The whole new Two Shell EP is a blast, but “love him” is the track they released a day before the rest of lil spirits, putting it within our window of eligibility. The song squiggles and skitters and beeps and boops with hyperactive energy, but the anonymous production duo maintain an impeccable grip on such slippery music, wielding their array of tiny moving parts in ways that move limbs, tingle spines, and scramble brains. This thing spins and effervescently spins, but never out of control. —Chris

Max Levy, leader of the Brighton indie-pop band Garden Centre, sings in a lightly unhinged nasal bleat — half twee, half genuinely freaked-out. His subject matter matches the delivery: “One evening in the bedroom of a friend, you showed me a hidden world.” Levy keeps his lyrics a little elusive, but his narrator seems to be a kid discovering the wonders and terrors of the internet’s dark side: “This is not the first time porno watching with Finn Bibby in his mother’s study/ Ice cube slowly melting, watching a beheading.” There’s terror and excitement in Levy’s voice, and the music reflects that feeling with a chipper synth-bounce that, in the right light, can sound oddly malevolent. It’s weird to hear a song this catchy that evokes such a contemporary form of brain-warp. —Tom

Per Fly Anakin, this is “a theme song for outsidigan’s. The ones that are outside even when they wanna go home.” Yet the zonked Quiet Storm production feels like Foisey taking us ever deeper into woozy, intoxicated media saturation. That’s the vibe on these Skinemaxxx (Side A) tracks, a sort of dazed, floaty, junk-strewn headspace in which Anakin can talk his shit — in this case, about holding it down as one of the best, most prolific forces in underground rap, even when doing so is extremely unglamorous. “Yeah yo, they love me from coast to coast/ Still letting me fly coach, but it doesn’t matter I/ Still go.”

I imagine being a touring musician involves some whiplash. Load in, play, load out, drive in van to next venue, rinse, repeat. That’s the time loop Scowl experience on their energy-packed single “Opening Night,” which proudly has its influences on display. Their hard-charging guitar mirrors Veni Vidi Vicious Hives, and singer Kat Moss performs like a cross between Hayley Williams, the Donnas, Debbie Harry, and Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist. Taken together, Scowl’s presentation is both tight and chaotic, and the midcentury-aesthetic music video ties everything together with the band in crisp suits and mussed, sweaty hair. (Then there’s Moss, in a clean-cut ’60s shift dress, which contrasts with a full-on bloody nose.) Even if “Opening Night” is meant to address the turbulent hamster-wheel feeling of playing live, there’s no question that Scowl show their audience a great time. —Rachel

The album’s first single is its final track, its epic closer. How often does that happen? How confident do you have to be to even attempt that? “Younger & Dumber,” our first taste of Indigo De Souza’s forthcoming All Of This Will End, is a stark departure from the playful Auto-Tune melodies and synth-whirrs of her older work. It’s the right kind of departure. “Younger & Dumber” is a gut-wrenching bittersweet monster ballad about missing your younger self and knowing all the trauma that the kid has ahead of them. The song builds with a gradual assurance, De Souza singing in a wounded sigh as pedal steels and humming guitar fuzz build up behind her, lifting and encircling her. You have to be confident to make something this vulnerable, and maybe that same confidence could lead someone to drop this stunner before the rest of the album. After this, what else could she even do? How many more ways could she wreck your soul? —Tom