Welcome to our weekly music post, where we spotlight our favorite new songs and albums. Hop in the comments and tell us: What new music are you listening to?
Hermanos Gutiérrez, “Elegantly Wasted” (feat. Leon Bridges)
“Elegantly Wasted,” a collab track between Hermanos Gutiérrez and Leon Bridges, came together after the Latin instrumental band, which consists of brothers Alejandro and Estevan Gutiérrez, opened for Bridges on a two-month U.S. tour. It’s Hermanos Gutiérrez’s first song with English lyrics, which Bridges delivers with just the right amount of heat to complement the seductive instrumentals. In a press release, the band said, “We’ve always been fans of Leon’s style and his way of approaching music. When we were in Nashville together last November, we had a window of maybe four hours before our show at the Ryman [Auditorium] that night, but managed to finish a song we’d been working on for months. Leon showed up, and he heard the track for the first time at the studio together with Dan Auerbach, the whole team of Easy Eye Sound and Leon’s crew. He took a microphone, and he just started to sing a melody over it. It sounded like an angel. We all expected him to crush it with his first note, and he did.”
Jeff Tweedy, “Out In The Dark”
To announce his fifth solo album, Twilight Override (out September 26), Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy released four new tracks: “Out In The Dark,” “One Tiny Flower,” “Stray Cats In Spain,” and “Enough.” That ambition is mirrored in the record itself, which is actually a triple album that consists of 30 songs. All four tracks are well worth a listen, but we chose to feature “Out In The Dark” specifically because of its delightful music video featuring dancer Aranivah. “Out In The Dark” is a meditation on darkness and creativity, themes which Tweedy expanded upon in a press release, saying, “When you choose to do creative things, you align yourself with something that other people call God. And when you align yourself with creation, you inherently take a side against destruction. You’re on the side of creation. And that does a lot to quell the impulse to destroy. Creativity eats darkness.”
Blood Orange, “Mind Loaded” (feat. Caroline Polachek, Lorde, and Mustafa)
Jeff Tweedy isn’t the only musician who dropped multiple tracks this week: Dev Hynes released two new songs to announce Essex Honey, the upcoming fifth album under his Blood Orange moniker. It’s been seven years since Blood Orange’s last full-length album (2018’s Negro Swan), and Hynes came back with a bang; “Mind Loaded” features vocals from Lorde, Caroline Polachek, and Mustafa. “Somewhere In Between” is the second new track, and it makes up for its lack of guest stars with a lovely bit of saxophone that kicks in about two-thirds of the way through.
Laura Jane Grace In The Trauma Tropes, Adventure Club
“I quit drinking / But I’m still swallowing,” Laura Jane Grace sings on “New Years Day,” the final pre-release single from her new album, Adventure Club. Though it is an album that explores new horizons, both musically and personally, Grace’s signature wit still shines through on every song. “You God (God’s Dick)” caused a minor uproar among conservatives, and on “Wearing Black,” she declares, “My pride’s a riot, it’s not a parade.”
Lord Huron, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1
Lord Huron takes a philosophical approach on The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1. In a press release, frontman Ben Schneider said, “What if you could choose your fate like choosing a song on a jukebox? What if your finger slipped and you got the B-side instead? What if you misunderstood the meaning of the dang song to begin with?” That creeping sense of unease pervades the whole record, particularly on “Who Laughs Last,” which features an eerie spoken-word performance from Kristen Stewart.
Alex G, Headlights
Headlights is Alex G’s 10th solo album, but he’s still pushing himself to explore new genres. This time, there’s a country-tinged feel to the record; the music video for “Afterlife” was even filmed at a line-dancing event. It’s a good sonic match for Alex G’s wistful, nostalgia-soaked lyrics. The production of Headlights is a little cleaner than any of his previous work, likely due to signing with a major label (RCA) for the first time. But at its core, Headlights still sounds like an Alex G record, which is quite an achievement for an artist who has built a career on being something of a musical shapeshifter.