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    6 New Songs You Should Hear Now

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    Listen to recent highlights from Foo Fighters, Avalon Emerson, Q and more.On June 2, Foo Fighters will release “But Here We Are,” their first album since the untimely death of the drummer Taylor Hawkins,Leo Correa/Associated PressDear listeners,Avid Amplifier readers know that each Friday, the Times pop critics put together a selection of our favorite new songs in a feature called the Playlist, and now I am delivering a digest version right to your inbox. No more excuses that you don’t have time to keep up with new music anymore; I’ve got you covered.This mix is probably a combination of some names you know — Jessie Ware, Foo Fighters — and, ideally, a few that you don’t. It gets off to an upbeat start, drifts into some luminous ambience with a wordless, eight-minute Four Tet song, and then ends up somewhere right between those two extremes, with some soothing, synth-driven melodies from Avalon Emerson and Christine and the Queens.I field-tested this playlist while doing chores in my apartment and found it to run the exact length of time it took me to fold a load of wash and put on a fresh duvet cover. Its final moments were an adequate soundtrack for that blissful moment of relief and deep-seated pride when I turned the duvet cover inside out and realized that I had, indeed, put it on correctly. I am unstoppable.Listen along here on Spotify as you read.1. Q: “SOW”I must tip my hat (that I am not wearing) to Jon Pareles for introducing me to this moody number from the profoundly difficult-to-Google R&B artist Q. The son of the Jamaican dance hall producer Stephen (Lenky) Marsden (who is responsible for the Diwali Riddim that was ubiquitous in the early-to-mid aughts), Q Marsden makes music that, in Pareles’s words, echoes “the introspective-verging-on-depressive sides of Phil Collins, Prince and Michael Jackson.” Similarly, on “SOW,” I hear the faintest tinge of Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” (certified banger) updated for the age of the Weeknd. (Listen on YouTube)2. Jessie Ware: “Freak Me Now”It takes a special musician to suddenly kick things into a higher gear about a decade into her recording career, but on her 2020 neo-disco breakthrough “What’s Your Pleasure?” the British pop singer Jessie Ware proved to be one of those rare gems. That release was going to be a tough one to follow, let alone top — and then came “That! Feels Good!,” a record of such effervescent joy that even its punctuation makes me grin. This new album continues her streak of lovingly detailed, sumptuously atmospheric dance music, but it’s not just “What’s Your Pleasure? II.” Ware’s fifth album has a vampy sonic ’tude all its own (cut through with a hint of new-wave sass) as you can hear on the electric and immaculately titled dance floor anthem “Freak Me Now.” (Listen on YouTube)3. Foo Fighters: “Rescued”A good Foo Fighters song makes me want to give Dave Grohl a lozenge. Or maybe I shouldn’t, because there’s something distinctly powerful (… Grohlian?) about the way he can sound like he’s shredding his vocal cords beyond repair while still staying effortlessly in tune. I do not know how he does it, but it sounds very cool. On June 2, Foo Fighters will release “But Here We Are,” their first album since the untimely death of the drummer Taylor Hawkins, and if the first single “Rescued” is any indication, some of these songs are going to be about processing that tragedy, and at least one of them is going to make me cry. (Listen on YouTube)4. Four Tet: “Three Drums”Kieran Hebden, the British electronic musician who records as Four Tet, has been a known quantity in the relatively niche world of underground dance music for the past two decades, but he’s recently been getting some mainstream attention thanks to his appearances D.J.ing with the somewhat strange bedfellows Fred again.. and Skrillex. (The Three Caballeros of EDM? The Haim of EDM? I’m still workshopping a nickname.) The meditative “Three Drums” is proof that he’s not going pop just yet, though: The song contrasts live-sounding percussion with glowing gradients of synth sounds that unfurl like a sunrise. It’s bliss. (Listen on YouTube)5. Avalon Emerson: “Entombed in Ice”Avalon Emerson is known primarily as a techno D.J., but you wouldn’t guess that from listening to the serene and glacial “Entombed in Ice,” from her new album “& the Charm.” In some sense, she’s reinventing herself as a dream-pop singer-songwriter, but even her D.J. mixes had a kind of smeary intimacy that carries over into this latest release. I like the way she layers her murmured vocals, giving off the impression that the listener is eavesdropping on a conversation she’s having with herself. (Listen on YouTube)6. Christine and the Queens featuring 070 Shake: “True Love”“True Love,” from the French singer-songwriter Christine and the Queens, is a skeletally arranged low-burner, but it suddenly bursts forth with melodramatic pathos as Chris shifts into a sublime hook. “Angel of light, take me higher,” he sings in a trembling voice. “You’re making me forget my mother.” Not to leave you with a cliffhanger, but that’s a decently foreshadowing hint about the theme of Friday’s playlist. Till then! (Listen on YouTube)I always feel like somebody’s watching me,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“6 New Songs You Should Hear Now” track listTrack 1: Q, “SOW”Track 2: Jessie Ware, “Freak Me Now”Track 3: Foo Fighters, “Rescued”Track 4: Four Tet, “Three Drums”Track 5: Avalon Emerson, “Entombed in Ice”Track 6: Christine and the Queens featuring 070 Shake, “True Love” More

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      Bush Tetras’ Defiant Return, and 10 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Bethany Cosentino, Avalon Emerson, Q and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. 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, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Bush Tetras, ‘Things I Put Together’Jagged, funky and scrappy, Bush Tetras emerged in 1979 as a quintessential Lower East Side post-punk band. They found a new round of respect with a 2021 retrospective, “Rhythm and Paranoia.” Its surviving founders, the singer Cynthia Sley and the guitarist Pat Place, have regrouped the band — joined by Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth on drums and production — for its first album since 2012, which is due in July. “Things I Put Together” reclaims Bush Tetras’ muscle, dissonance and die-hard contrarianism: “Still I won’t keep those things I put together,” Sley declares, going on to insist, “No never!” JON PARELESBethany Cosentino, ‘It’s Fine’It was a week of good news and bad news for Best Coast fans. First, the bad: the breezy indie-pop group’s longtime frontwoman Bethany Cosentino announced that the band (which is basically a two-person collaboration with the multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno) was going on an indefinite hiatus. But Cosentino also revealed she is releasing her first solo album, “Natural Disaster,” on July 28. The debut single, the light and lilting “It’s Fine,” has the gentle twang of midcareer Sheryl Crow and the bright gloss of Liz Phair’s pop era. “I am evolved, you’ve stayed the same,” Cosentino sings to someone who’s not moving forwards at the same pace that she is. But then with that titular shrug, on the chorus, she throws that caution to the wind. LINDSAY ZOLADZQ, ‘Sow’Q Stephen Marsden, who records and produces himself as Q, revisits broody 1980s electro pop — echoing the introspective-verging-on-depressive sides of Phil Collins, Prince and Michael Jackson — in “Sow,” a glum attempt at self-help delivered in a pleading tenor. Over pulsing minor chords, he wonders, “If I have today, should I let sorrow flow?” He urges, instead, “Gotta move on and sow your love,” as if he’s hoping to convince himself. PARELESAvalon Emerson, ‘Entombed in Ice’Avalon Emerson has established herself as a top techno D.J. But on her new album, “& the Charm,” she emerges as a singer and songwriter. Her co-producer is Bullion, who has worked with acts like Carly Rae Jepsen. “Entombed in Ice” isn’t as breezy as it sounds at first. Emerson sings about the contradictory impulses of a breakup, trying to cope with old feelings while telling herself to move on: “While one door closes another opens/There are some things you can do for yourself now.” The blippy, syncopated track merges her electronic expertise with pure pop craftsmanship, including nonsense-syllable vocal hooks. Emerson’s calm vocals and the upbeat ingenuity of the music promise to get her through any crisis. PARELESEd Sheeran, ‘Curtains’Ed Sheeran struggles with his demons on the somber but ultimately uplifting “Curtains,” the latest single from the British pop star’s new album, “–” (pronounced “Subtract”). A prickly electric guitar adds some fresh texture to the standard Sheeran sound on the song’s verses, as his relentless vocal cadence mimics the feel of racing thoughts. But a loved one steps in to offer a solution on the chorus: “That’s when you say to me, ‘Can you pull the curtains?’” Sheeran sings with newfound optimism. “‘Let me see the sunshine.’” ZOLADZDaymé Arocena, ‘Para Mover Los Pies’The title of this song translates as “To Move Your Feet,” and the horns-driven band gives it an unbeatable salsa groove rooted in Puerto Rican plena. But there’s more going on than dancing. “Para Mover Los Pies” is a song of exile: Arocena grew up in Cuba but left the island four years ago. She has happily relocated to Puerto Rico, with its own Afro-Caribbean culture, and in this song — produced by Eduardo Cabra from Calle 13 — she denounces Cuba’s dictatorship and urges Cubans to “Fight for your freedom/So that Cuba and Puerto Rico dance again.” PARELESwaterbaby, ‘911’The emergency number in Stockholm, the home of the songwriter who calls herself waterbaby, is 112. But in this drowsily understated bedroom-pop song, she clearly has an eye on an American audience: “Call me when you need someone/I could be your 911,” she sings, adding “we-ooh, we-ooh” like a two-note emergency siren. It’s a tentative, guarded offer of affection — “Maybe we could go somewhere/Maybe we could be something” — sung breathily and hesitantly, trying to keep expectations modest. PARELES​​feeo, ‘Iris’“Iris” unfolds more like a soliloquy than a song, as if it’s extrapolating from the jazziest impulses of Joni Mitchell. The lyrics speak to a longtime, distant friend, as feeo — the British songwriter Theodora Laird — ruminates on the passage of time, on feeling trapped by ambition, on fantasies of freedom and a new start. Caius Williams on acoustic bass grounds, nudges and counterpoints feeo’s voice; electronics and backup vocals materialize and vanish. It’s a complex composition that feels completely impulsive and open-ended. PARELESOlof Dreijer & Mount Sims, ‘Hybrid Fruit’Olof Dreijer, from the Knife, has found a new sound source: the steel drum, that remarkable percussion instrument that can also play and sustain melodies. Dreijer and a fellow electronic musician, Mount Sims, have collaborated on an album built from naturalistic and manipulated steel drum playing. “Hybrid Fruit” runs a leisurely 8:10 at a steady, insistent pace. Four-note and eight-note motifs appear, repeat and fall away; low chords and high countermelodies start to well up about halfway through, enfolded in turn by minimalistic, staccato, tuneful steel drum patterns. The track is cunningly repetitive even as it keeps changing. PARELESclaire rousay & Helena Deland, ‘Deceiver’Helena Deland and claire rousay are both fond of quiet, hazy soundscapes, and their collaboration, “Deceiver,” mixes the folky and the nebulous. It’s an acoustic-guitar ballad swathed in vocal harmonies and distant, edgeless, quasi-orchestral chords. And its seeming serenity belies lyrics about a lover’s quarrel that doesn’t clear the air. “I’m spending my time trying to convince you to believe me,” Deland sings. “You don’t believe me.” PARELESJFDR, ‘Sideways Moon’“Museum,” the new album by JFDR — the Icelandic songwriter Jofriour Akadottir — is full of ghostly waltzes, none of them more eerie and vulnerable than “Sideways Moon.” It’s a breathy, tremulous look back at a heartbreak: “Will you know I’m sorry taking what I took?/Will you know I truly gave you all I got?” The quiet piano lullaby at the core of the song is enveloped, almost buffeted, by echoes, electronic orchestrations and vocal apparitions, conjuring the larger feelings JFDR can’t yet control. PARELES More

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      Billie Eilish’s Portrait of Power Abuse, and 11 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Willow featuring Travis Barker, girl in red, DJ Khaled featuring Cardi B, 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.Billie Eilish, ‘Your Power’Cozy, pristine, Laurel Canyon-style acoustic guitars accompany Billie Eilish as she whisper-sings “Try not to abuse your power.” Then she proceeds to sketch a creepy, controlling, exploitative and possibly illegal relationship. The quietly damning accusations pile up: “You said she thought she was your age/How dare you?” Meanwhile, in the video that she directed, an anaconda slowly tightens around her. JON PARELESWillow featuring Travis Barker, ‘Transparentsoul’The return of Willow — daughter of Will and Jada — is brisk, breezy pop-punk throbbing with a very particular sort of famous-child agonizing. She lashes out at deceptive former friends (and maybe some current ones, too) who “smile in my face then put your cig out on my back.” JON CARAMANICAgirl in red, ‘Serotonin’Whatever slams, girl in red — the Norwegian songwriter Marie Ulven — can use it. In “Serotonin,” from her new album “If I Could Make It Go Quiet,” she sings about trying to stabilize her wildly whipsawing, self-destructive emotions with therapy and medications: “Can’t hide from the corners of my mind/I’m terrified of what’s inside,” she announces. The music veers from punk-pop guitars to EDM crescendos and bass drops, from distorted rapping to ringing choruses, only to crumble as it ends. PARELESDJ Khaled featuring Cardi B, ‘Big Paper’It is perhaps the strongest testament to the A&R savvy of DJ Khaled that on an album filled with glossy cameos from Megan Thee Stallion and Lil Baby, and contemplative elder moments from Nas and Jay-Z, he opts to include the endlessly charismatic and exceedingly famous Cardi B on “Big Paper,” a song that sounds like she’s rapping on an old D.I.T.C. beat. It’s relentless, sharp-tongued and slick: “House with the palm trees for all the times I was shaded.” CARAMANICAQ, ‘If You Care’The power of “If You Care” isn’t in the conventional come-on of lyrics like “If you care you’ll come a little closer.” It’s in the persistent rhythmic displacement, top to bottom: the way beat, bass line, vocals and rhythm guitar each suggest a different downbeat, enforcing disorientation from the bottom up. They only align when the vocals turn to rapping at the end; it had to finish somewhere. PARELESPriscilla Block, ‘Sad Girls Do Sad Things’If you didn’t know better, you’d think the young country singer Priscilla Block was perennially gloomy, the sum of one bad decision after the next. That’s the mood on her impressive debut EP, which is sturdy, shamelessly pop-minded and full of songs about regret like “Sad Girls Do Sad Things”:Don’t get me wrong, I love a beer on a FridayBut lately I’ve been at the bar more than my placeAnother round of shutting it downTwo-for-ones ’til too far goneBlock has a crisp and expressive voice, and she telegraphs anguish well. But this EP skips over the rowdy cheer and randy winks of her breakthrough single, “Thick Thighs.” Which is to say, there’s more to Block’s story than heartbreak. CARAMANICABrye, ‘I’d Rather Be Alone’The teenage pop songwriter and producer Brye Sebring lilts through the wreckage of an overlong relationship in “I’d Rather Be Alone.” Everything is crisp: her diction, her rhymes and the pinging syncopations of an arrangement that builds from single keyboard tones through percussion and handclaps to teasing back-and-forth harmonies. “I doubt you’ll even bother listening to this song,” she notes, one more good reason to break free. PARELESHalf Waif, ‘Swimmer’The drama never stops building in “Swimmer,” from the coming album “Mythopoetics” by Half Waif: the electronics-driven songwriter Nandi Rose Plunkett. It’s a song about everlasting love — “they can’t take this away from me,” she vows — that evolves from an anxious rhythmic pulse to a chordal anthem, all larger than life. PARELESChristian McBride, ‘Brouhaha’The eminent bassist Christian McBride has just released “The Q Sessions,” a three-song collection that he recorded in high-definition for Qobuz, an audiophile streaming platform. The EP features three top-flight improvising musicians who, like McBride, tend to play their instruments in hi-def already: the saxophonist Marcus Strickland, the guitarist Mike Stern and the drummer Eric Harland. The group chases McBride’s syncopated bass line through the ever-shifting funk of “Brouhaha,” which he clearly wrote with Stern — and his roots on the frisky 1980s fusion scene — in mind. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOJen Shyu and Jade Tongue, ‘Living’s a Gift — Part 2: Everything for Granted’The singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu draws on jazz, Asian music and much more. Her new album, “Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses,” reflects on loss, memory and perseverance. It opens with “Living’s a Gift,” a suite of songs using lyrics written by middle schoolers during the pandemic: “We’ve lost our minds, lost our time to shine.” The music is ingenious and resilient; leading her jazzy quintet, Jade Tongue, Shyu multitracks her voice into a frisky, intricately contrapuntal choir, folding together angular phrases as neatly as origami. PARELESBurial, ‘Space Cadet’The elusive English electronic producer Burial has re-emerged yet again, splitting a four-track EP, “Shock Power of Love,” with the producer Blackdown. “Space Cadet” hints at post-pandemic optimism — a brisk club beat, arpeggiators pumping out major chords, voices urging “take me higher” — but Burial shrouds it all in static and echoey murk, letting the beat collapse repeatedly, until the track falls back into emptiness. PARELESSofía Rei, ‘La Otra’As she prepared to make her forthcoming album, “Umbral,” Sofía Rei embarked upon a trek through Chile’s mountainous Elqui Province. She brought a charango and two backpacks full of recording gear; on the trip, she recorded herself playing and singing, as well as the babbling sounds of the natural world around her. The album begins with “La Otra,” out Friday as a single, on which Rei sets a poem by the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral to music. Flutes flutter over ricocheting synth bass, a stop-and-start beat and strummed charango, as Rei’s overdubbed voice harmonizes with itself in fierce exclamations, lapping at the sky like a flame. RUSSONELLO More