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.)
Perfume Genius - "No Front Teeth" (Feat. Aldous Harding)
The "No Front Teeth" video is such a bounty of surreal imagery that it almost threatens to overcome the song that it accompanies. Don't let that happen. The song is too good. Mike Hadreas and Aldous Harding are two feverishly expressive singers, and their voices wrap around each other in ways that feel effortless. "No Front Teeth" starts out with little more than those voices and some acoustic twinkles, and then it builds into a huge, crashing wave of jagged psychedelia. The "No Front Teeth" credits are full of great musicians like guitarists Blake Mills and Meg Duffy, and Hadreas conducts them like an orchestra, building to one dramatic crescendo after another. It's cinematic even without the video. —Tom
Maria Somerville - "Garden"
Is it cliché to compare any piece of reverb-soaked, barely-intelligible dream pop to Cocteau Twins? Probably. And yet, while it's unfair to hold anything to a Heaven Or Las Vegas standard, Maria Somerville manages to tap into a similar sort of celestial magic. On "Garden," the lead single to her first album for 4AD (naturally), vocal echoes and blurry guitars are grounded in a steady bassline, resulting in something like a sonic twilight. It feels like looking at the stars, in no rush to go to sleep, one of the rare moments when being awake feels sufficiently dreamy. —Abby
Wishy - “Fly”
The instant that the bongo drums come in, every other indie band needs to sit up and take notice. Wishy are among the many, many fuzzily melodic young bands currently dotting the landscape, but they refuse to fade into the background because they're just too good. In a stunningly short period of time, Wishy have lapped most of their contemporaries, and they sound like they're learning new tricks with every song. "Fly" is a hazy-strummy jam with melodies strong enough that you could imagine Sheryl Crow singing them. Wishy could turn it into a pop heatseeker, but instead they keep adding playful little touches -- a loping drum-machine beat, a scratch-and-scrawl guitar solo, those damn bongos. In no time at all, Wishy have figured out that there are no rules to this game, that they can do anything. From here, they could go anywhere. —Tom
Addison Rae - “High Fashion”
Never did I ever think I would enjoy music by TikTok star Addison Rae. Then, in December, I shared a beautiful moment with a friend doing “Diet Pepsi” karaoke in Brooklyn. It’s a great song. “Aquamarine” expanded on her sultry, dreamy sound, but “High Fashion” is true luxury. As usual, her airy soprano rightfully serves as the centerpiece. Yet there’s so much more to love: the hazy production, which feels like moving through a crowd cloaked in mist from both a fog machine and vapes; the lyrics of cigarettes between her tits; the atmospheric snaps grounding the whirlwind. It's her best yet. --Danielle
Triathalon - "RIP"
For Funeral Music, New York’s Triathalon imagined what music they’d want played at their funerals. What better than intense shoegaze? Something about fuzzy guitars can just make you think about death. This is especially true on “RIP.” The riffs are powerful and clash interestingly with Adam Intrator’s wispy deadpan. As the song builds and Intrator concludes, “And it’s over/ Really over,” it feels like they’re approaching something bigger than the band, and bigger than life itself. --Danielle
