10 songs you need in your life this week

When Dijon takes aim, he never misses. His first single of 2021, “Many Times,” is the kind of song that smacks you upside the head with its sheer precision, canning a sense of dizzying in-studio alchemy rather than buffing it all away. It’s a flash in the pan that just keeps flashing. — SM

Landing somewhere between The Internet and Connan Mockasin is “Groove Theory,” the new song from Orlando trio Cruza. The beat is slow and the vibe is loose but the yearning at the center of “Groove Therapy” is inescapable. Chopped and screwed to perfection, this is one to loop for hours. — DR

The pop music of Magdelena Bay feels transported from an alternate timeline’s version of the internet, where algorithms and playlists and stifling pursuits of clout don’t exist, and blog music has continued to evolve. Riding on the video game theme of its title, “You Lose!” explodes with a prism of chiptune and radio-friendly punk guitars while wispy, Grimes-adjacent vocals cast a spell as strong as a vice. This kind of online suits me much better — JD

Jersey club enchantress UNIIIQU3's new EP Heartbeats is due out later this fall. Fittingly, second single "Unavailable" reaches cardiovascular extremes, as UNIIQU3 and R3LL chase down despondent lovers with a battalion of pliable beats and not an ounce of shame. Dial tones be damned. — SM

“Hall of Mirrors”, the first single by Norwich duo Let’s Eat Grandma in three-odd years, is driving and ecstatic, pulling their penchant for destabilizing structures and melodies into a more anthemic, gleefully chintzy place. — SD

With a forthcoming project, Bicoastal, due next month, soul duo Bathe’s latest single tracks like a powerful call out to complex histories, with vocalist Devin Hobdy describing the lush, atmospheric cut as a “a therapy session with my ancestors and a love letter to the Black and brown communities that made me.” Over the song’s warm, bass guitar-led production, Hobdy pleads, “Make me your home, feed me cassava from the root, / Teach me your songs, born in the languages I never knew.” — SE

Manchester-based DJ and producer Anz throws things back to the late ‘90s with a U.K. garage heater built to evoke the packed dancefloors and fizzing champagne bottles of the era. The two step beat and chopped up vocal combine to create something of an anomaly; a nostalgic sound that somehow still feels futuristic. It’s a great exercise in both genre and longing, boding well for Anz’s upcoming EP All Hours (due October 15). — DR

The energy on “Lit,” the final track of Pa Salieu’s Afrikan Rebel EP, doesn’t feel drawn from the streets of Coventry where the rapper was born or even the airwaves of Gambia, whose sonics inspired Salieu’s new musical direction. “Lit” is a general addressing the enemy through a broadcast, never blinking as he stares down the camera; behind him, his troops chant “Everywhere that I step it a lit.” It’s not so much a battle cry as a line in the sand, and after listening, who would be stupid enough to cross it? — JD

Lifted from the deluxe version of their album Homegrown, this slinky, smooth cut is a sexy ode to setting the mood. True to form, the sister duo’s purrs, runs, harmonies seem to float over synth-heavy 80s R&B-inspired production for the perfect quiet storm flashback. — SE

One of the few live shows I’ve been to this year was Melbourne duo HTRK’s surreal, awe-inspiring outdoor show at the Malthouse this past January. I kind of recall “Sunlight Feels Like Bee Stings”, a humid highlight of the band’s new album Rhinestones, being played as dusk set in, and being totally entranced by it. But the harder I try to recall the memory, the more it feels like I totally imagined it, which would make sense too: the best HTRK songs, among which “Sunlight Feels Like Bee Stings” numbers, lodge themselves deep, playing as if recalled from some past life. — SD