There’s so much music coming out all the time that it’s hard to keep track. On those days when the influx of new tracks is particularly overwhelming, we sift through the noise to bring you a curated list of the most interesting new releases (the best of which will be added to our Best New Songs playlist). Below, check out our track roundup for Wednesday, February 12, 2025.
PUP – ‘Hallways’
PUP have announced their fifth LP, Who Will Look After the Dogs?, with the fiery, hooky ‘Hallways’. “Within days of announcing our last album, coincidentally titled The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND, my life unexpectedly imploded,” frontman Stefan Babcock said. “I wrote the lyrics for ‘Hallways’ while all that was going on. It was a weird fucking week.”
SPELLLING – ‘Alibi’
‘Portrait of My Heart’, the title track from SPELLLING’s upcoming album, made our best songs of January 2025 list. The new single, ‘Alibi’, features Turnstile guitarist Pat McCrory and is even more energetic. “On ‘Alibi’ I’m tapping into the almost kind of comedic and hysteric relief that kicks in when you make it out of the other side of a toxic relationship,” Chrystia Cabral explained. “Once the spell is broken and clarity restores good sense there’s just this buoyancy to life that lets you laugh at the absurdities.” She added: “I’m a huge fan of Liz Phair and I let myself channel her very candid and penetratingly plainstated approach to lyricism. This song definitely unlocked this angsty side of myself that was very cathartic and fun to release.”
Bnny – ‘Love Trap’
Bnny are back with a new song, ‘Love Trap’, which is lifted from the sessions behind last year’s One Million Love Songs and explodes louder than any song in their catalog. Hopefully a hint of what’s in store for the Jessica Viscius-led project?
Yukimi – ‘Stream of Consciousness’ [feat. Lianne La Havas]
Yukimi has teamed up with Lianne La Havas for a mesmerizing new track, ‘Stream of Consciousness’, which follows the Little Dragon vocalist’s debut single ‘Break Me Down’. “Lianne came in like a force of nature,” Yukimi commented. “We really boosted and inspired each other, which was such a beautiful thing.”
Robin Kester – ‘Departure’ [feat. Rozi Plain]
Dutch artist Robin Kester has signed to Memphis Industries, marking the news with a new single, ‘Departure’. Made with producer Ali Chant and featuring backing vocals from Rozi Plain, the track is ethereal and radiant. “Most of ‘Departure’ is based on a diary entry dating back to when I was thinking about maybe moving again (because I often moved someplace else during childhood and kept doing so in my adult life, thinking it might help whenever I felt unhappy),” Kester explained. “But at the same time I knew this literal escapism didn’t really ever solve anything. When I used this diary entry as part of the lyrics, I was afraid they were maybe too on the nose and perhaps I also felt a bit vulnerable because I’m more used to writing in a way that lets me hide things underneath lyrics and melodies.”
Circuit des Yeux – ‘Canopy of Eden’
Circuit des Yeux has previewed her forthcoming LP Halo on the Inside with the claustrophobic, burbling ‘Canopy of Eden’. “Somehow, on a day in the not too distant past, I ended up on a speedboat jutting toward a place called Canopy of Eden located off the coast of Puerto Vallarta,” Haley Fohr explained. “The sun was hot, the boat was crammed with passengers, and there was a wild tritoned sawtooth sound coming from its engine. The boat dropped me off in a tourist trap. It was a shadeless beachfront with overpriced bottles of water and pre-programmed music blaring through a broken radio. It was my personal hell on earth. Trapped by the idea of predestination, I re-imagined my scenario in which everyone onboard the speedboat used their voice and internal rhythm to reroute our oceanic course. In this alternate universe, we were able to arrive at our own chosen destination and overcome the god-awful radio.”
Bartees Strange – ‘Backseat Banton’
Ahead of the release of his new LP Horror on Friday, Bartees Strange has served up a new single, the kinetic ‘Backseat Banton’, which he debuted on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday. “Being scared has made me bigger now, bigger than I was/ The darkest side of waking up is seeing who I’ve become,” he sings. “Grace is still a saviour, every moment that it comes/ I’m reminded of a hopeful me and how fast that I could run.”
Amy Millan – ‘Wire walks’
Stars’ Amy Millan has announced her first solo album in 16 years, I Went to Find You, which is due May 30. Speaking about the spine-tingling lead single, ‘Wire walks’, Millan said: “Getting older is a trip. You assume you’re gonna grow out of feeling like you might fall down a hole any minute, but for me the feeling continues to hover. I reference Stars’ ‘Ageless Beauty’ here with the lyric ‘I lied when I said that time would catch your head.’ I thought when I was younger time would mend all wounds, but I was wrong, it does not. Turns out they stick around! So what I have learned with my sage years is to stop trying to dodge and outrun the hard feelings. Embrace the difficult bits, the footprint that made me what I am. When outrunning isn’t working, I might need to lean into what I’ve always been.”
clipping. – ‘Welcome Home Warrior’ [feat. Aesop Rock]
clipping. have joined forces with Aesop Rock for a dense, visceral new track called ‘Welcome Home Warrior’. It’s taken from their cyberpunk-inspired concept album Dead Channel Sky, which includes earlier singles ‘Run It’, ‘Keep Pushing’, and ‘Change the Channel’.
William Tyler – ‘Cabin Six’, ‘Concern’, ‘Star of Hope’
William Tyler has announced a new album, Time Indefinite, arriving April 25 via Psychic Hotline. As a preview, he’s shared three tracks, ‘Cabin Six’, ‘Concern’, and ‘Star of Hope’, which sprawl together into an enticing suite of sorts. About ‘Star of Hope’, which was born out of an acapella hymn the musician heard on AM radio, Tyler said: “I’m always fascinated by the often random origin stories of ‘sacred melodies’- ie the melody of the star spangled banner being an old English drinking song.”
Mclusky – ‘way of the exploding dickhead’
Welsh noise-rock band Mclusky have announced their first LP in 21 years, the world is still here and so are we, which comes out May 9 on Ipecac Recordings. The wonderfully titled and frenetic ‘way of the exploding dickhead’ leads the album. “With a title modeled on/ripped off a formative video game (The Way of the Exploding Fist on the ZX Spectrum), and lyrics inspired by the huge excitement caused by the surge pricing on tickets to see a band play well in the distance, ‘way of the exploding dickhead’ is a modern parable, without the parable bit,” frontman Andrew Falkous said in a press release.
Eiko Ishibashi – ‘October’
Eiko Ishibashi has unveiled ‘October’, the hauntingly dystopian opener from the Japanese composer’s forthcoming album Antigone. Here’s a translation of some of the lyrics, which set the tone for the LP: “Demolish in June/ The columns rise up/ Ashes fall in August/ in October/ the blood shines.”
Clara Mann – ‘Doubled Over’
London-based singer-songwriter Clara Mann has previewed her debut album Rift with a heart-wrenching single called ‘Doubled Over’. “This is about love, and the physical pain of heartbreak,” Mann shared. “I’m not very good at talking about those feelings, I guess that’s why I put it in a song – if I knew how to talk about it in any other way, I wouldn’t have had to write it. Love is the best and hardest thing I do, the thing I’m proudest of, and the end of it is crippling. In the end, we take the risk every time, because good love is worth it.”
CocoRosie – ‘Yesterday’
CocoRosie, the sister duo of Bianca and Sierra Casady, have shared a shimmering new single from their upcoming record Little Death Wishes. “’Yesterday’ is a nostalgic sunshine scene of the crude reality of broken families,” they commented. “We hear it as backyard-BBQ music, setting a place for every misfit family member at the table.”
Toro y Moi – ‘Daria’ [feat. Kenny Beats]
Originally available as a Japanese bonus track to last year’s Hole Erth, Toro y Moi’s driving Kenny beats collab ‘Daria’ is now getting a wider release. This isn’t the first time the artists have worked together; Toro y Moi previously appeared on Kenny Beats’ YouTube series The Cave.
Yoshika Colwell – ‘Last Night’
Singer-songwriter Yoshika Colwell has unveiled a softly enchanting song called ‘Lost Night’. “I wrote this song in about half an hour, sitting alone in my caravan thinking about a dream I’d had the night before,” Colwell explained. “Moments of this kind of fluidity are so rare, but it kind of just flowed out of me. The truth of my subconscious mind rose to the surface, through all the mental mess & clutter and out through the song. It was one of the first songs I’d written for a long time that went towards what I was scared to articulate instead of obscuring it with metaphor or abstract, image-based lyrics.”
The post 16 New Songs to Listen to Today: PUP, SPELLLING, and More appeared first on Our Culture.
