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 20, 2026.
Snail Mail – ‘Dead End’
Snail Mail’s first album since 2021’s Valentine is on the way. Ricochet was recorded with Momma’s Aron Kobayashi Ritch at Fidelitorium Recordings, and the producer/bassist’s fingerprints are all over the lead single ‘Dead End’. That guitar riff shoots for the stars before the “nah nah nahs” rush in; the whole song is a blast. “We shot the video for ‘Dead End’ in random places all around rural North Carolina between the hours of 5pm and 4am on one of the coldest nights of my life,” Lindsey Jordan said of the accompanying music video she made with Elsie Richter. “The goal was to be inconspicuous with the fireworks, but someone called the cops on us.”
Courtney Barnett – ‘Site Unseen’ [feat. Waxahatchee]
Courtney Barnett has returned with news of her next album, Creature of Habit, which will land on March 27. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘Site Unseen’, which features harmony vocals from Katie Crutchfield, aka Waxahatchee. “I tried three separate times over two years to track this song, and each time it either wasn’t finished or didn’t sound right, and each time we had to start again,” Barnett explained. “I kept hearing this really high harmony in my head, so for the fourth and final version, I asked Katie if she’d be into singing it with me. I’m a big Waxahatchee fan. I really love Katie’s songwriting and her voice, so it was an honour to have her sing on Site Unseen.”
Bill Callahan – ‘Stepping Out for Air’
Stepping out for air: a good thing. You should probably take this moment to do it. ‘Stepping Out for Air’: good song. Really good, in fact. It’s the third single from Bill Callahan’s new album My Days of 58, following ‘The Man I’m Supposed to Be’ and ‘Lonely City’. In a statement, the singer-songwriter explained: “This is the song with the oldest origins on the album, tho it was never fully finished until just before the 58 sessions. It existed in some form about 15 years ago when it was intended as part of a record I planned to make with Jim White and Warren Ellis. Logistics seemed impossible because Warren was on endless Nick Cave tours so that project evaporated. Maybe it’ll form as a rain cloud and rain down on us someday. I held on to the song and it finally found a home on this record as the world cycled back into it having relevance. I like this song. It feels good.”
Cat Clyde – ‘Another Time’
Canadian singer-songwriter Cat Clyde has announced a new album, Mud Blood Bone, which is out March 13 via Concord Records. Produced with Drew Vandenberg (Toro Y Moi, Faye Webster, S.G. Goodman) and featuring a co-write with Courtney Marie Andrews, the record is led by the swaying ‘Another Time’. “While writing this song, I was pondering my experience of connection and intimacy, alongside the reality that life is constantly moving and changing,” Clyde reflected. “Thinking about the power to bottle up and lean into meaningful moments and memories. Considering how bittersweet it is for beautiful moments to be, knowing they all become a ripple in time. Wondering about different timelines – time is not linear. Having the power to shift myself and my reality into new timelines, and different selves. This song speaks to the grief and the joy of evolving constantly.”
Cardinals – ‘I Like You’
Cardinals are gearing up for the release of their debut album Masquerade, which is out in less than a month. Today, the Cork, Ireland outfit has shared the stirring ‘I Like You’, about which frontman Euan Manning said: “This is the first song we wrote with the album in mind. After a very long period of not working on anything we started and finished this some bright morning last February in our practice studio. It felt cathartic, a completely grounding moment after feeling slightly lost for months.” He added, “The first lyric is stripped/paraphrased from the tune ‘My Funny Valentine’. I don’t think it was written by Chet Baker but that’s the version we know.”
Horsepower – ‘Force Quit’
Horsepower, the project of Brooklyn-based musician Charlotte Weinman, has shared a new song co-produced by Model/Actriz’s Ruben Radlauer. Don’t expect ‘Force Quit’ to sound anything like Ralauer’s band, though; it hews a lot closer to the hushed folk Charlotte’s brother Noah Weinman makes as Runnner – hushed, that is, until it explodes. It follows previous single ‘Flute’. “If ‘Flute’ is about an effortful quest for peace, ‘Force Quit’ is the exhausted surrender,” Weinman explained. “I wanted the song to first unfold cautiously and then completely unravel. When it comes time to unravel, we had a lot of fun making this behemoth wall of guitars. I screamed into the pickups, into the mic we had set up at the amp, and into the vocal mic, and we tucked those all throughout the last section.”
Liz Cooper – ‘Baby Steps’
‘Baby Steps’ is “the beginning of my new day,” Liz Cooper said of her lovely new single from her forthcoming album New Day. “I was falling in love while simultaneously going through heartbreak over and over again and I really wanted this to be the last song on the record as sort of a hopeful send off. All of the songs and the stories lead up to this one.”
Immaterialize – ‘Everything But Myself’ [feat. Fire-Toolz]
Immaterialize, the Chicago-based dream-pop duo of Lipsticism (aka Alana Schachtel) and DJ Immaterial (aka Erik Fure), are releasing their debut album Perfect this Friday. Its final single, the mesmerizing ‘Everything But Myself’, features Fire-Toolz, who mastered the LP. “I shared everything but myself” is the kind of hook that lodges itself into your head.
Telescreens – ‘Preacher’
NYC’s Telescreens have dropped a driving new single, ‘Preacher’, alongside a Jack Cohen-directed video. “‘Preacher’ is about the debaucherous things we worship as a society,” frontman Jackson Hamm said in a statement. “We build people up as hero’s, icons, rulers of our culture, only to relish in the sight of their fall. This song is about being a dancing monkey, the dark natures of addiction, the highs that come from the spotlight and the lows that follow. And all the while they call you a preacher.”
Jackie West – ‘Course of Action’
Jackie West has unveiled ‘Course of Action’, a heartfelt, sneakily propulsive new single from her forthcoming album Silent Century. The record comes out February 27 via Ruination Record Co.
Hen Ogledd – ‘Clara’
Hen Ogledd have released ‘Clara’, the second single from their forthcoming album DISCOMBOBULATED. The track, pastoral and off-kilter, features Will Guthrie (drums, percussion), Faye MacCalman (saxophone, clarinet), Chris Watson (recording of horse snorts) and Laura Phillips (recording of projector), and sleigh bells coming courtesy of Dawn Bothwell.
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