You’re addicted to great new music. We know. Same here. But sorting through all the new tracks that hit each week is pure madness, a time-sucking aural minefield. That’s why I and Crave’s UK editor Paul Tamburro sorted through the multitudes to bring you the 7 best new tracks this week, with accompanying details. The latest batch includes new offerings from The Kills, DJ Shadow with help from Run The Jewels, SULK, Beth Orton and even CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
As always, keep up with our weekly new music finds as they arrive by subscribing to the Crave New Music Playlist on Spotify. Also check out our killer New Music mixtapes from previous weeks.
The Kills – ‘Heart of a Dog’
The Kills continue to gear up for the highly anticipated release of album Ash & Ice, the duo’s first since 2011’s Blood Pressures, by debuting “Heart of a Dog,” the heart-stomping second single to be taken from the LP.
It’s all snarling riffs and towering vocals, as you’d expect from Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince, and further evidence that the irresistible cool of their earlier output hasn’t been dampened by their brushes with tabloid newspaper headlines. Though their production values may have improved, and Beyonce collaborator Sophie Muller may have directed the video for the track, they remain unneutered in the face of their continuously rising public profiles.
– Paul Tamburro, UK Editor
theMind – ‘Pale Rose’
26-year-old Zarif Wilder is theMind, part of the Chicago production collective Them People. The Chicago collective has been involved in a slew of passion projects, including Chance the Rapper’s breakout project 10 Day.
Noisey just premiered the video for theMind’s “Pale Rose,” directed by Nathan Smith and Sebastian Sdaigui, the follow-up to his first song, “Mercury Rising.” Produced by Them People, the track premiered on BBC Radio 1 last night and is a pulsing intensity over synths and chanting vocal undercurrents, featuring mic work by Sylvie Grace & Knox Fortune.
– Johnny Firecloud, Crave Music Editor
DJ Shadow + Run The Jewels – ‘Nobody Speak’
DJ Shadow’s new song from his forthcoming album The Mountain Will Fall, a collaboration with Run The Jewels, was unveiled last weekend at Coachella to wild enthusiasm. The Mountain Will Fall will be released June 24 on Mass Appeal Records.
“Occasionally, I make a beat that demands a specific vocal treatment and attitude,” Shadow explains. “In the case of ‘Nobody Speak,’ I wasn’t going to settle for anyone other than Run The Jewels; in my mind, it was them or no one. Fortunately, they agreed, and they took the track to a place I could never get to on my own. That’s the definition of a rewarding collaboration.”
“Shadow is a legend and a friend,” El-P of Run The Jewels continues. “When he makes music he often changes music forever. When he asked us to jump on the record we didn’t blink.”
– Johnny Firecloud, Crave Music Editor
SULK – ‘Black Infinity’ (Upside Down)
Let’s immediately get the Stone Roses comparisons out of the way. Yes, London five-piece SULK are quite clearly the delayed afterbirth of Madchester, which may be off-putting for some. But look beyond the glaring obviousness of the band’s influences and you’ll find that they’re making some really good music, which is most apparent in their new track ‘Black Infinity (Upside Down).’
There is no harm in a band seemingly having been teleported from a different era, when the sound they’ve lifted from that generation is as well-honed as the opener from their latest album No Illusions. There’s a whole generation of British music fans who still outright refuse to believe that the ‘90s ever came to an end, and for them this throwback track will be Heaven sent. For the rest of us, it’s still a wonderful nod to a time when Paul Weller haircuts weren’t exclusively worn by sad dads with secret stashes of cocaine hidden in their sock drawers.
– Paul Tamburro, UK Editor
Beth Orton – ‘1973’
English singer-songwriter Beth Orton has been off the radar for quite some time now, with upcoming album Kidsticks her first new output in four years. Co-produced alongside Fuck Buttons’ Andrew Hung, the first cut from the new album suggests that her time away from the recording studio has been well spent.
‘1973,’ the first single to be taken from the LP, highlights how the Norfolk artist has firmly left her acoustic guitar in the dust, replacing it with synths in a track that’s a contagiously joyful return to her electronic roots. It’s less “folktronica,” more ‘80s-inspired glistening pop by way of Hot Chip, and all the better for it.
– Paul Tamburro, UK Editor
Edward Snowden & Jean Michel Jarre – ‘Exit’
The biggest whistleblower in the history of the world is making EDM with Jean Michel Jarre. The man who exposed the seedy secrets of U.S. government’s nefariously unconstitutional NSA surveillance program is now making electronic music. The song “Exit” will appear on French composer and electronic music pioneer Jean Michel Jarre’s new LP Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise, and features the former CIA employee urging people to protect their privacy rights. The track was completed during a clandestine meeting between the two men in Russia where Snowden remains in exile.
“Saying that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different that saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say,” Snowden says. “It’s a deeply antisocial principle because rights are not just individual, they’re collective. What may not have value to you today may have value to an entire population… If you don’t stand up for it, then who will?”
– Johnny Firecloud, Crave Music Editor
Stone Cold Fox – ‘Firing Squad’
Brooklyn’s Stone Cold Fox dish up another pop-rock gem with “Firing Squad,” premiered this week on A.V. Club. The track is an ray of earnest sunshine, a feel-good rock track that ends in a sense of exhilarated triumph. Of the song’s inspiration, vocalist-guitarist Kevin Olken Henthorn says:
“’Firing Squad’ was written in the winter of 2015 during a relatively long bout of seasonal depression. I have a super hard time with winters, especially in NYC. I pretty much walled myself up in my room and just watched movies and wrote music. So, at some point during a Woody Allen marathon, I ended up with ‘Firing Squad,’ a very slow acoustic version, all miserable and shit. And I showed it to Ariel (former member/producer of the band) and he was like, ‘Wait, why don’t we just make this faster?’ If you’ve heard the song by now, then you’ll notice it is definitely not an old sad bastard song anymore. And that’s something we do a lot in Stone Cold Fox. We take the basis of a song, the emotional fuel, and we try and flip it on its end and challenge its form. What started as a song about defeat, turned into a song about triumph in the face of defeat.”
– Johnny Firecloud, Crave Music Editor
