Hear tracks by Caroline Polachek, John Cale featuring Weyes Blood, iLe and others.
Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.
Shakira and Ozuna, ‘Monotonía’
Here’s a rarity: a no-fault breakup song. Well, not entirely. “It wasn’t your fault, nor was it mine,” Shakira offers at the start. “It was the fault of the monotony.” Shakira, from Colombia, meets Ozuna, who was born in Puerto Rico to a Dominican father and a Puerto Rican mother, closer to his musical territory: a Dominican bachata, with staccato guitar arpeggios and flurries of bongos. As they trade verses, accusations emerge: he was a narcissist, she was distant, what was incredible turned routine. Bachata puts heartbreak at a distance by placing it within a neatly syncopated grid; both Shakira and Ozuna sing like they’ll get over it. JON PARELES
Caroline Polachek, ‘Sunset’
Flamenco might seem an odd sound for the avant-garde pop star Caroline Polachek to embrace — Rosalía’s influence, perhaps? — but her ever-gleaming vocals dance nimbly enough across “Sunset” to make the whole thing work. “These days I wear my body like an uninvited guest,” she sings on the verse, her fleet-footed verbosity conveying a sense of itchy anxiety. But that’s all resolved by the chorus, when Polachek’s vocal pacing suddenly slows, comforted by a romantic embrace: “He said, no regrets, ’cause you’re my sunset.” LINDSAY ZOLADZ
John Cale featuring Weyes Blood, ‘Story of Blood’
The legendary John Cale — whose crucial contributions to the development of the Velvet Underground’s sound Todd Haynes refreshingly reasserted last year in his documentary about the band — has long been a generous collaborator with younger artists at this later stage in his career. His forthcoming album “Mercy,” his first collection of new songs in a decade, continues that pattern, featuring contributions from Animal Collective, Sylvan Esso and Laurel Halo. The haunting “Story of Blood,” the first offering from “Mercy,” features bewitching vocals from the indie luminary Natalie Mering, who records as Weyes Blood. Across a patiently paced seven-minute reverie of synth chords and skittish electronic beats, their voices entwine balletically, as if locked in some kind of otherworldly dance. ZOLADZ
NxWorries featuring H.E.R., ‘Where I Go’
Anderson .Paak brings the plush nostalgia of Silk Sonic, his Grammy-winning alliance with Bruno Mars, back to an earlier collaboration: Nxworries, his project with the producer Knxledge, which released an album in 2016. In “Where I Go,” Anderson .Paak professes love, generosity and regrets for past affairs. But H.E.R. sings about lingering suspicions and, in the video, finds solid evidence; neither his blandishments nor the purr of an electric sitar can smooth things over. PARELES
Kelela, ‘Happy Ending’
After a long absence, Kelela wafted back into public earshot with the abstract “Washed Away.” Now, she embraces the beat with telling ambivalence in “Happy Ending.” A double time breakbeat churns far below a vocal that starts out barely paying attention to the underlying propulsion. But as Kelela finds herself in a club and spots her ex, she latches onto the beat: “I won’t chase you but it’s not over,” she sings. “If you don’t run away, could be a happy ending after all.” Then they’re dancing together, and intertwined in a kiss. But the beat falls away, and the song leaves the situation entirely in suspense. PARELES
iLe, ‘(Escapándome) de Mí’
Romance is often toxic in the songs on “Nacarile,” the new album by the Puerto Rican songwriter iLe. “Everything beautiful about you scares me,” she sings in “(Escapándome) de Mí” (“Escaping Myself”). “It scares me because I like it.” As the track builds around her, from a lone plucked guitar to an electronic citadel, she recognizes her own vulnerability, ponders it and takes the leap anyway. PARELES
Okay Kaya, ‘Inside of a Plum’
The serene drift of “Inside of a Plum,” from Norwegian American indie artist Okay Kaya’s forthcoming album “SAP,” was inspired by doctor-administered ketamine therapy, which is sometimes used to treat depression. That might sound heavy, but Kaya Wilkins’s characteristically wry approach gives the song an alluring weightlessness and even a sense of humor. There’s an amusing mundanity to the way she describes the procedure (“in a building. in an office, in a chair under a weighted blanket”) and then a vivid psychedelia once her trip begins. Amid floating strings, Wilkins murmurs the song’s indelibly descriptive hook: “Now I’m scuba diving in space.” ZOLADZ
Hagop Tchaparian, ‘Right to Riot’
Hagop Tchaparian is a British-Armenian musician whose tastes have led him from playing guitar in the grungy 1990s band Symposium to the electronic music on his new album, “Bolts.” Through the years, Tchaparian has also gathered recordings of performances — live and in video clips — of Armenian and Middle Eastern music and gatherings. The first sounds that leap out of “Right to Riot” are traditional: an aggressive six-beat drum pattern and the nasal, biting snarl of what Armenians call the zurna, a double-reed instrument used under various names across the Balkans, the Middle East, northern Africa and western Asia. Programmed beats, synthesizer swoops, bass drones and layers of percussion only make the track bristle more intensely. PARELES
Source: Music - nytimes.com
