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 Thursday, May 29, 2025.
Lorde – ‘Man of the Year’
The cover art for ‘Man of the Year’, the second single from Lorde’s Virgin, is a photo of the singer’s torso, with duct tape covering her breasts. It matches the nakedness of the song itself, which starts out minimal and diffuse before carving its way to a kind of explosion. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Lorde talked about wanting to write a song that “was fully representative of how [her] gender felt in that moment,”adding, “I went to the cupboard, and I got the tape out, and I did it to myself. I have this picture staring at myself. I was blonde [at the time]. It scared me what I saw. I didn’t understand it. But I felt something bursting out of me. It was crazy. It was something jagged. There was this violence to it.” Those jagged, violent urges are, briefly yet subtly, channeled through ‘Man of the Year’.
Alex G – ‘Afterlife’
Prepare yourselves for an Alex G summer: the singer-songwriter has announced his 10th studio album and major label debut, Headlights, with the polished, banjo-driven ‘Afterlife’. “Let me run on afterlife/ Filling up the tank with it,” he sings – some way to greet death!
Bruce Springsteen – ‘Adelita’
The mariachi-assisted ‘Adelita’ is the latest preview of Bruce Springsteen’s forthcoming compilation Tracks II. An ode to Mexico’s female fighters for independence, the track is taken from Inyo, an album recorded in the 1990s that was inspired by his motorcycle trips across the Southwest.
Case Oats – ‘Bitter Root Lake’
Case Oats – the Chicago-based band comprising vocalist Gomez Walker, drummer Spencer Tweedy, guitarist Max Subar, bassist Jason Ashworth, pianist Nolan Chin, and fiddler Scott Danie – have announced their debut album. Last Missouri Exit arrives on August 22 (via Merge) and is led by ‘Bitter Root Lake’, a shimmering alt-country tune. “It was intentionally bare-bones,” Tweedy said of the recording process. “We brought just enough stuff to the basement to be able to record. We were lucky to have played a lot of shows in the months leading up to the session, so we just played like we had been playing, no preciousness.”
Africa Express – ‘Soledad’ [feat. Damon Albarn, Luisa Almaguer, Nick Zinner, Seye Adelekan, Joan as Police Woman and the Mexican Institute of Sound] and ‘Otim Hop’ with Otim Alpha, Bootie Brown, K.O.G., and Tom Excell
Africa Express have shared two new songs from their upcoming album: ‘Soledad’ and ‘Otim Hop’. The first features Damon Albarn, Luisa Almaguer, Nick Zinner, Seye Adelekan, Joan as Police Woman, and the Mexican Institute of Sound, while Otim Alpha, Bootie Brown, K.O.G., and Tom Excell join in on the latter. “Luisa possesses one of the most unique and enchanting voices I have ever heard,” Albarn commented. “It’s a real honor to accompany her on this piece of music.” The Pharcyde’s Bootie Brown said, about ‘Otim Hop’, that “listening to the stories Otim was telling made me realize that you have to adapt to struggle. And when you think you have it hard, there is someone that can top your struggle very easy…The song was created when we were just sitting around from a long day and it was time to pack to get ready for the ride to the airport. Magic man Otim had an idea and we just all came together for one last effort.”
King Isis – ‘Lately’
King Isis has shared a new single from their upcoming EP SIRENITY. The explosive ‘Lately’ was co-produced with Bartees Strange. ‘“Lately’ is a cathartic release,” the artist explained. “The recognition that perfection doesn’t exist, that I don’t want to keep going through the motions and acceding to the same things. It’s sick of the same cycles, the same people and the same responses. It’s wanting to stand up for myself, wanting to live for me, even if it defies others expectations. It’s the introduction to new worlds, and new unknowns, allowing myself the beauty of imperfection, of trial and error. That it’s okay to not be okay and try things. Its renewal and cyclic changes at the beginning of Saturn return.”
Brad Mehldau – ‘Tomorrow Tomorrow’ and ‘Better Be Quiet Now’ (Elliott Smith Covers)
Florida-born pianist and composer Brad Mehldau has announced an album of Elliott Smith covers, Ride Into the Sun, which features contributions from Daniel Rossen, singer and mandolinist Chris Thile, and drummer Matt Chamberlain. Rossen plays guitar on the newly unveiled rendition of ‘Tomorrow Tomorrow’, and Mehldau has also shared his instrumental version of ‘Better Be Quiet Now’.
NINA – ‘TWINK’
‘Twink’ is not a new single by a rising alt-pop singer called NINA. NINA is, in fact, the moniker of Nina Cristante, one third of the London trio bar italia, and her tangled, mysterious new single was co-written with Orazio Argentero.
Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer – ‘Side by Side’
Modular synthesist Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer recently announced their album Different Rooms, and today, they’ve shared ‘Side by Side’, which features hypnotic, disintegrating guitar lines by Jeff Parker. “This record marks an evolution in our approach to studio production,” the duo remarked. “Our studios are side-by-side. When we were writing this album, you might have found us tracking viola stacks in one studio while, in the other, we were writing through-composed themes and rearranging the material. Granular synthesis and tape manipulation are key tools we use to create variation and movement in a composition. This process often yields surprising results, capturing the emotion but expressing it in unexpected ways. It feels essential that we embrace a bit of chance.”
MORN – ‘Modern Man’
Speedy Wunderground is the home of ‘Modern Man’, the debut single by MORN. Composed of two sets of twins from Monmouth, South Wales, the band deliver a bracing, visceral introduction that’s also delightfully juvenile. “‘Modern Man’ came from the wild urgency of our lives,” vocalist and guitarist Oliver Riba explained. “Born from teenage riffs, shaped by laughter, anger, and fear. It’s a desperate sprint through the loneliness and madness of routine, a strange reflection on the dream of escape. It felt right that it was all captured live, and Dan Carey really brought it to life with a touch of his magic. Welcome to the world of MORN.”
Daisy the Great – ‘Bird Bones’
Brooklyn’s Daisy the Great have released ‘Bird Bones’, a tenderly poignant new single from their forthcoming LP The Rubber Teeth Talk. “Bird Bones was inspired by the loss of one of our dearest friends, Stephanie Shafir,” Mina Walker reflected. “After she passed, my room was filled with little glass dolls and clothes and drawings that she’d left for me, infused with her presence and love. Around that time, I was on a long walk next to a cemetery near my home and I saw a whole bird skeleton in the road, and it felt like another little glass doll left for me to find from Steph. I wrote this song as a comforting reminder that she will never disappear.”
Rhys Langston – ‘It Jes Grew (Right Outta Me)’
Rhys Langston has unleashed ‘It Jes Grew (Right Outta Me)’, the vigorous final single from his new record Pale Black Negative. “In the summer of 2021 I casually sat down at my Minilogue synth and found a chord patch, which brought me to a drum loop, then my acoustic guitar, electric bass, and finally a shaker,” Langston told Flood. “A few months prior I had read Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, and so when I built the song’s initial loop, the sung phrase “it jes grew” and the melodic structure of the B part of the song came out fully formed. Over the following months, trying to massage the composition, build out the intro part, and then source some samples and foley, it became, frankly, a jumbled mess. However, around a year later in 2022, I decided to sit down with the song again. Over the course of a few weeks I fine-tuned the arrangement, wrote the intro rap, and gently annoyed my friends to send me some clips of them talking about their hair. Now, in 2025, the 6:21 runtime joint arrives, an ancestrally connected piece about hair, whirling through many sonic and historical references and spaces. Somehow I found room for my voice and drew my own throughline in the continuity of Black diasporic music.”
total tommy – ‘Butterknife’
total tommy has dropped a propulsive, cathartic alt-rock tune called ‘Butterknife’. The track “was a real breakthrough songwriting moment for me – it’s about grappling with feeling selfish for pursuing what can be a really ego-driven artform at times and the strain it puts on relationships,” the artist shared. “Being a musician sometimes feels like a bit of a ‘death wish’, because it’s literally an all in, live and breathe kinda thing. I love what I do so much, and it made me realize that the moment you start sharing music with the world and it’s no longer just for yourself, you have a role to play in not just adding to the noise but doing something constructive with it. So that’s really nice to keep in mind now!”
Wylderness – ‘What Happens to the Rain’
Cardiff band Cardiff will release a new EP, Safe Mode, on June 2. Today, they’ve shared ‘What Happens to the Rain’, a familiarly dreamy tune with a particularly memorable chorus. According to a press release, it’s “about going back to where you grew up, retracing memories and finding that they don’t quite add up to how you remember them.”
NIGHT manoeuvres – ‘Genesis’
NIGHT manoeuvres – the duo of DJ/producer ABSOLUTE. and London Grammar multi-instrumentalist Dot Major – have shared their slinky debut single, ‘Genesis’, which barely passes the one-minute mark. “We knew the first time we met that our second meeting would be at the studio,” the pair said. “What we didn’t know was the immediate trust and openness there, which would take us on a musical journey to a realm neither of us had discovered before. Worlds of light and dark came together to create the start of something we’d never imagined.”
