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.)
Jane Paknia - "Waiting pt 1"
There's something particularly stirring about complex time signatures. Think of songs like "Paranoid Android" and "Here Comes The Sun" — no matter how many times you've heard them, you might still get that peculiar feeling that a beat is missing and the song is skipping ahead, pushing you forward. That's also the case with New York-based composer and electronic musician Jane Paknia's new single “Waiting pt 1,” which, in spite of its name, feels like a bit of a rush. There's an antsy, nervous energy to the low-key house tune, maybe due in part to the conditions under which it was written: Paknia had just moved back home so she could focus on pursuing music, and watching the days pass as she anticipated her own "big break" became agonizing. At once contemplative and danceable, "Waiting" is a subtle jolt for when life feels a bit too stagnant. —Abby
Goon - "Closer To"
Imagine Elliott Smith fronting a chilled-out psych band with downtempo electronic tendencies, and you'd be getting somewhere close to "Closer To." The lead single from Goon's new album builds steadily, Kenny Becker's angelic whispers backed by crystalline guitars and increasingly chaotic clouds of warped harmony, Andy Polito's drums growing increasingly frenetic — and then it falls off a cliff, morphs into some kind of loopy Elephant 6 trip-hop specter, and drifts off into the ether. Becker's lyrics are as surreal as the music, but if the words' precise meaning is elusive or nonexistent, the music communicates wondrous things. —Chris
Artificial Go - "Circles"
Musical Chairs is a great name for an album, and Artificial Go deliver on that fun promise on the lead single “Circles,” a playful, simple ditty with theatrical vocals and a quick rhythm, reminiscent of early Wire. Hailing from Cincinnati yet sounding very British, Artificial Go’s Angie Willcutt sings of chasing her tail in circles and compares herself to a chihuahua, beagle, husky, pomeranian, and many other dog breeds, perhaps most notably: “Eating couches like a Dalmatian.” I would like to play musical chairs to this song. —Danielle
Stay Inside - "Monsieur Hawkweed"
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think the best of the original emo bands were trying to sound like emo bands. They didn't like being called emo, and they weren't necessarily trying to fit into a premade box. Instead, they used what they had at their disposal to get shit off their chests, and that effort, combined with specific social situations and influences and resources, created a blueprint that future generations of bands would follow. I hear some of that same heedless drive in "Monsieur Hawkweed." I hear a band that's less interested in occupying an established lane, more interested in passionately wrapping their arms around the world. When the harmonies soar up and the fuzzy guitars slash downward and the twangy howls end in group-chant exclamations, they zoom past category, into pure expression. It's so exciting! —Tom
caroline - "Tell Me I Never Knew That" (Feat. Caroline Polachek)
It's a cute idea that could've been nothing more than a cute idea -- caroline and Caroline, together at last. Instead. it's so much bigger than that. Caroline Polachek sounds utterly at home in the context of carolines' rich, textured strums and chimes, and her airy, unreal voice deepens and enriches a fluttering soundscape that was probably already plenty deep and rich to begin with. She sounds like she's always been a part of what they're doing, like she always will be. Maybe she should be! The delirious beauty of this song is the sort of thing that these two parties probably could've never found on their own, and it makes perfect intuitive sense. Has a cute same-name gimmick ever turned into something like this before? —Tom
