New Songs: Bonny Light Horseman, Ducks Ltd, Orbital & more

So many artists, so many songs, 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. We update a playlist weekly of some of our current favorite tracks. Here's a daily roundup with a bunch of interesting, newly released songs in one place.

ORBITAL - "ARE YOU ALIVE?" FT PENELOPE ISLES

Orbital are about to release new album Optical Delusion which pairs them with a few guests, including their Brighton neighbors Penelope Isles on this single. "'Are You Alive' came about when I had the instrumental and felt it could do with a delicate vocal,” Paul Hartnoll says. “Enter Penelope Isles! They took it away and Lily came up with some killer hooks, we spent a day rearranging the song and Hey Presto! Are You Alive was born. But don’t be fooled by the sweetness of the sound, the lyrics have some bite. It’s a dog-eat-dog world...”

DUCKS LTD FT MO TROPER & RATBOYS - "INVITATION" (FEELIES COVER)

Toronto band Ducks Ltd are back with another collaborative cover as part of their The Sincerest Form of Flattery series. This time with Mo Troper and Ratboys' Julia Steiner for a version of The it's The Feelies' "Invitation" (from 1991's Time for a Witness). Says singer Tom McGreevy, “In Toronto, it’s a really big thing on Halloween for bands to do cover sets where they dress up as the band they are covering. This year, Evan and a group of people who have all played in Ducks at one point or another got together to do a Feelies cover set and they were amazing! So good in fact that I immediately wanted to preserve their excellent cover band for posterity while also insinuating myself in the end result! It was a real family affair, with Paul Erlichman (who sometimes plays in our live band and does the string arrangements on our records), Katie Ryan(who used to play bass in our touring band) and the incomparable Kurt Marble (who used to be our live drummer) all playing on it. Another big part of what appealed about doing this cover was putting together a new vocal arrangement for the choruses, and so we got two artists who we really love to help us out with that, the Julia Steiner of Ratboys and Portland power pop icon Mo Troper. They’re both so good and have such distinct voices and it is super exciting to get to hear them on this song that I think about all the time. Feelies forever!”

NOVA ONE - "DANGEROUS"

Providence dream popsters Nova One will release new LP Create Myself on March 31 via Community Records, and here's the lovely, fuzzed-out lead single "Dangerous."

VIEW FROM THE SOYUZ - "CALIGULA"

Japan's View From The Soyuz fuse their home country's hardcore with Swedish-style melodeath on new banger "Caligula." Their new EP Immaculate drops next week (2/3) via DAZE.

RARELYALWAYS - "URGENT"

As he gears up for new album Work (due March 10 via Innovative Leisure), UK rapper Rarelyalways has shared this jazzy, boom bap-inspired new single.

ONEDA - "WARRIORS DAUGHTER" FT MR SCRUFF & "ROLLIN" FT GABE GURNSEY

Manchester MC OneDa just released this double-A-side single: "Rollin" was co-written with Factory Floor's Gabe Gurnsey, while ""Warriors Daughter" was made with house/trip hop great Mr Scruff.

SPEAKERS CORNER QUARTET - "CAN WE DO THIS" (ft. SAMPHA)

The great, soulful singer Sampha hasn't released his own new music in a while, but he's been on fire with guest appearances, and now he contributed guest lead vocals to a new single by UK jazz group Speakers Corner Quartet.

DEBBY FRIDAY - "I GOT IT" FEAT. UÑAS

“This track is a ‘Get in the Uber, Bitch!’ ode to nightlife, purgatory, and club rats everywhere," Debby Friday says of this serious banger from her upcoming Sub Pop debut. "Uñas and I had been wanting to collab for a while and this was a case of right vibe, right time.” This one goes hard, and GOOD LUCK is out March 24.

BONNY LIGHT HORSEMAN - "ONCE ON ANOTHER DAY"

Bonny Light Horseman have shared "Once On Another Day," which was previously a vinyl-only bonus track from their great 2022 album Rolling Golden Holy. Like much of this LP, it's a gorgeous, harmony-laden folk song.

SUNSETTER - "ALWAYS TALK, NEVER SPEAK"

When not playing in Canadian bands ZOON and OMBIIGIZI, Andrew McLeod makes music on his own as Sunsetter and will release new album The best that I can be on March 31 via Paper Bag. He's just shared this folky track from it. "I think it’s extremely important to speak your truest self openly and to actually mean it," says McLeod. "So many people never really say what they truly mean, or what they feel for fear of ridicule. I’ve lived with the struggle of presenting my truest self to the world for a long time, and no longer want to live that way."

MYLAR - "HOBBY HORSE"

London group Mylar are back with a new EP, Human Statues, that will be out March 30 via the Blue Flowers label (Westerman and Nilufer Yanya). "Hobby Horse" is smooth, gentle and winning. “Making songs is mostly squeaking around without getting anywhere," say Mylar. "With this song we were thinking of that image and how doing the thing you love can easily become a vice unless you maintain a healthy attitude to it. The song came out of a jack-in-the-box bossa nova piano groove. Hopefully it makes for (un)easy listening!”

NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL - EVERYTHING IS & "YOU'VE PASSED/WHERE YOU'LL FIND ME NOW" (EARLY VERSION)

Ahead of the release of their career-spanning The Collected Works box set, Neutral Milk Hotel have shared the newly remastered and expanded Everything Is EP, and early versions of "You've Passed/Where You'll Find Me Now" from On Avery Island.

GORD DOWNIE & BOB ROCK - "THE MOMENT IS A WILD PLACE"

Lustre Parfait, the decade-in-the-works collaboration between late Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downy at veteran producer Bob Rock, is out May 5 and here's another track from it. “I’ve always been a fan of long pieces of music,” says Rock. “Setting a mood and going someplace, just taking you somewhere. The music was based on that journey, this rising tide of chords, crescendos in the chorus. Somehow, I stumbled on this magic chord, a simple minor to a major progression, and it moved me. And Gord reacted to it. It’s absolute perfection in terms of songwriting and in terms of what he did. It’s special because of what he talks about. The lyric was written before he was diagnosed with the sickness that he had. They say you gotta live in the moment. It causes you to look back, and I get choked up every time I hear it, still. I think most people will be moved by it. It’s one of his finest moments.”

SHANA CLEVELAND (LA LUZ) - "A GHOST"

“I never really gave pregnancy and childbirth very much thought, and when I did become pregnant I was surprised by how much of a psychedelic experience it was," La Luz's Shana Cleveland says of this new song. "A subtitle for this album could be: ‘What to Expect When You Are Open to the Mysteries of the Universe.’ When I sat outside the house looking out across the field, the chemistry and shape of my body constantly changing, I understood that I was no different than the plants and animals around me.” Shana's new solo album, Manzanita, is out March 10 via Hardly Art.

TENNIS - "FORBIDDEN DOORS"

Tennis' sixth album Pollen is out next week, and the latest single is "Forbidden Doors." "Sonically, 'Forbidden Doors' filled out something essential that was missing from the record," Alaina Moore says. "I took my time writing lyrics that fit the world without altering it. The music gave me a sense of driving away from something. Patrick and I have done a lot of that-- trading one city skyline for another, releasing something to make room for what’s next."

DEATH VALLEY GIRLS - "MAGIC POWERS"

Somewhere between a banger and a ripper, this moody track is all about turning what other perceive as faults intro your best qualities. Death Valley Girls' new album Islands in the Sky is out February 24 via Suicide Squeeze.

RYLEY WALKER & JEFF TOBIAS - 'IT'LL SOUND DIFFERENT ONCE WE GET SOME BODIES IN THE ROOM'

Ryley Walker and Sunwatchers' Jeff Tobias just released this cassette of guitar and horn improvisations. Pretty and challenging.

JEN CLOHER - "MY WITCH"

"I went to a party in 2022 where a friend had hired a portable cedar spa," Jen Cloher writes. "They had set it up in the backyard and after a big feast people started to pile in. As the night progressed things became more and more debauched, bodies tangled together, laughter and booze, like a Bacchanalian scene in a forest… cut to 6 months later when I’m trying to think of a way to tell a funny (but sexy) story to accompany 'My Witch.' I had been attending Pony Club Gym in Preston for a couple of years and I thought it would make the perfect setting for a pair of babes to be flirting during a steamy workout. Then to casting. if there’s anyone who reps body positivity and owning their deep hotness it has to be Georgia Maq from Camp Cope. I had my Witch slash Personal Trainer cast! The gym scene needed to be about holding back though because the suggestion of something happening is sexier. Then it came to me! The explosion the song needed during the mega raunch guitar solo could take place in a spa cauldron. Georgia would lure me to her coven where things would turn wild.Now to casting a coven of hot witches. Seeing as me and Georgia are songwriters and performers it made sense that her coven would be overflowing with iconic Naarm based songwriting witches - Mo’Ju, Alice Skye, Kira Puru and Lay the Mystic all said yes to my invitation to spend an evening in a spa eating a lot of watermelon. The rest is history." It's from their new album I Am The River, The River Is Me.

MISÉRICORDE - "ATONEMENT"

Brooklyn's Miséricorde formed in 2022 with members of Extinction AD, A Constant Knowledge of Death, and Descarnado, and they make a heavy blend of sounds that pulls from black & death metal, mathcore, screamo, and more. Read more about their new single "Atonement" here.

PREDATORY VOID - "*(STRUGGLING..)"

Predatory Void is a new Belgian post-metal band with members of Amenra, Oathbreaker, and more, and you can read more about their new single here.

TV STAR - "ROOM"

TV Star's lineup includes some familiar faces from the Seattle punk scene, like guitarist Che Hise-Gattone (Regional Justice Center, Video Prick) and drummer Waylon Trim (Militarie Gun), but their own music is something much lighter. New single "Room" has a Mazzy Star-esque psychedelic dream pop backdrop, contrasted by the trad-indiepop vocal stylings of singer Ashlyn Nagel. Read more about it here.

THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH - "EVERY LITTLE HEART"

The Tallest Man On Earth has announced a new album, Henry St., and you can read about lead single "Every Little Heart" here.

MODEL/ACTRIZ - "AMARANTH"

Another bone-rattling chunk of dark noisy electro from this Brooklyn band's debut album due out March 24 via True Panther.

JAKE SHEARS (SCISSOR SISTERS) - "TOO MUCH MUSIC"

Former Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears says new album Last Man Dancing is “my ultimate house party“ and the guestlist includes Kylie, Iggy, Big Freedia, Boys Noize, Amber Martin and...Jane Fonda? This is the none-more-disco first single.

ANOHNI (AS FIONA BLUE) - "RAPTURE" & JAMES F. MURPHY - "SATAN'S LI'L LAMB"

Blacklips Bar: Androgyns and Deviants — Industrial Romance for Bruised and Battered Angels, 1992–1995, the companion compilation to ANOHNI's new book about the Blacklips Performance Cult, is out in March, and features remastered original recordings by ANOHNI (including "Rapture," which she performed as Fiona Blue), select DJ tracks, and studio recordings (including "Satan's Li'L Lamb" from James F. Murphy).

GIRL RAY - "EVERYBODY'S SAYING THAT"

The transformation London's Girl Ray made between their more folky first album and their second, more pop-oriented album continues with "Everybody's Saying That," an '80s-flavored disco number produced by Ben H Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Belle & Sebastian). Perfect for a roller rink or in a convertible, Girl Ray are bringing vibrant summer vibes to the dead of winter.

WESTERMAN - "CSI: PETRALONA"

"CSI: Petralona" is the new single off Westerman's upcoming album An Inbuilt Fault. Westerman says of the song, "I had the riff for the song and left it lying around with a bunch of other bits and pieces. A friend told me that Tom Waits has this image of having a musical junk drawer of old parts that you haven't found anything to do with. It came from there. I went to Greece for a month to scope out if I wanted to move here, and a friend encouraged me to write about this strange day I had there. The lyrics were immediate. It's presented on the album as it was first written. It's the most autobiographical song on the record." Read more about it here.

PETITE NOIR - "BLURRY"

"Blurry" is the slow-burning, ultra cool lead single from Petite Noir's just-announced album MotherFather. It features a fantastic guest spot by Sampa The Great. Read more about it here.

Looking for even more new songs? Browse the New Songs archive.

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28 New Songs Out Today