10 songs you need in your life this week

One of the biggest, most distinctive joys of footwork is its kick rhythms, those titanic thumps that beat like a freshly defibrillated heart. These drum sounds are frequently employed by Jessy Lanza in her voyages around the stranger echelons of electronic pop music, but they don’t usually create the delicious tension heard on “Seven 55.” It’s all push and pull between the crystalline melodies and lead-dense drums; despite all the moments of clear beauty, a tailspin of anxiety is never too far off. — Jordan Darville

Ahead of the release of serpentwithfeet's Deacon’s Grove EP, the tender and whimsical “Fellowship,” from March's DEACON, gets a remix featuring Ambré and Alex Isley. Over airy production and rippling drums, the trio basks in the warm glow of friendship. Their voices create a heavenly layered harmony on the chorus as they coo in unison. “The warmest smile when you meet me / Kindest words when you greet me,” Alex Isley beams. — Brandon Callender

Three years after releasing their stellar last record Room Inside the World, Montreal post-punk band Ought announced today that they're officially calling it quits. On the flipside, half of them — Ben Stidworthy and Tim Darcy — have teamed with U.S. Girls’ drummer Evan Cartwright to form Cola, a new three-piece. First to bat from their forthcoming debut LP is “Blank Curtain,” a song that seemingly alludes to the myriad of possibilities the band now faces, stacked with oblique imagery and tethered to a driving groove. — Salvatore Maicki

When I first read the title of KAINA’s new song, it sounded like really bad advice, the kind a miserable married parent would tell their child who’s on the verge of ending a relationship that, on the surface, should be great. But the song is in fact a rejection of toxicity as strong and elegant as the orchestral flourishes that dot KAINA’s satin-textured soul single. The song’s cinematic quirks reflect the overriding message of the song: love every part of yourself first, and the world opens up to you. — JD

Over the summer, Conan Gray shared “People Watching,” a ballad drenched in yearning with soaring vocals placed over a simple piano melody. Now fall is here and the 22-year-old singer and songwriter is switching up the tone with a striking new electro-pop single “Telepath.” Gone is the yearning observer watching everyone else’s love story play out –– he’s been replaced by the fed up Gray who’s seen enough of someone’s toxic behaviors to know how they’ll play out again in the future. “Cause I got a feelin' / You're comin' back just like you have in the past,” he predicts. “Yeah, I got a feelin' / You'll be sendin' me trash you should’ve left in the drafts.” It doesn’t take having psychic abilities to know a snake when you see one. — Larisha Paul

You’d be hard pressed to find two drill MCs with deeper voices than London’s Abra Cadabra and Unknown T. Even in a genre that holds the guttural delivery as king, these two bring a new level of bass to proceedings. “Double Tap” leans into that energy, with both rappers trading bars and ducking an assault course of ad-libs. It’s frantic stuff and yet another example of the rude health U.K. rap finds itself in right now. — David Renshaw

Tuba player Theon Cross is an integral part of London’s thriving jazz scene and has collaborated with the likes of Little Simz and Stormzy, among others. He just dropped a new solo album, Intra-I, a project that dances across genre lines, bringing everything from spoken word to grime into his orbit with confidence. It is “Roots” I keep returning to, however. There’s an almost heavy metal quality to the sheer weight of the production while vocalist Shumba Maasai turns to the teachings of Marcus Garvey for inspiration, delivering his words with a fire in his belly. — DR

The typical Tisakorean song sounds like a dispatch beamed in from an alternate dimension where snap music kept going and progressively got weirder. Rather than leave that ethos behind, the Houston rapper’s latest project, mr.siLLyfLow, goes fully off the rails as he raps about working out his Achilles and getting shin splints over sound-bombing production. The zany “silly rabbit (bugs bunny)” makes you feel like you're running through an arcade with stars in your eyes. Tisakorean gives me hope that the Swag Era will never die. — BC

2021 has brought near-nonstop releases from indie pop duo Fly By Midnight, but their latest single –– a team up with buzzing pop singer and songwriter ELLIANA –– might be their best yet. On “Again and Again,” the trio of artists find themselves stuck in a loop of bad habits that make the red flags look green under the hue of desire. It’s the small details of the upbeat production that take the tonal reins of the track as the sleek bass soaks in the sweetness of the synths while slick ad-libs peak out from underneath. — LP

Last summer in Seoul, Yaeji and OHHYUK lifted each other out of their respective creative ruts, igniting a friendship and alchemizing a new sound. The first of their two new collaborative singles, “Year to Year,” sounds like a true breakthrough, as delicate fluttering arpeggios entwine with a hulking, buoyant bass line, a double-helix stretching out toward some cinematic observations on time and wisdom. — SM