Every week, Vulture highlights the best new music. If the song is worthy of your ears and attention, you will find it here. Read our picks below, share yours in the comments, and subscribe to the Vulture Playlist for a comprehensive guide to the year’s best music.
Syd, “Got Her Ownâ€
Warning: Do not listen to Syd’s new album Fin while operating heavy machinery,
walking in crowds, sitting at work, talking — or really doing anything you’re
not prepared to start “slow twerking†in the middle of. “Got Her Own†is like
Syd taking The-Dream’s “Fancy†back for the ladies, and it, like the rest of
her icy-cold new solo album, is too damn sexy. Dive in and prepare to never
come out again. —Jordan Crucchiola (@JorCru)
Mac DeMarco, “This Old Dogâ€
Like many of us, I’ve been in more of a Run the Jewels headspace than a Mac DeMarco one lately, my mood aligning more with the former’s Molotov cocktails than the latter’s Rolling Rock. I guess it’s unsurprising, then, that the newly released title track from DeMarco’s upcoming album, This Old Dog, finds the hip indie hero feeling worn. “Maybe sometimes my love may be put on hold,†he sings over the late-night drip of guitar swells. The track carries a weariness similar to actual old man Bob Dylan’s latest release, which is maybe unsurprising given how tiring life has been lately. Still, DeMarco does offer some hope: “This old dog ain’t about to forget / All we’ve had and all that’s next.†Sometimes dreams are put on hold, sure, but whether they’re remembered or forgotten is up to the dreamer. —Gabe Cohn
Rytmeklubben,
“Like Thatâ€
Don’t
pretend you can deny some fresh Scandinavian pop beats. Rytmeklubben is a four-piece group of club-music producers from Norway, which means when they come together as a live act
they are basically algorithmically programmed to make your body sway and your
feet happy. Do you even need to be told that they have a hypnotic female
vocalist? Of course you don’t, because you already knew it in your bones. —JC
Future Islands, “Ranâ€
After nearly three years of silence since Future Islands broke into the
mainstream with “Seasons (Waiting on You),†and its subsequent viral Letterman performance,
Samuel T. Herring & Co. are back with a new single that delivers the
type of wistful catharsis the band is so great at conjuring. Herring’s
gruff theatricality as he sings, “I can’t take it, I can’t take it / This
world without, this world without you,†sounds both stubbornly
determined and like he’s mid-sob, making “Ran†a complex salve for any
of your emotional wounds. —Samantha Rollins (@SamanthaRollins)
Dirty Projectors ft. D∆WN, “Cool Your Heartâ€
There are a lot of things to be mad about of late; this new Dirty Projectors song isn’t one of them. While the female voice is largely absent from the new Amber Coffman-less record, it’s all over “Cool Your Heart.†The song was written by Dave Longstreth and Solange on breaks from recording A Seat at the Table. It doesn’t feature Solange because she instead recommended every R&B-adjacent artist’s go-to guest vocalist, the tremendously talented D∆WN, who sings the song’s icy chorus and makes Longstreth sound cool (in every sense) by association. The song, like so much of the best Dirty Projectors work, takes Afro beats and warps them into something mesmerizingly unnatural. This is my favorite song of 2017 so far. —Dee Lockett (@Dee_Lockett)
Nick
Hakim, “Bet She Looks Like Youâ€
Imagine
yourself slow dancing at the end of a 1950s prom, or to the last song of a
summertime wedding and Nick Hakim croons, “If there’s a God, I wonder what she
looks like. I bet she looks like you.†The high heels are off by now. Paper
streamers are hanging haphazardly from the ceiling. There’s dessert and
champagne spilled a little bit everywhere and all you want to do is dance in
a slow little circle with someone. That’s “Bet She Looks Like You.†—JC
Toro Y Moi, “Omahaâ€
The new track from Toro Y Moi, released as part of the Our First 100 Days project on Bandcamp, has a distinctly ’80s vibe, with swelling synths and sparkly clean production. Equally chill is the narrator’s laid-back response to a lover leaving him, parts of which can be read like a conversation: “Who said it’s forever? / You’ve got to set your mind free / I don’t have time for this weather / I let it pour over me.†Two different perspectives that don’t go together — at least it’s an amicable separation. —GC
Goodman,
“Love Aloneâ€
Even
cads need love songs, and if you’re going to sing about being left alone at the
end of each night you might as well package it in a punchy pop-rock song. —JC