Every week the Stereogum staff chooses the five best new songs of the week. The eligibility period begins and ends Thursdays right before midnight. You can hear this week’s picks below and on Stereogum’s Favorite New Music Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly. (An expanded playlist of our new music picks is available to members on Spotify and Apple Music, updated throughout the week.)
Now, Now - "Talk To God"
“We aren’t the type of band that can just churn things out for the sake of churning them out,” Brad Hale says about Now, Now's first new music since 2019. The result of that patience is music that's worthwhile. The 01 EP starts off strong with the absolutely arresting earworm "Talk To God," which addictively mixes self-flagellation with gauzy guitars. It's a self-destructive daydream that encapsulates the pleasure that can come from digging your own grave. —Danielle
Navy Blue - "Orchards"
On "Orchards," life unfolds itself before Navy Blue. The LA multi-hyphenate takes in its expanse with ease, revealing rhymes as balanced as his outlook on life. He embraces life’s lush offerings alongside its barren stretches: “Find beauty in the darkness that we battling,” “In the wake of what I lost, fell asleep to live a dream of mine,” or “Life’s tapestry is tattering/ Find beauty in the darkness that we battling.” Child Actor’s production featuring violin filigrees, vocal halos, and tender piano trickles, elevates Sage Elsesser’s reflections towards something sublime. —Margaret
DITZ - "Don Enzo Magic Carpet Salesman"
Per vocalist C.A. Francis, DITZ's new nine-minute song "reflects my frustration with AI art - the first part reacting to the issue, the second written from the AI’s perspective, and the final section representing the last gasp of real art before being overwhelmed by artificial output." It's fitting that "Don Enzo Magic Carpet Salesman" is so epic and unpredictable. It's pleasingly bizarre, but not in that uncanny way we've come to expect from the machines. It's exactly the sort of track that only human beings could come up with. —Chris
Ratboys - "Anywhere"
"A big, overarching theme of this record is my attempt to document my experience being estranged from a close loved one,” Julia Steiner explains of her band Ratboys' forthcoming album Singin’ To An Empty Chair. That anticipatory anxiety of feeling somebody start to slip away is channeled into amped-up riffs on lead single "Anywhere": "I’m going anywhere that you’re going," Steiner repeats on the chorus, and it seems like that sentiment isn't really being reciprocated. And if that seems a little clingy, it's because "Anywhere" was also inspired by guitarist Dave Sagan's family dog, whose "whole world just falls apart" when his loved ones leave the room. For the similarly anxiously attached, a big part of healing is getting comfortable with uncertainty, and learning where not to blindly follow. —Abby
Rosalía - "Berghain" (Feat. Björk & Yves Tumor)
She's going for it. This is not a surprise. Rosalía has never not gone for it. But it's a little bit of a surprise because she's never gone for it like this. After exploring different ideas of pop intensity on Motomami, Rosalía is now proceeding directly into the realm of high-concept art-pop, and she's bringing the same sense of dramatic, open-hearted possibility. Everything about this song is a signal -- the berserker string section, the choir going crazy like it's The Omen, the howling and unmistakable presence of Björk. Amidst this auteurist chaos, Rosalía herself comes in flipping and diving like a balletic acrobat, conveying passionate need with theatrical grace. It's a thrilling left turn that promises wonderfully bizarre things ahead. —Tom
