What ever happened to quirked-up indie rock? I am nostalgic for an era of music I did not appreciate until after the fact — when weirdo bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and of Montreal were all the rage. Mediocre’s new song feels like it’s from that moment. “Fun Time Fix (We Go Go)” has layers of playful exuberance that build until it’s transformed into a full-out, unconventional dance tune. A cowbell, clapping, a xylophone dinging like a doorbell, sparkling synths, dual vocals — it’s a recipe for a banger. —Danielle

“Bikini” strikes a beautiful balance: It’s a hyperactive house track that hits like a whisper. Erika de Casier has been a key contributor for NewJeans, a group who are incorporating PinkPantheress-style wispy, microscopic Y2K-era pastiche into K-pop. Here, in tandem with regular collaborator Nick León, she glides atop the skittering beat with the soft agility of a mouse sneaking around a home. If you’d like to have a dance party with this one on the playlist, meet me at the beach. —Chris

Mark Jacob Lenderman has many gifts, and one of them is the ability, important for evasive indie rock stars, to mutter out some half-coherent images and make it sound profound. On paper, Landerman’s “Joker Lips” lyrics are a series of non-sequiturs — draining cum from hotel showers, loving your TV, “every Catholic knows he could’ve been Pope.” But when Lenderman murmurs those lines over an ecstatically bummed-out half-speed choogle, they become something else. Lenderman noodles virtuosically, and his voice sounds like it’s crushed by the weight of the world. It’s not what he says. It’s not even how he says it. It’s longing to be in on those inside jokes, wondering exactly what kind of pain they’re masking. —Tom

“In A Dream” is an existential bike ride through the void. The new song from Trace Mountains, which opens their upcoming album Into The Burning Blue, is a major departure from their previous tame, acoustic ruminations, but it sounds like an organic change, as if Dave Benton had nowhere else to go. “In A Dream” is skittish, but Benton’s delivery is detached, accustomed to the world falling apart at the seams, numb to it, because who isn’t. Despite being withdrawn, he still has some hope left as he wonders: “Can a country be good?/ Can a person learn to be a part of the world?” At almost seven and a half minutes, “In A Dream” brings you along on this emotional bike ride, meditating on this burning world that still has some innocence and love left. —Danielle

Ever since her debut album Frailty got her on our Best New Bands Of 2021 list, it’s been a treat to watch Jane Remover evolve. From anxious, lonely hyperpop to emo-tinged dream-pop, there’s always been a sense of real conviction in the 20-year-old’s music that sets her apart from similarly-online peers leaning into similar sounds — of which there are many. But “Dream Sequence” is arguably the most comfortable Jane has sounded on tape. “You’d rather live to please/ And die a virgin/ Said you wanna go see the world/ But you’re stuck at work,” she sings in the opening lines, a subtle bravado in her voice that makes those covert jabs cut like a knife. Later, she asks repeatedly: “If you could go anywhere, where would you go?” As the track’s wall-of-sound guitars and arpeggiated synths swell, “Dream Sequence” gives the impression that Jane is close to — if not exactly where — she wants to be. -Abby