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.
FEVER RAY – “WHAT THEY CALL US (NIFRA REMIX)”
Fever Ray has shared a new remix of “What They Call Us,” the first single from this year’s excellent Radical Romantics. Nifra’s remix catapults the track into ecstatic EDM territory. The original music video has been remixed too:
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CHARLY BLISS – “YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ME ANYMORE”
Charly Bliss are back with their first new music since 2019, the bubblegum-smooth pop track “You Don’t Even Know Me Anymore.” “I moved to Australia and felt a million miles away from who I had been in New York,” Eva Hendricks says. “Like I had been reborn happy, carefree, and slightly less pale. I was convinced that I had totally bypassed the ‘wherever you go, there you are’ thing. Lexapro also helped. I think this song is a farewell to how sad and tortured I felt during the Young Enough album cycle. It’s like the ‘fuck it!’ that you earn after burning your entire life down and starting over. Sam [Hendricks] sent me the track and it felt exactly as joyous and silly and giddy as I felt inside. It came together quickly and set the tone for a new CB era.”
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MARC RIBOT’S CERAMIC DOG – “SOLDIERS IN THE ARMY OF LOVE”
This new barn-burner of a single from Marc’s Ribot’s Ceramic Dog takes on the Declaration of Independence and its inequalities. “How will we fight back?,” Marc asks. “The song’s title refers to the pacifist civil right movement’s ‘We Are Soldiers In the Army’. And of course, the ‘army of love[rs]’ refers to Ancient Rome’s very non-pacifist army, evoked (by poet Adrienne Rich?) at the very first Gay Pride march (‘An army of lovers can never lose’)…But take note: Mr. or Mrs. Nazi, Fascist, homophobe, sexist, white supremacist, etc.: we’re not going to debate our humanity or political equality with you. There is a ‘we’. And there are truths we hold to be self-evident. And fighting for those truths is how (thanks, Hannah Arendt) we express our love of the world.” New album Connection is out March 14.
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WHO IS SHE? (TACOCAT, CHASTITY BELT, LISA PRANK) – “MOVIEPASS”
Seattle supergroup Who Is She? — Robin Edwards (Lisa Prank), Bree Mckenna (Tacocat), Julia Shapiro (Chastity Belt), and Emily Nokes (Tacocat) — are back with this new single. “We wrote this when the beloved but ill-fated movie subscription service MoviePass was a thing of the past, but we must have cast a spell for it to come back,” WIS? say. “This song is about existing in this brief, beautiful glitch in time where we could see as many movies as we wanted in the theater. MoviePass was the one that got away, a love that burned bright and fast, and knowing it’s over but wishing you could go back. Movie theaters also are significant to Bree and Robin, who both worked as popcorn-scoopers in their early 20s.” The group’s debut album, Goddess Energy, is out August 25, 2023 on Father/Daughter Records.
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JUNGLE – “I’VE BEEN IN LOVE” FEAT. CHANNEL TRES
UK dance duo Jungle have just shared this collab with Channel Tres. As usual it comes with a pretty slick video.
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BLONDSHELL – “CHARM YOU” (SAMIA COVER)
Samia is having different artists reinterpret songs off her 2023 sophomore album Honey, and she’s shared the first of those, Blondshell’s take on “Charm You.” “I’ve been inspired by Samia for such a long time,” Blondshell says. “She puts so much of herself into her songs, so much love for people and places. That was one of the things that stood out to me most about Honey – all of the friendship and joy that cut through darkness. I really felt that on ‘Charm You’ and I’m so happy to be part of her project.”
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ROOSEVELT – “LUNA”
“Luna started as a jam with a bass line 2 years ago – it was laying on my hard drive already when doing my last album Polydans and it never really developed into a song,” Roosevelt says of this funky, disco single. “I’ve reconnected with some of my old equipment and a stripped down setup in the last months and finally made it work, turning it into a funk driven dance track.”
https://youtu.be/Y6IfWA59Srw
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GABE ‘NANDEZ – “VENUS IN MERCURY”
New York rapper Gabe ‘Nandez follows his recent Pangea EP with a jazzy new single, “Venus In Mercury.”
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JOHANNA SAMUELS – “THE REST OF US”
Ahead of the release of her new album Bystander, due out this Friday via Jealous Butcher Records, Johanna Samuels has shared a final advance single, “The Rest of Us.” “I had been reflecting on time and how it prisms in long relationships,” she says. “I cherish my longest friendships because no matter how much it’s possible to lose myself in different periods of life, the ones who truly know me have an increasing capacity to remind me who I am. A new definition of chosen family really revealed itself to me during the writing of this album.”
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454 & SURF GANG – “GANGSTER PARTY”
New York-via-Florida rapper 454 and New York rap collective Surf Gang are releasing a collaborative five-song EP, Fast 5, on July 12. The first single is the druggy pop-rap of “Gangster Party.”
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BOYISH – “KILL YOUR PAIN” FT. KING PRINCESS
Los Angeles duo Boyish announced a new EP, Little Demon Boy, due out later this summer, and shared “Kill Your Pain” from it, which features King Princess. “We wrote ‘Kill Your Pain’ about being so enmeshed with someone else that you lose your own identity, and in the end sort of succumbing to it and giving into it,” India Shore and Claire Altendahl say. “We wanted it to feel like someone finally realizing they’re in someone else’s hell, accepting it, and giving into some of your darker instincts. We thought King Princess would be so perfect to be on this song, they have a sort of ‘eat nails’ quality to everything they do, and that’s what the song needed. Working with her was a dream, and so incredibly inspiring.”
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GLIMMER – “SELF DESTROYED”
NYC’s Glimmer making grungy shoegaze in the Hum/Failure vein, as you can hear on their catchy new single “Self Destroyed.”
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THE VAUGHNS – “GIZZARDS”
NJ’s The Vaughns are gearing up to release a full-length album on Equal Vision, and its first single “Gizzards” was produced and engineered by Hop Along/Algernon Cadwallader’s Joe Reinhart (who’s also produced records for Joyce Manor, Modern Baseball, and more). It’s a driving yet airy indie rock song.
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FLORRY – “DRUNK AND HIGH”
Philly alt-country band Florry have announced new album The Holey Bible and you can read about lead single “Drunk and High” here.
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HURRY – “BEGGIN’ FOR YOU”
Philly indie pop band Hurry have announced new album Don’t Look Back and you can read about lead single “Beggin’ For You” here.
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APHEX TWIN – “BLACKBOX LIFE RECORDER 21F”
Aphex Twin will release the Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / In a Room7 F760 EP — his first proper release in five years — on July 28 via Warp. You can check out “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f” now, which features many of Richard D. James’ glitchy trademarks but is almost poppy, with an infectious, danceable beat that never flies off the rails.
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BECK & PHOENIX – “ODYSSEY”
Beck and Phoenix will be heading out together on the “Summer Odyssey” tour soon, and in celebration have released a new collaborative single, appropriately titled “Odyssey.” It’s glossy and sweet and bears more of Phoenix’s stamp than Beck’s, but they do sound good together as Beck and Thomas Mars trade lines.
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OXBOW – “DEAD AHEAD”
Oxbow announced a tour today alongside the release of hard-hitting single “Dead Ahead.” It’s the opening track on their upcoming LP Love’s Holiday.
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MR. GREG & CASS MCCOMBS, “WAVE A FLAG FOR HARVEY MILK”
Cass McCombs has teamed up with childhood friend and pre-school teacher Mr. Greg (aka Grey Gardner) for an album of children’s folk songs. The lead single is “Wave a Flag for Harvey Milk,” an uplifting acoustic anthem with an assist from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus.
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HARMONY – “GOOD THINGS TAKE TIME”
“Good Things Take Time” is Harmony Tividad’s first solo release after Girlpool’s breakup. She now goes mononymously as Harmony, and has announced her debut solo EP, Dystopia Girl. “Good Things Take Time” is bubblegummy and fun, full of shimmery electronics edging on hyperpop.
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ISLANDS – “LIFE’S A JOKE”
Islands announced ninth LP And That’s Why Dolphins Lost Their Legs today with sardonic lead single “Life’s A Joke.” “This record is me at my most bleak, unquestionably,” frontman Nick Thorburn says. “But there’s a point to it all. It’s not just gleeful nihilism.”
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FAR CASPIAN – “PET ARCHITECT”
“Pet Architect” is the latest single from UK-based Far Caspian’s upcoming LP, The Last Remaining Light. “I wrote ‘Pet Architect’ after a Crohn’s flare up I had on tour that made me feel alienated from the rest of the group,” Far Caspian’s Joel Johnston says. “I try my best not to feel sorry for myself or dwell on my situation but certain times have pushed me into frustration. In that moment all I wanted was to feel ‘normal’ instead of lying on the floor in pain in the airport baggage claim. Whenever I got home I was in the headspace of wishing I was back to how I was before my diagnosis. I was reading about Japanese architecture and how they filled in tiny spaces on the street between buildings with condensed buildings and I felt like that worked as a metaphor for how I felt being pushed into an illness that wasn’t there previously.”
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FREAK HEAT WAVES FT CINDY LEE – “IN A MOMENT DIVINE”
This collaboration between British Columbia artists Freak Heat Waves and Cindy Lee fantastic: with its chill, bongo-enhanced breakbeat, cresting synths and Cindy Lee’s ghostly vocals, this sounds like the kind of song that could’ve been a leftfield hit in the late ’90s.
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DETHKLOK – “AORTIC DESECREATION”
Dethklolk are back with their first new song in nearly a decade, along with a new album and a new Metalocalypse film. You can also pre-order a new exclusive collector’s magazine and vinyl variants. Read more about all that here.
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Looking for even more new songs? Browse the New Songs archive.