A new album this week from Paul McCartney testifies to his unstoppable musicianship. The week also brings the return of the elusive electronic duo Boards of Canada with “Inferno” — their first studio album since 2013, which contemplates spirituality and eternity — and worthy releases from the rock bands Iceage and Feeble Little Horse, as well as a duo album from Renée Fleming and Béla Fleck with guests including Dolly Parton. Meanwhile, this summer promises new albums from songwriters who won’t be confined by the genre expectations of R&B. Ravyn Lenae, Syd and Willow all began their rollouts with new singles this week — and if past efforts are any guide, those singles only hint at the variety ahead. Here are some of this week’s notable new songs.
What’s New
Ariana Grande, ‘Hate That I Made You Love Me”
“Hate That I Made You Love Me” — from “Petal,” an album to be released July 31 — brings Ariana Grande back to pop after the show tunes of “Wicked.” It’s an airtight, thoroughly calculated Max Martin collaboration that aims for earworm effectiveness, with bubbling synthesizer arpeggios and a steady-trudging beat. The title spells out its blunt humble-brag; she rubs it in by adding, “I barely tried.” But she leaves open whether she’s addressing a romance or her audience, asking, “Is it really my fault you all gave me your hearts of your own accord?”
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Iceage, ‘Star’
The Danish band Iceage upholds — and smashes together — the most ambitious legacies of punk, indie-rock and post-punk on “For Love of Grace & the Hereafter,” its new album. “Star” is a dense, bristling pileup of guitars behind cryptic, cosmic lyrics. “You’ve got me dying like a star / Centuries apart, sunlike in the battered sky,” Elias Bender Ronnenfelt sings, sounding both desperate and exultant.
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Ravyn Lenae, ‘Handle’
All it takes is a particular drum sound — a compressed, popping thwack of an impact — to carry Ravyn Lenae’s new single back toward the 1980s, with Police-like guitar tones for confirmation. In “Handle” — from “Blue Island,” Lenae’s album due Aug. 7 — she warns a potential partner that “I might be more than you can handle.” The melody hops around and picks up counterpoint as Lenae mixes invitation and dare: “Only one way to find out,” she sings.
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Syd, ‘Callin’’
Unanswered calls and ignored texts only heighten Syd’s desire in “Callin’,” from her third solo album, “Beard,” due July 17. Syd — the songwriter, producer and engineer who emerged from the Odd Future collective — sets up a retro, swaying, two-chord vamp and trades vocals with Blu June from Nova Wav, her co-producers on the track. The song moves from hazy longing and drunk-dialing to impulsive action: “I’m on the way, baby,” she announces in another call that’s gone to voice mail. “You ain’t pickin’ up / I’m comin’ for your love.”
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Cornelius featuring Sean Ono Lennon, ‘Aeons’
“Aeons” unfolds like relaxed, jazzy funk in a hall of mirrors. Little riffs appear on a changing assortment of instruments, then bounce around between left and right, never predictably. It’s the latest collaboration by the Japanese producer and musician Keigo Oyamada, who records as Cornelius, and Sean Ono Lennon, who wrote and sang the lyrics. “When everything’s spinning, nothing is easy to understand,” Lennon observes, as Cornelius concocts more vertigo.
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Mexican Institute of Sound and Meridian Brothers featuring Beck: ‘Ritmo Babilonia’
Here’s a parody so convoluted that it comes out sincere. Mexican Institute of Sound and the Colombian group Meridian Brothers — native Spanish speakers — enlisted Beck, an amenable gringo, as a guest for vocals in Spanish and English, spoken and sung, on “Ritmo Babilonia” from their new collaborative album “Ruido Tovar.” That “Babylon Rhythm” is somewhere between a cumbia and a cha-cha, arranged for percussion and an assortment of dissonant, slightly de-tuned guitars and keyboards. It’s definitely danceable, but it’s also primed for multicultural discourse.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
What’s New in Instrumental Music
SML, ’Roundabouts’
SML, a group of leading Los Angeles improvisers, has multiple modes. Its 2025 album, “How You Been,” was constructed by sampling, layering and editing its jams into terse, song-length tracks. “Roundabouts” — from SML’s next album, “Spontaneous Music Live”— is the opposite: a 24-minute performance that keeps unfurling ideas and textures, seemingly evolving from within while staying in constant motion. SML works with little riffs, repeating and extrapolating and moving on — sometimes crisply layered, sometimes blurred and raucous, always intently listening to one another for the next hint of change.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
Jon Pareles, a culture correspondent for The Times, served as chief pop music critic for 37 years. He studied music, played in rock, jazz and classical groups and was a college-radio disc jockey. He was previously an editor at Rolling Stone and The Village Voice.
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