18 New Songs Out Today
So many artists, 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. In these concertless times, that includes daily livestreams and live concert videos we love. We publish a monthly playlist of some of our favorite tracks. Here’s a daily roundup with a bunch of interesting, newly released songs in one place.
SHIRLEY COLLINS – “SWEET GREENS AND BLUES”
Legendary British folk singer Shirley Collins has shared another song off her upcoming album Heart’s Ease (due 7/24 via Domino). Fueled by some gorgeous acoustic guitar and fiddle, it’s an absolutely lovely song.
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BLACK MARBLE – “IN MANCHESTER” (WIRE COVER)
Black Marble, who released the very good Bigger Than Life last year, are back with a new covers EP featuring his take on songs by Robert Palmer, The Field Mice, Grouper, Live of Angels, and Wire. He’s shared his cover of Wire’s “In Manchester” from the group’s 2015 self-titled album. “I was initially drawn to the idea of covering ‘In Manchester’ because of the lyrics, which, for me, paint compartmentalized impressionistic snapshots of time and place,” says Black Marble avatar Chris Stewart. “Some are more clear and feel like specific street scenes. Some are more oblique, but still feel grounded by the ‘In Manchester’ chorus…I felt connected to the song through that, and started by introducing a bit more of an off kilter feel with the underlying synth pad at the outset. Perhaps on this day things are even a bit more uncertain than in the original. From there I figured if I just stayed true to the general outline, some impressions of my own songwriting would creep in and I just hoped and trusted that the results would be complementary.” The I Must Be Living Twice EP is out August 14 via Sacred Bones.
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CUT WORMS – “UNNATURAL DISASTER” / “BABY COME ON”
Max Clarke is back with a new two-track single featuring more of his warm, nostalgic take on early rock n’ roll. They’re from his new album which he made in Memphis. “I guess you could say [Unnatural Disaster] took six years to write, though it mostly came all at once when It finally did come,” says Clarke. “Oddly enough, I recall way back in Chicago, at one point there was a placeholder lyric that said something like ‘to New York or Tennessee.’ Funny I ended up focused on both of those places.” Stay tuned for details on Cut Worms new album.
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BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG – “GIMME SOME TRUTH” (JOHN LENNON/GENERATION X COVER)
Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong has released a cover of John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth,” and he mentions that the first time he heard it was actually Generation X’s cover, and this revved-up cover is very much informed by their version.
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PORRIDGE RADIO & LALA LALA – “GOOD FOR YOU”
Dana Margolin of Brighton’s Porridge Radio and Lillie West, aka Chicago’s Lala Lala, recorded “Good For You” remotely during coronavirus lockdown. “I really love Lillie’s music,” Dana said, “and we were vaguely in touch through the internet, so when Lillie got in touch asking if I wanted to make a song together, and then a few days later I’d written this song, it felt really right to collaborate on it. I really loved what Lillie added from the start, and it really organically and easily came together from there. Sam [Yardley, Porridge Radio drummer] added parts and produced the song, and it was a really easy and fun process because of the way they both responded to it.”
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SAWEETIE – “PRETTY BITCH FREESTYLE”
Saweetie follows her bouncy new single “Tap In” with this hard af new freestyle.
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RYLEY WALKER – covers of GROUPER, CASS MCCOMBS, ISOTOPE 217 & AMEN DUNES
As great of a songwriter as he is, Ryley Walker is a truly virtuosic guitar player, and he applied those skills to instrumental acoustic guitar covers of Grouper’s “Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping,” Cass McCombs’ “Robin’s Egg Blue,” Isotope 217’s “Real MC’s,” and Amen Dunes’ “Everybody Is Crazy.
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BEABADOOBEE – “BETWEEN THE BARS” (ELLIOTT SMITH COVER)
88rising held the virtual festival ASIA RISING FOREVER back in May, where beabadoobee delivered this tuneful Elliott Smith cover. Now it’s available on streaming services, too.
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TOM MORELLO – “STAND UP”
Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello has released a new protest/benefit song, with proceeds going to the NAACP, Know Your Rights Camp, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Marsha P. Johnson Institute. The song was made with Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds, Bloody Beetroots, and Shea Diamond, and Tom says, “I grew up in the tiny lily white, archly conservative town of Libertyville, Illinois. When I was a kid, someone hung a noose in my family’s garage, there was occasional N-word calling, etc, etc. On June 6 of this year, there was a Black Lives Matter rally and march in that same town that drew over 1,000 people. It seems that the times, they are a’changin’.”
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SARAH DAVACHI – “STATIONS II”
Composer and ambient musician Sarah Davachi has been keeping busy in 2020, releasing the Five Cadences and Horae EPs, and announcing a book, Papers. Now she’s announced a new LP, Cantus, Descant, due out on September 18 via her own Late Music, via Warp. The first single is “Stations II,” and Sarah writes, “There’s a lot of symbolist imagery in the work titles, references to place and nature; the ‘Stations’ series in particular is a reconfiguring of the idea of states of being.
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LITURGY & LEYA – “ANTIGONE”
Liturgy and LEYA, who were supposed to tour together this year, recorded this collaboration right before the pandemic started. You can read more about it here.
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BORIS – “ANTI-GONE”
Boris’ anticipated new album NO gets self-released on Bandcamp tomorrow (Friday, July 3), and they’ve just shared one more song ahead of its release. You can read more about it here.
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LUKE JENNER (THE RAPTURE) – “ALL MY LOVE”
The Rapture’s Luke Jenner has shared another new solo single via his label Manono. “All My Love” is delicate and pretty, and decidedly different from what he does in his band. “All My Love is the central argument of my life,” says Luke. “It is a prayer, an intention and a promise. It’s all there, my family, the most important things. It hopefully gets the ball rolling on the community and the label properly and lets people know what we are about. What comes next.”
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LIGHTNING BUG – “THE ONELY ONES” / “THE LONELY ONES”
Shoegazy NYC band Lightning Bug have a new single out: “The Onely Ones,” which is more of a Cocteau Twins style dreampop track, and much noiser companion peice, “The Lonely Ones.”
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SASAMI – “TOXICITY” (SYSTEM OF A DOWN) & SOCCER MOMMY – “DRIVE” (THE CARRS COVER)
SASAMI turns System Of A Down’s 2001 classic “Toxicity” into a haunting, bare-bones, psychedelic folk song for the new Soccer Mommy & Friends compilation, which also includes Soccer Mommy’s just-released cover of The Cars’ “Drive.” Read more here.
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THE APARTMENTS – “POCKETFUL OF SUNSHINE”
Australian cult band The Apartments will release their seventh album, In and Out of the Light, on September 17. This is the first single.
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SEX SWING – “THE PASSOVER” (IDLES REMIX)
London’s Sex Swing have been making dark, dissonant and ferocious music since 2014, and released their second album, Type II, back in May. The band are gearing up to release a remix EP, titled Passovers, featuring remixes by METZ, Jane Weaver, Brian Case, and IDLES — you can listen to the latter, now.
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For even more new songs, browse the ‘New Songs’ archive.
