10 New Songs to Listen to Today

There’s so much music coming out all the time that it’s hard to keep track. On those days when the influx of new tracks is particularly overwhelming, we sift through the noise to bring you a curated list of the most interesting new releases (the best of which will be added to our Best New Songs playlist). Below, check out our track roundup for Tuesday, January 7, 2025.

Japanese Breakfast – ‘Orlando in Love’

It’s hard to believe it’s been four years since Japanese Breakfast’s last album, Jubilee, and if the title of its just-announced follow-up is any indication, the mood has shifted. For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) is led by the single ‘Orlando in Love’, which riffs on John Cheever’s riff on ‘Orlando Innamorato, an unfinished epic composed of 68 ½ cantos by the Renaissance poet Matteo Maria Boiardo where “the hero is a well-meaning poet who parks his Winnebago by the sea and falls victim to a siren’s call.” More than just pensive and lush, it’s curiously regal, but Michelle Zauner’s knack for melody and storytelling remains intact.

Mogwai – ‘Fanzine made of flesh’

‘Fanzine made of flesh’ is the latest single from Mogwai’s upcoming album The Bad Fire, which comes out later this week. Its heavy use of vocoder might strike you off guard upon first listen, but that doesn’t make it sound any less epic, especially when the climax comes around. “‘Fanzine Made of Flesh’ was written in Brooklyn when I was staying at Alex Kapranos’s house in autumn 2023,” guitarist Stuart Braithwaite explained. “In my head it sounds like a cross between ABBA, Swervedriver, and Kraftwerk, though that might be ludicrous. It originally has a straight vocal but we ended up vocoding it on the last day of recording. It’s pretty different and I’m really happy with how it turned out.”

Deep Sea Diver – ‘Shovel’

Seattle’s Deep Sea Diver announced their first album for Sub Pop, Billboard Heart, and its lead single is both stirring and buoyant. In a press release, bandleader Jessica Dobson called it “one of the most angular and dualistic songs I’ve written.”

Bonnie “Prince” Billy feat. John Anderson – ‘Downstream’

Country legend John Anderson joins Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy on ‘Downstream’, a tender, poignant single from his forthcoming album The Purple Bird. “One of my favorite recorded John Anderson performances is a duet he sang with Merle Haggard called ‘The Winds of Change’ on Merle’s 1996 record,” Will Oldham said in a statement about the duet. “It’s a minor-key ballad about climate change and over-development, the compromise of our environment’s integrity at the hands of humans. ‘Downstream’, though in a major key, hits on the same ideas. I don’t know how to explain how it felt to witness this master of song bring, beautifully and humbly, his experience and expertise to bear on this little recording we were making. Anderson’s singing on the final verse has weight in it, and concern, and love.”

Cloakroom – ‘Bad Larry’

Back in October, we shared ‘Unbelonging’, Indiana outfit Cloakroom’s debut single for Closed Casket Activities. Now, they’ve announced that the song will appear on a new LP, Last Leg of the Human Table, along with the just-unveiled ‘Bad Larry’, a radiant piece of cosmic country. “It was written about a fabled character out of folklore like ‘Diamond Joe’ composed by Baldwin ‘Butch’ Hawes,” lyricist and guitarist Doyle Martin explained, “if that’s who even wrote that song first. Bad Larry roams free and wants for nothing; living a life of experience and lives by his own rules and dying on his own terms; a life to vilify or envy.”

Skeleten – ‘Let It Grow’

Skeleten, the project of Eora/Sydney-based artist Russell Fitzgibbon, has put out another single from his upcoming full-length Mentalized. “‘Let It Grow’ was so natural, it just kinda started existing without me even realizing it,” Fitzgibbon said of the track, which is both chilly and inviting. “Which I guess is the whole vibe of the song. Surrender and acceptance??”

awakebutstillinbed – ‘Sovereign’

Aren’t We Amphibians, awakebutstillinbed, California Cousins, and Your Arms Are My Cocoon have joined forces for fourwaysplit, which, you guessed it, is a four-way emo/screamo split. awakebutstillinbed’s contribution, ‘Sovereign’, is pummeling and brutal.

The Mekons – ‘Mudcrawlers’

Leeds collective the Mekons have announced a new LP, Horror, their first album in five years and first for Fire Records. It arrives on April 4, and lead single ‘Mudcrawlers’ is invigorating despite its dark subject matter. The band sets up the scene in a press release: “In the dead of night a ship lays anchor at the mouth of a filthy Welsh river and unloads its human cargo onto steep banks of mud. Nineteenth Century Irish refugees arrive in Newport to escape famine at home.”

Korine – Anhedonia

Korine, the darkwave duo of Morgy Ramone and Trey Frye, have a new album on the way. A Flame in the Dark is out  March 28 via Born Losers Records, and lead single ‘Anhedonia” is infectious and propulsive.

Will Stratton – ‘Temple Bar’

‘Tempe Bar’ is the second preview of Will Stratton’s forthcoming record, Points of Origin. It’s full of personality, and the way Stratton introduces and plays around with characters reminds me of Andy Shauf. “‘Temple Bar’ is the story of some regulars at a bar in a little town on the periphery of the East Bay, a town which has historically acted as a sort of crossroads between the Bay Area and the Central Valley, sometime in the late 60’s or early 70’s,” Stratton explained. “These characters all appear as narrators on other songs on the album, including on the previous single, ‘I Found You.’ There’s Charlie, the pool shark-turned-trucker with a rough childhood; Roger, the student radical who flees to the wilderness; Lena, the painter who becomes a real estate agent; and Leonard, the one who stuck around. I tried to make the supporting instruments in this song (fiddle, pedal steel, saxophone, electric guitar) rub shoulders with one another in a way that is complementary to these adjoining stories.”