So many artists, so many songs, so little time. Each week we review a handful of new albums (of all genres), round up even more new music that we’d call “indie,” and talk about what metal is coming out. We post music news, track premieres, and more all day. We update a playlist weekly of some of our current favorite tracks. Here’s a daily roundup with a bunch of interesting, newly released songs in one place.
CHARLES STEPNEY – “LOOK B4U LEAP”
A collection of home recordings Charles Stepney — the late composer/producer who worked with Earth Wind & Fire, Deniece Williams, Rotary Connection, Minnie Ripperton, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Terry Callier, and more, and was sampled by Kanye West, Madlib, MF Doom, A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees, and more — called Step On Step is coming out September 9 via International Anthem. A couple singles were already released, and along with the album announcement comes the homespun jazz-funk of “Look B4U Leap.”
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ARLO MCKINLEY – “BACK HOME” (ft. LOGAN HALSTEAD)
Ohio alt-country singer Arlo McKinley has shared the third single off his upcoming album This Mess We’re In, and this one sounds like a vintage barroom ballad, but the punky grit in Arlo’s voice and the personal sentiments in the song make it entirely fresh.
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SASAMI – “TRIED TO UNDERSTAND” FT. J MASCIS & TY SEGALL
The alternate version of “Tried to Understand” from SASAMI’s new album Squeeze features J Mascis and Ty Segall. “‘Tried to Understand’ was a song that took many forms before it became what you hear on my album, Squeeze,” says SASAMI. “This rawer cut with J. Mascis is kind of a peek into the different dimensions and moods one composition can inhabit. This version features Ty Segall on drums, me on bass and guitar and J. on the ripping leads and backing vocals. It’s the less cute version of what spinning out can sound like.”
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RAE SREMMURD – “DENIAL”
Rap duo Rae Sremmurd have been quiet lately (and breakup rumors arose), but now they’ve released their first new song in four years and apparently have a new album called SREMM4LIFE on the way. The new song finds them exploring their breezy, melodic side, and the beachy music video suits that perfectly.
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JUICY J & PI’ERRE BOURNE – “THIS FRONTO”
The one-and-only Juicy J and producer/artist Pi’erre Bourne have announced a collaborative album, Space Age Pimpin’, due June 22 via Trippy Music. J’s maximalist, catchy rap sounds as great as ever on new single “This Fronto.”
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BEACH BUNNY – “ENTROPY”
Beach Bunny’s sophomore album Emotional Creature is out in July via Mom + Pop, and the latest single is the hook-laden “Entropy.”
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SINGLE MOTHERS – “BABY BIRD”
Canadian punks Single Mothers have announced a new album, Everything You Need, due October 28 via Dine Alone, and new single “Baby Bird” finds them at their most catchy and anthemic, without toning down their usual grit.
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DUST STAR – “NOTHING IN MY HEAD”
Dust Star is a new project featuring Justin Jurgens (formerly of Sirs, whose other members went on to play in Sheer Mag and LVL UP) and Cameron Wisch (Cende, Porches, Ra Ra Riot), and their debut LP Open Up That Heart drops August 5 via Lame-O Records. Lead single “Nothing In My Head” is a dose of tough, revved-up, swaggering power pop.
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JESCA HOOP – “HATRED HAS A MOTHER”
Jesca Hoop announced a new album, Order of Romance, due out September 16 via Memphis Industries. “I set out to mature as a writer, to further clarity my voice and stance, through melodies and phrases only I can construct,” she says. “Order of Romance feels like every person, character, or artist, I ever was over the many seasons of my life was handed an instrument to play across the songs.” The first single is “Hatred Has a Mother,” which has a stately feel with its horns and harmonies.
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EGO ELLA MAY – “THE MORNING SIDE OF LOVE” (CHICO HAMILTON REWORK)
Back in 2020, Blue Note Records released Blue Note Re:Imagined, a compilation of artists in or adjacent to today’s UK jazz scene doing reworked versions of Blue Note classics. On September 30, they’ll release Blue Note Re:imagined II, which has the asme concept, and the first taste is Ego Ella May’s gorgeous rework of “The Morning Side of Love” from Chico Hamilton’s 1975 album Pereginations.
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METRIC – “WHAT FEELS LIKE ETERNITY”
The latest single from Metric’s new album Formentera is “What Feels Like Eternity,” a foreboding, atmospheric rocker.
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KAL MARKS – “OVATION”
Boston indie/post-hardcore band Kal Marks broke up in 2020, but now vocalist/guitarist Carl Shane has re-activated the band with a new lineup, and their new album My Name Is Hell comes out August 5 via Exploding In Sound. The first single is “Ovation,” which sounds straight out of the mid ’90s Dischord scene.
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FIME – “NOT FOR NOTHING”
Fime (whose members were also Jay Som’s backing band) recently announced their Jay Som-produced debut album Sweeter Memory, and now they’ve shared new single “Not For Nothing,” and it’s a big, catchy, emo/power pop anthem that’s kinda in the Weezer, Death Cab, Jimmy Eat World realm.
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LAURA VEIRS – “EUCALYPTUS”
The latest single from Laura Veirs’ new album Found Light is “Eucalyptus.” “This is a song about the community love I felt when I went through my divorce,” she says. “It’s also about new love and rediscovering myself as a solo person post-divorce. I reminisce here about ‘finding the old girl I was’ back when I visited my brother in California when he was in college, where they have lovely eucalyptus trees. Some eucalyptus trees will drop their branches suddenly on you, though, so those are the varieties you don’t want to plant in your backyard.”
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FRESH – “WHY DO I”
UK indie-punks Fresh have shared another track off upcoming LP Why Do I, the anthemic, rousing “Why Do I.”
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CRIMEAPPLE & DJ SKIZZ – “IN FLIGHT”
NJ rapper CRIMEAPPLE and producer DJ Skizz are releasing a new project, Breakfast in Hradec, on June 29 via Different Worlds Music Group, and if you miss the ’90s boom bap era, you should feast your ears on this hypnotic new single.
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BIG JADE – “PESOS” (ft. PESO PESO)
Texas rapper Big Jade has been on the rise, and she just gets better and better, as evidenced by this instantly-satisfying song.
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HOTBOII – “WTF”
Orlando rapper Hotboii returns with this very catchy dose of trap-pop.
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HEAVEN FOR REAL – “SLOW CLAP”
Toronto-based band Heaven for Real will release their second album Energy Bar on September 16 via Mint Records. First single “Slow Clap” is very catchy and dreamy janglepop and the video is not for the neat roommates in your life.
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PONY GIRL – “AGE OF ANXIOUS”
Ottawa’s Pony Girl will release new album Enny One Wil Love You on October 14 via Paper Bag. First single “Age of Anxious” is an alluring appetizer, lush with synths, sax and sultry vocals.
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MARCI (TOPS) – “TERMINAL”
Marci Cikojevic, who plays in TOPS, is gearing up to release a solo album of suave, sophisticated ’80s-inspired pop with assistance from bandmate David Carriere. “Terminal is my joke vapid lingo about being dead because something is soooo cool,” says Marci of the new single from the album. “The song is about how music can be so overwhelmingly good it allows you to fully escape. David and I wrote the seed of this song while we were pregaming for a party that turned out to be shit.”
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ELF POWER – “SOFT TRASH”
Athens, GA band and Elephant 6 collective mainstays Elf Power will release new album Artificial Countrysides on July 15 via Yep Roc and “Soft Trash” got its start from a samba beat preset on a 1970s Baldwin Fun Machine organ. “I fell in love with this organ/drum machine in the 1990s when our friends in the band Macha (featuring Josh McKay, later of Deerhunter) used it a lot on several of their great albums,” says Elf Power’s Andrew Rieger. “I finally acquired a Fun Machine when we started working on our latest album Artificial Countrysides, and it made it onto several of the songs on the album. On ‘Soft Trash,’ I liked the beat so much that I recorded it first and then wrote the chords, melody and lyrics around the drum machine beat, and then our drummer Peter Alvanos doubled the drum machine on real drums, making a nice mix or organic and artificial elements, which became a recurring theme on many of the songs on the album.”
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SAM PREKOP & JOHN MCENTIRE – “A GHOST AT NOON”
The Sea and Cake’s Sam Prekop and John McEntire have teamed up for new collaborative album Sons Of which is out July 22 via Thrill Jockey. Opening cut “A Ghost At Noon” was conceived while on their joint European tour and falls somewhere between proggy new age and chillout dance music. Blissful.
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PACKS – “DON’T GO FOR THE GOAT’S MILK”
Toronto’s PACKS will release new EP, WOAH, on July 8 via Fire Talk and is the first new music from them since last year’s debut album. “These songs began when I got back in November from our US tour with Wombo,” says PACKS alter ego, Madeline Link, of the EP’s folky opening song. “I had lost my voice completely and it had a nice scratchiness to it as it was coming back. Someone suggested I record a whole album of songs while my voice was like that. father’s truck was first. It came from a fever dream I had in a dander-steeped basement in Boston.”
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THE SADIES – “ALL THE GOOD”
Canadian greats The Sadies have shared another track from their upcoming album Colder Streams which was made before the untimely death of Dallas Good. The minor key melody of “All The Good” gives this one a wistful, melancholic feel.
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JB DUNCKEL (AIR) – “SHOGUN”
It may not be officially Air, but co-founder JB Dunckel evokes those safaris to the moon on “Shogun” from his new solo album Carbon that’s out later this month.
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BELLE & SEBASTIAN – “A BIT OF PREVIOUS”
Belle & Sebastian’s new single “A Bit of Previous” curiously isn’t on the just-released album of the same name. If it had been it would’ve been one of the best songs on an already strong record, full of the kind of sparkling guitars that might make some folks as “is Johnny Marr on this?” The hand-drawn animated is definitely worth watching.
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NEU! – “HALLOGALLO” (STEPHEN MORRIS / GABE GURNSEY REMIX)
New Order’s Stephen Morris and Factory Floor’s Gabe Gurney are among the artists who have done remixes for NEU’s upcoming 50th anniversary box set.
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THE BLACK ANGELS – “EL JARDIN”
This is the first single from The Black Angels’ upcoming Wilderness of Mirrors.
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COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS – “SATELLITE”
Courtney’s new album Loose Future was produced by Sam Evian and features Grizzly Bear’s Chris Bear and Bonny Light Horseman’s Josh Kaufman. It’s out in October and this is the first single.
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BONNY LIGHT HORSEMAN – “CALIFORNIA”
Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson, and Josh Kaufman will release their second album as Bonny Light Horseman, titled Rolling Golden Holy, on October 7 via 37d03d Records. Check out the first single.
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CASS MCCOMBS – “UNPROUD WARRIOR”
Heartmind is Cass McCombs’ 10th album and features appearances by Danielle Haim, The Chapin Sisters, Joe Russo, Shahzad Ismaily, and more. First single “Unproud Warrior” features Wynonna Judd and Charlie Burnham.
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KING PRINCESS – “TOO BAD” & “CURSED”
King Princess has shared two new songs off her upcoming sophomore album Hold On Baby, and you can read more about them here.
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BLACK THOUGHT & DANGER MOUSE – “BECAUSE” (ft. JOEY BADA$$ & RUSS)
Black Thought and Danger Mouse have released the second single from their long-awaited collaborative album Cheat Codes, and you can read more about it here.
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JACK WHITE – “IF I DIE TOMORROW”
Jack White has shared a new single off Entering Heaven Alive, his second album of 2022, and you can read more about it here.
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PIXIES – “THERE’S A MOON ON”
Pixies have announced a new album, Doggerel, which is their eighth overall, and fourth reunion-era and Kim Deal-less album, and you can read more about lead single “There’s A Moon On” here.
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WAILIN STORMS – “BROKEN INTO THREE”
North Carolina noise rockers Wailin Storms are gearing up to release a new album, The Silver Snake Unfolds, and you can read more about lead single “Broken Into Three” here.
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MAT KEREKES (CITIZEN) – “DANGER”
Citizen frontman Mat Kerekes has announced a new solo album, Nova, which features drums by Daniel Fang of Citizen’s recent tourmates Turnstile, and you can read more about lead single “Danger” here.
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MOOR MOTHER – “WOODY SHAW” (ft. MELANIE CHARLES)
Moor Mother has announced a new album, Jazz Codes, which she calls a companion to last year’s excellent Black Encyclopedia of the Air, and you can read more about lead single “WOODY SHAW” here.
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PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH – “GENEVIEVE”
Pianos Become the Teeth have announced their first album in over four years, Drift, and you can read more about lead single “Genevieve” here. The album’s up for pre-order on red vinyl.
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Looking for even more new songs? Browse the New Songs archive.
