground”
Tokyo-via Lille, France trio Tapeworms make music that can only be accurately described as toygaze. Combining bit-crushed synths with dreamy sound walls and stilted yet tender vocals, they create a vibe akin to late-2010s Kero Kero Bonito. “Playground,” the first single from their newly announced album Grand Voyage, is a song about escaping the anxieties of everyday life for a little while. It has the desired effect. —RH
Yetsuby, “Aestheti-Q”
South Korean DJ Yetsuby’s new song “Aestheti-Q” sounds like if you flattened and elongated NewJeans’ music into a 4-minute, pure club track: drum and bass patters, garage, holographic synths, all sent through a rosy filter. There’s no better word I can use to describe the vibe other than extremely cute. —Steffanee Wang
Jourdin Pauline, “Sugar”
It’s not a high bar of entry to get into Guyanese pop star Jourdin Pauline’s “Sugar,” which is the highest of compliments a pop song can get. There’s something in the strobing synths and thumping drums that remind me of The Weeknd but mixed with Doja Cat’s “Say So” era? I’m still figuring it out, and I’ve already listened to it five times. —Steffanee Wang
aya, “off to the ESSO”
Strictly speaking, “off to the ESSO” isn’t aya’s first foray into blistered, frantic electro-rap. Her 2021 album im hole contained her first sketched-out attempts with the clubbier songs sounding like raves in some untapped layer of hell. Her new single “off to the ESSO” is the equivalent of aya sloughing off the amniotic fluid and being fully born as a second generation electro-clasher. Merge the excruciating existential horror of Black Dresses with classic dubstep and you’re on the way to appreciating the cathartic coup of “off to the ESSO.” —Jordan Darville
Jequya, “Ego Death”
jequya · EGO DEATH prod jjules
The legacy of cloud rap continues to loom large on the underground. There are artists like fakemink who use the dreamy ethos to create a propulsive energy; others like Yungwebster choose to take things deeper into the ambient side of things, where vocals and instrumentation merge into one. Jequya, an artist from Australia, tends to flit back and forth between these modes, but his new song “Ego Death” is more akin to a diary entry than rap banger or sound art. Over a gorgeous beat from producer Jjules that almost entirely forgoes drums, Jequya unburdens himself in a joyless hopscotch of a flow, outlining in painstaking detail an alienation that has creeped into every aspect of his life. —JD
Rocket, “Take Your Aim”
“Why don’t you lie to me? Why don’t you stop crying to me?” snarl Los Angeles-based four-piece Rocket on “Take Your Aim,” a new cut that marries the very best noise-rock of Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine. The quartet have known each other since childhood but have only been playing together for a few years. Their sonic palette reflects the kind of bands they’ve opened for in their nascent status — Hotline TNT, Sunny Day Real Estate, Julie, and bar italia — mixing unadulterated grunge with the addictive melodies of classic ’90s rock. —Cady Siregar