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.
DJ Python, “Besos Robados (feat. Isabella Lovestory)”
For his first single released on his new label XL Recordings, DJ Python taps Isabella Lovestory for a super sexy, down-tempo reggaeton bop that would thrive at the strip clubs or just at home. —Steffanee Wang
Crucify April feat. fakemink. “Kiss then they bite”
Despite all appearances, April Maybelline is something of a sampling purist. Even though their project Crucify April is about as far from a classical hip-hop act as one can get, the music can tap into the radical origins of sampling to completely change the contexts of the original sounds. “Kiss then they bite” is one of the more gentle iterations of Crucify April’s method — instead of leaning on chiptune and mutated, hyperpop-filtered memories of the blog era, “Kiss then they bite” builds on a gentle My Bloody Valentine sample. It’s a plush, welcoming surface laid out for a verse from buzzy London rapper fakemink, but once he drops out the glitches begin to quickly pick up, like we’re listening to the song corrupt in real time. —Jordan Darville
Skrilla, “Doot Doot”
Philly rapper Skrilla must have known he had one even before the snippet of “Doot Doot” reached TikTok: There’s murder music, and then there’s music that makes you look over your own shoulder. The beat is chiefly responsible for this stalking atmosphere, so sparse it sounds like each element is standing off against each other, drums waiting for the moaning melodies to reach for the hip. All the while Skrilla is posted up in the corner, fully Joker-ified with a rictus grin as he describes how he built his throne of bones and blood. —JD
Horse Vision, “Chemicals”
Swedish duo Horse Vision are John Nilsson — a Hollywood sound designer who worked on the Aftersun score — and Gabriel Von Essen. The indie rock pairing used to share a label with Bladee and cite Alex G as a major influence. Their debut album Another Life is due out on March 7 and will feature “Chemicals,” a squishy and dreamlike synthy pop song that manages to sound huge and light as a feather at the same time. I must have listened to it 100 times already. —David Renshaw
Fontaines DC, “It’s Amazing To Be Young”
Inspired by the birth of a child in the band’s ranks, “It’s Amazing To Be Young” is Fontaines DC’s call to cast aside cynicism and embrace the joy of freedom. They deliver this message with open arms, with guitars that chime over a festival-ready chorus. It’s an uplifting addition to their 2024 album Romance from a band who can seemingly do no wrong right now. —DR
Model/Actriz, “Cinderella”
Model/Actriz’s music has always had a nervy tension to it but “Cinderella,” the first single from the band’s forthcoming album Pirouette, takes it up a level. The techno-infused song reaches a point of near suffocation before frontman Cole Haden cuts through with a confession. “OK I’ll share this,” he says as he talks about his dream to have a Cinderella-themed birthday party when he was five. This admission brings with it a sense of calm, as the guitars fall back and the song slips by with a palpable ease. —DR
Deafheaven, “Heathen”
Deafheaven exist in a strange corner of the heavy music realm — intense yet melodic, pivoting between fast and slow, loud and quiet in a way most other metal-adjacent acts don’t. “Heathen” alternates between steady post-punk verses and screamed hooks and hellacious flurries of stadium guitar. As the song progresses, the latter half of the song’s split personality consumes the former. And once the heathen eats the hipster, that’s all she wrote. —Raphael Helfand
Jenny Hval, “To be a rose”
For Jenny Hval, nothing ever means what it means. “A rose,” for example, “is a rose is a rose is a cigarette.” Hval’s latest single, arriving alongside the announcement of her first album since 2022’s Classic Objects, finds the Norwegian singer doing what she does best: doling out catchy quips, slick self-insights, and clever bits of literary criticism over lush, jubilant pop instrumentals. Here, though, she’s locked in on a single plot and its specific details, her metaphors in service of the bigger story. The result is refreshingly focused and even a bit rock ‘n’ roll, an exciting sign of things to come. —RH
Lucrecia Dalt & Mabe Fratti, “cosa rara (en la playa)”
In January, Lucrecia Dalt released “cosa rara,” a track that picked up where her 2022 masterpiece ¡Ay! left off, adding production and a rare vocal feature from the legendary David Sylvian to boot. Now, chameleonic cello player and singer Mabe Fratti has put her own stamp on the track, interpreting both Dalt’s Spanish lyrics and Sylvian’s English ones (translated to Spanish now, and from spoken word to melody). Instrumentally, she stays close to the haunted swamp vibe of Dalt’s original, her own ghastly strings merely heightening the feeling that something dangerous is lurking behind the Spanish moss. —RH
Tate McRae, “2 Hands”
Ethel Cain is right — Tate McRae’s “2 Hands” is a perfect pop song. Non-believers of the young pop star’s admittedly referential sound will still have a hard time resisting this wind-through-your-hair streaker that sounds like a car revving up and McRae taking off into a still, clear-skied night. I’m addicted to the climb of its chorus which is all minor chords in the most pleasing way. —SW