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 Tuesday, January 14, 2025.
Samia – ‘Bovine Excision’
“I was drawn to the phenomenon of bloodless cattle mutilation as a metaphor for self-extraction – this clinical pursuit of emptiness,” Samia said of ‘Bovine Excision’, which leads her upcoming album Bloodless. “It’s easier to be what someone wants you to be if you give as little as possible.” It’s a grueling metaphor, but it’s no wonder Samia works it into a punchy, emotive indie rock song.
Bartees Strange – ‘Wants Needs’
The latest single from Bartees Strange’s upcoming LP Horror channels career frustration through nervy, soul-baring indie rock. “I realized a couple years ago that if music is really going to work out long-term, I want/need more fans,” Strange said of ‘Wants Needs’ in a press release. “Of course, it’s a timing and numbers game, but race is a powerful component, too. I don’t see a lot of people like me in the indie space making long term livings on their records. I worry people may have a hard time connecting to me because I don’t look/sound like them — that I’m fun to root for, but not actually supported. This song is about how much that worries me, fully understanding that a lot of these neurosis are of my own making.”
Jason Isbell – ‘Bury Me’
Jason Isbell used an all-mahogany 1940 Martin 0-17 acoustic guitar to record every song on Foxes in the Snow, his new solo LP arriving in March. Naturally, the stripped-back production is a great fit for Isbell’s songwriting, and lead single ‘Bury Me’ is a fantastic introduction.
Rusty Williams – ‘Knocking (At Your Door)’
Rusty Williams, the 78-year-old grandfather of Paramore’s Hayley Williams, is releasing his debut album, Grand Man, via Zac Farro’s Congrats Records. It’s an interesting story: Williams recorded the album in the ’70s, but it never saw the light of day, and his granddaugher hadn’t heard it – or realized it actually existed – until recently. It’s set to come out on Valentine’s Day, and the appropriately lovestruck lead single ‘Knocking (At Your Door)’ is out now.
Miki Berenyi Trio – ‘8th Deadly Sin’
Miki Berenyi Trio, the new project helmed by Lush singer Miki Berenyi, has announced its first album, Tripla, with the entrancing ‘8th Deadly Sin’. “Simon Raymonde instantly picked this out as a single and it immediately went down a storm when we played it live,” Berenyi explained in a statement. “I can’t pretend that I am in a position to lecture others over their green credentials but there’s a broader philosophy in the song that I can relate to — humanity hurtling toward its own destruction, which (to me) applies as much to wars and social intolerance as it does environmental issues.”
Kathryn Mohr – ‘Take It’
Ahead of the release of her debut LP this Friday, Oakland musician Kathryn Mohr has released the intricate, free-associative ‘Take It’. “I rarely know what I’m talking about until way after a song is done,” Mohr explained. “Lyrics are the result of emotional vomit and blind scribblings, understanding comes when I get as close as I can to being a listener rather than a creator. ‘Take It,’ now that it’s in the rear view mirror, is about abusive relationships, dream logic, dehumanization, superstition, power imbalances, and paradoxes. It’s about getting dragged through ruble while holding on to a thread of hope and finally letting go of your own will because of your own growth. It’s one of my favorite songs on the record.”
The Weather Station – ‘Mirror’
The Weather Station’s new LP Humanhood arrives on Friday, and final single ‘Mirror’ is a groovy and luminous highlight. “The confrontation is gentle, because I’ve been there too,” Tamara Lindeman explained in a statement. “But life and nature is a giant biofeedback machine. What you put out there responds. And you respond; you can’t help it. That’s what is always happening. That’s one of the many things I meant when I said ‘god is a Mirror.’” She continued, “I wanted the song to warp and disintegrate; to come in and out of being like the imaginary scaffold that holds up a fantasy or cognitive dissonance. In the end, the band grows garbled and comes apart, giving way to a suspension of synth and string textures. I wanted it to feel like being bathed in light; maybe the light I was talking about in the song.”
Richard Dawson – ‘Gondola’
‘Gondola’, the latest single from Richard Dawson’s upcoming album End Of The Middle, is sung from the perspective of a grandma reflecting on her life. The point of view is richly rendered and affecting, especially when paired with the CLUMP Collective-directed video.
Swervedriver – ‘Volume Control’
Swervedriver are returning with their first new music in five years, The World’s Fair EP, on March 7 via Outer Battery Records. The shoegaze greats recorded it with Ride’s Mark Gardener, TJ Doherty, and Rick Beato, with contributions from Will Foster, Calina De La Mare, and Sarah Willson. Lead single ‘Volume Control’, premiered via Brooklyn Vegan, is fiery and intoxicating.
Patterson Hood – ‘The Pool House’
Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood has offered another taste of his upcoming LP Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams with the ominous ‘The Pool House’, which features Nate Query (The Decemberists) on upright bass, Dan Hunt (Neko Case) on drums, Kyleen King on viola and strings, and Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) on flute. “The Pool House” was originally inspired by a night I spent at a creepy rental,” Hood said. “A literal pool house for an apartment complex that I rented cheap for the night during a solo tour. It was off-season and the pool was dark green and filled with algae. The whole thing was creepy and as I’d had a couple of drinks, my mind was definitely wandering, conjuring up some macabre shit. I wrote most of it during lockdown and demoed it then on my home rig.”
lots of hands – ‘barnyard’
UK duo lots of hands are releasing their latest album into a pretty room on Friday, and latest offering ‘barnyard’ sounds idyllic yet punctured by grief. “I’ll brush your hair through a nightmare, breathing in the country air,” goes the mesmerizing refrain.
Immersion & SUSS – ‘State of Motion’
Immersion, the electronic duo of Colin Newman from Wire and Malka Spigel from Minimal Compact, have teamed up with ambient country trio SUSS for the new single ‘State of Motion. Taken from their upcoming collaborative LP Nanocluster Vol. 3, the track is wide-eyed and propulsive. “The title reflects the piece as it matches Immersion’s hypnotic propulsion to SUSS’ open-skies atmospherics, and the video renders a visual interpretation of the stop/start nature of the music and life itself,” Immersion commented.
Whatever the Weather – ’12°C’
On Loraine James’ first album as Whatever the Weather, the London producer’s ambient-focused project, every track was named after temperatures. The same is true of its just-announced follow-up, Whatever the Weather II, which is due March 14 and is described as “a warmer outing than its predecessor.” The lead single is titled ’12°C’, and I wish it were that warm where I am right now.
Califone – ‘every amnesia movie’
Califone have announced a new album, The Villagers Companion, a companion to 2023’s Villagers, arriving February 21. It’s led by the single ‘every amnesia movie’, which finds Tim Rutili asking, “When have I ever given anyone what they want?”
The Tubs – ‘Narcissist’
The Tubs vocalist Owen “O” Williams wrote ‘Freak Mode’, the previous single from the band’s new album Cotton Crown, “about dating while grieving the death of my mother.” The subject matter of new single ‘Narcissist’ is similar, but the tune, which is excellent, strikes a different tone altogether. “It’s about hearing someone’s a sociopathic nightmare and wanting to be manipulated or abused as a distraction from the larger nightmare of death,” Williams explained. “It’s also about noticing a kind of sociopathic aspect of yourself in which you see your life as an interesting plot rather than something real and emotionally consequential. So it’s fitting that Nicholls does some of his most Marr-like guitar work, but we also wanted to create a kind of sad crooner atmosphere.”
The Mayflies USA – ‘Calling the Bad Ones Home’
Chapel Hill indie rockers The Mayflies USA are back with ‘Calling the Bad Ones Home’, their first new song in 23 years. “‘Calling the Bad Ones Home’ is about a night in my teenage years when I may have consumed a little bit too much of a certain substance, and I found myself on the phone — an old school landline with a curly cord, to paint the picture — with a girl I did not know,” bassist Adam Price explained. “Maybe the sister of a friend I’d called, then forgotten who I was calling? But I vividly remember, decades later, the feeling of being trapped on the line for eternity with this person, who started to warn me about the Bad Ones, who were coming. ‘The Bad Ones are coming home,’ she said. A terrible experience, but it provided inspiration for this song, which we approached with a somewhat counterintuitive upbeat ’70s Steely Dan/Stones feel, including slap bass and a funk clavinet.”
lilo – ‘It’s Not the Same in Winter’
Following a pair of EPs, London indie folk duo lilo are beginning to roll out their debut album, Blood Ties, which is out March 28. Of the achingly delicate lead single, Helen Dixon said, “‘It’s Not The Same In Winter’ comes from being in the full throes of a breakup. I’d gone away to do some writing, hoping to channel my woes into something brilliant. The trip was terrible, I didn’t write a thing and actually started to feel like whole sections of my brain had gone missing.” She added, “I phoned Christie. I said: it’s so weird, I can’t remember a single thing about my ex. I can’t picture what he looked like, and all the memories I have feel like they belong to someone else. I tried looking at photos to trigger something and nothing happened, I felt like I was looking at a stranger.”
Canty – ‘St Marks’
East London artist Canty has previewed their forthcoming mixtape Dim Binge. with a mesmerizing new song called St Marks’. “The track describes a feeling of impending inevitability, a situation you can’t turn away from,” they explained. “Patience and perseverance through hardship whether external or internal, pushing forward, ‘coming through the pouring rain.’ The title could be just the street name of a doomed love affair or some oblique reference to the biblical figure led through the streets with a rope around its neck.”
