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.
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo: “Radioactive Dreams”
The union of sludge-rock misanthropes Chat Pile with the dulcet country guitar of Hayden Pedigo ranks as the most unexpected and inspired collaboration in recent indie-rock memory. “Radioactive Dreams,” the first single from their upcoming album In The Earth Again, unlocks something new in both their respective sounds. For Chat Pile, new color is infused into their grim, traditionally pallid onslaught, giving it the pace and urgency of a hymn; by contrast, Pedigo’s guitar is far more mournful and desolate, its notes flickering like nuclear ash in the winds of a dead planet. — Jordan Darville
Blawan: “NOS”
Blawan, whose formative influences include dingy metal clubs and abattoir machinery, has long brought a foreboding sense of dread into his electronic productions. “NOS,” the lead single from his debut album proper SickElixir due on XL in October, continues this pattern with rolling bass stabs that give way to a creeping unease through the introduction of a whispered and clipped vocal slowly entering the mix. Like all of the best Blawan tracks it gives you one eye on the dancefloor and another looking over your shoulder. —David Renshaw
Oli XL feat. Ecco2k: “NOSEBLEED MELODY”
“NOSEBLEED MELODY” is glitched-out deconstructed millennium-era pop recorded from the precipice of an emotional sea change. Whether it’s a breakdown or a breakthrough is another story. “And I just feel so lucky” sings a pixie-fied voice on the hook, the last fully intelligible phrase in a sea of punchy beats, and humming bass before “And I am losing control.” This enticing balance is maintained through beat switches, breakdowns, and a cameo from Ecco2k, whose breathy verse sounds like the ghost in the song’s machine. — JD
Corridos Ketamina: “ODIAME MÁS”
Corridos Ketamina know the most important rule of show business: Leave them wanting more. Nowhere is this better demonstrated on the L.A./Phoenix duo of Henny Fay and Nico Malva’s absurdly good, 14-minute, self-titled debut EP than on “ODIAME MÁS,” a 34-second cut that lends itself to infinite looping. It epitomizes what Fay and Malva do best, which they essentially sum up in their band name — deep-fried, nihilistic bars over classic corrido patterns strummed into an acoustic guitar. Here, these elements are distilled by necessity; there’s no time to build anything else around them. Impressively, the track (essentially an interlude) is still a self-contained and somehow satisfying bop. — Raphael Helfand
Kiss Facility: “Flesh Mix”
Kiss Facility are Mayah Alkhateri and Salvador Navarrete (aka Sega Bodega) and together they make spectral indie rock inspired by Alkhateri’s Emirati-Egyptian heritage. “Flesh Mix” is a Cure-esque song dealing with hunger and power in a relationship. There is a driving force behind the heavy percussion and sinewy guitars but it is Alkhateri’s voice, a blissful trill that swoops and soars, that leaves a lasting impression. — DR
Rooster: “Nuketown Blues”
Carl-Mikael Berlander, aka Gud, is the go-to producer behind Stockholm institutions like Yung Lean and Bladee, and an album each with tristate weirdos RX Papi and RealYungPhil. Meanwhile, he’s been quietly compiling a solo catalog as Rooster, offering us a taste of the product with 2022’s Rooster Debut and a full meal on his new LP Roster Slipped. “Nuketown Blues” is a tragicomedy about a jaded deadender whose latest grift is messing around with a rich girl. “There is nothing you can give me, I just want your daddy house / I just want your mouth,” he deadpans early on over a beat that sounds just as numb as his bars but somehow knocks. He knows he’s a loser with “a Chrysler van in the driveway, man,” but hopes his “inflated dick” will someday earn him his first million. “I kinda like you,” he admits later, slipping up in a moment of post-coital weakness before remembering his role: “I got work in the morning.” — RH
Lawn: “Pressure”
The third single from beloved New Orleans post-punk band Lawn’s forthcoming album God Made The Highway is a taut, brash track written by the duo’s more bristly half, Rui De Magalhaes, after a 2018 run-in with an obnoxious guy he’d gone to high school with. “Hammers fan, accounting prospect / Union busting, corner office / Free in June, the Grand Ole Opry,” he monotones, seething at the Yuppie in Hokas who dressed him down for his bohemian lifestyle. “Gunners fan, a man of conflict / Life’s your market, top-floor office / I’d like to see the Grand Ole Opry.” Beneath this list of comebacks he wished he’d used — seasoned seven years, a baby, and his own nine-to-five later with a twinkle of self-awareness — is a high-octane arrangement centering snappy guitars from Lawn’s less venomous member, Mac Folger. (In reality, they both seem like really nice guys.) The combination is equal parts caustic and catchy, a winking testament to Lawn’s tortured-artist years. — RH