Caroline Nieto<\/em><\/p>\nhemlocke springs: \u201chead, shoulders, knees and ankles\u201d<\/h2>\n
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A few years ago, we were promised a proper \u201cindie sleaze\u201d revival, with a new class of acts bringing the same edge and coolness of Y2K. Aside from The Dare becoming the go-to DJ for the hottest events and producing hits for Charli XCX, the promised resurgence didn\u2019t quite materialize. Maybe that\u2019s because few people could figure out how to capture the spirit of that time without making a carbon copy of it. But if there\u2019s someone who should give us hope for that revival to actually happen, it\u2019s hemlock springs. She knows how to channel the essence of pop acts from the late 2000s like Marina, Santigold, and Black Kids while making something that feels completely her own. The moment I heard hemlocke\u2019s song \u201cgirlfriend\u201d off her 2023 EP going\u2026GONE!<\/em> I knew she was destined to become the next big thing. \u201chead, shoulders, knees and ankles,\u201d the second single from her upcoming debut LP, is just as addictive. It invites you into an eerie carnival, leaving you entranced under the hypnotic circus-like instrumentations until the song transforms into a completely different track two minutes in, becoming a Danny Elfman a la Tim Burton-esque ballad. It\u2019s no surprise that Chappell Roan, who\u2019s one of the most refreshing new voices in pop, invited hemlocke to open for her on tour. They\u2019re both exactly the type of artists we need to shake things up. \u2014Tatiana Tenreyro<\/em><\/p>\nHome Front: \u201cEulogy\u201d<\/h2>\n
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I dig on Home Front because so much of their stuff is just a combination of two of my favorite things: synth-pop and post-punk. But their new album Watch It Die<\/em> ain\u2019t no eighties relapse. Instead, Graeme MacKinnon and Clint Frazier root themselves in the classics but ferment the sound in urgent, immediate ideas on \u201cEulogy.\u201d It\u2019s like two songs in one: a punishment of hardcore on the topline, a glint of pop animated underneath. And then the textures swap places, shuffling into this cresting, love-worn paean reflecting \u201cwhat it means to lose the people we care about.\u201d MacKinnon and Frazier sound positively mad in these times, in their \u201clast goodbye\u201d melodies. \u201cIt comes for me, it\u2019ll come for you,\u201d the former declares, as guitars clang and rupture and synths decoratively splash. \u201cThere\u2019s no need to cry.\u201d Home Front move through the onslaught with their scars intact and like a badge of courage. \u2014Matt Mitchell<\/em><\/p>\nMirah ft. Flock of Dimes & Hand Habits: \u201cCatch My Breath\u201d<\/h2>\n
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After seven years of silence, Mirah comes back not whispering but gasping. The 2000s indie-popper\u2019s latest single, \u201cCatch My Breath,\u201d sounds like someone relearning how to need. Over glittery, jangling power-pop\u2014think Tennis with sharper guitars\u2014she untangles the wreckage of a relationship with both bite and self-awareness. \u201cWon\u2019t you come to bed my baby,\u201d she sighs, before snapping back with, \u201cNow I\u2019m not saying I didn\u2019t contribute \/ to this shitty stupid fucking mess we\u2019ve gotten into.\u201d Joined by Flock of Dimes\u2019 Jenn Wasner, Hand Habits\u2019 Meg Duffy, and percussionist Andrew Maguire, Mirah turns what could\u2019ve been a breakup lament into a communal exhale. Their harmonies shimmer at the song\u2019s edges, like friends helping her shoulder the breathlessness. The production gleams\u2014neon synths, razor-edged guitars\u2014but her delivery keeps it human, cracked, unguarded. It\u2019s heartache turned into something bright enough to blind. \u2014Casey Epstein-Gross<\/em><\/p>\n twen: \u201cTumbleweed\u201d<\/h2>\n
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\u201cTumbleweed\u201d spins like a fever dream of freedom\u2014half midday rave, half paperwork meltdown. Jane Fitzsimmons sings about borders and bureaucracy like she\u2019s trapped in an embassy with the windows down, her voice half-plea, half-eye-roll: \u201cGrant me the permission \/ Can I come in please?\u201d The bassline jitters with restless energy, guitars flickering like fluorescent lights on caffeine. By the time she chants \u201cStay, go, stay, go,\u201d it feels less like red tape and more like a mantra for motion\u2014a dance-floor daydream for anyone who\u2019s ever waited too long for permission to move. The self-directed video makes the metaphor literal: Fitzsimmons leads a color-clad crowd through a sterile office, turning bureaucratic purgatory into a fluorescent bacchanal (think the Music Dance Experience from Severance<\/em>, if it was actually cathartic instead of immensely unsettling). It\u2019s funny, anxious, and irresistibly alive\u2014bizarro indie rock for the paper-trailed and passport-stamped. \u2014Casey Epstein-Gross<\/em><\/p>\nU.S. Girls: \u201cRunning Errands (Yesterday)\u201d<\/h2>\n
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This week, to accompany the tenth anniversary of her U.S. Girls album Half Free<\/em>, Meg Remy has shared two versions of \u201cRunning Errands,\u201d one that takes place \u201cYesterday\u201d and one \u201cToday.\u201d You can\u2019t go wrong with either, but the \u201cYesterday\u201d edition is especially great. Remy calls \u201cRunning Errands\u201d a \u201cmusical ouroboros experiment,\u201d implying that the song eats its own tail, so to speak. I\u2019d say it\u2019s infinite, an obvious idea heard throughout the arrangement\u2019s bed of chopped-up samples and Remy\u2019s swirling, kinetic lullaby, \u201cBusy keeps the pain away, busy keeps our change away.\u201d The song splits the difference between the mosaic art pop of Half Free<\/em> and the soothing, countrypolitan wash of Remy\u2019s recent album Scratch It<\/em>. What that means is: \u201cRunning Errands (Yesterday)\u201d is a delectable, soulful repetition that\u2019ll turn you boundless. \u2014Matt Mitchell<\/em><\/p>\nVeeze: \u201cSigned A Napkin\u201d<\/h2>\n
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Veeze\u2019s Ganger<\/em> was one of the best rap albums of 2023<\/a>, maybe even one of the best rap albums of the decade or all time, depending on who you ask. He\u2019s a confident steward of his own peculiarity, spitting bars that never quite align with the beat. That woozy, all-over-the-place approach is what makes Veeze Veeze<\/em>, and new single \u201cSigned A Napkin\u201d is business as usual for the Detroiter. It\u2019s more \u201cNo Sir Ski\u201d than it is \u201cSafe 2,\u201d and the track, produced by Childboy and MitchGoneMad, flips a sample of Loose Ends\u2019 \u201cSlow Down,\u201d a way-back-when R&B joint. The story in \u201cSigned A Napkin\u201d goes everywhere: Veeze spent twenty bands in Louis and then the IRS grabbed his signature; his \u201cdiamonds knock your bitch out just like Claressa Shields\u201d; somebody\u2019s gonna get shot for not getting \u201chis streams, it\u2019s so bad\u201d; and a girl \u201cstole so much drugs, bruh, her panties in the paperwork.\u201d Veeze is a cocaine cop ballin\u2019 on \u201cSigned A Napkin,\u201d replacing a hook with every detail. If you\u2019re gonna give him the key to your city, you better make sure it\u2019s a kilo. \u2014Matt Mitchell<\/em><\/p>\nOther Notable Songs This Week:<\/strong> Armand Hammer & The Alchemist ft. Silka & Cleo Reed: \u201cCalypso Gene\u201d; Dazy: \u201cBull Around the Porcelain\u201d; Elijah Wolf: \u201ctexaco lights\u201d; Gabriel Jacoby: \u201cbaby\u201d; Jean Dawson: \u201cWhite Lighter\u201d; Low Girl: \u201cWhite Gown\u201d; Mei Semones: \u201cKurayami\u201d; Miss Grit: \u201cTourist Mind\u201d; Oneohtrix Point Never: \u201cFor Residue\u201d; Sampha: \u201cCumulus \/ Memory\u201d; Westerman: \u201cNevermind\u201d<\/p>\nCheck out a playlist of this week\u2019s best new songs below. <\/strong><\/p>\n
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