Khalid, ‘In Plain Sight’
With “In Plain Sight,” Khalid dumps a cheating boyfriend and wonders how he didn’t see it coming. While the singer moves from suspicion to ultimatum — “If you’re the type to sneak around / Just leave the keys on your way out” — the music bounces along, springy synth-pop R&B that barely contains his anger.
Dijon, ‘Another Baby!’
The songwriter and producer Dijon has been a prominent collaborator with Mk.gee, Bon Iver and Justin Bieber, abetting their experimental impulses. “Another Baby!” from his second full-length album, “Baby,” is just as bold. It’s a love song with more than a hint of Prince. Dijon gleefully proposes, “Let’s make a baby,” in an overstuffed sonic fun house, with voices and instruments constantly popping out of nowhere: wriggly synthesizers, plinking pianos, clanky percussion, all in the service of lusty commitment.
Steve Lacy, ‘Nice Shoes’
The songwriter, producer and one-man studio band Steve Lacy emerged from the 2010s group called the Internet to make loose-limbed, low-fi, singsong tracks like his 2022 TikTok blockbuster, “Bad Habit.” In “Nice Shoes,” his first new song since 2022, he sets up a loop with a breakbeat, three chords, a child’s shout and a stratospheric keyboard hook. He starts out singing about idle lust, but then swerves into a slow-groove, vocal-harmony invitation to “let down your guard and be honest.” Then he brings back a noisily distorted version of the loop and a suddenly desperate plea: “Make it stop!” Those non sequiturs aren’t so casual after all.
T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, ‘Trop Parler, C’est Maladie’
In the 1970s, T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo — a band from Benin that mingled highife, rumba, funk, psychedelia and far more — recorded a trove of albums that were only released locally. Now the label Acid Jazz UK is releasing them, and they’re a joy, with songs that run the length of an LP side and could easily have gone longer. “Trop Parler, C’est Maladie” (“Talking Too Much Is a Disease”) is a breezy, upbeat tune with a mesh of guitars that looks toward both Congolese pop and psychedelia; it stays airborne for 16 minutes.
Jay Som and Mini Trees, ‘Cards on the Table’
Jay Som (Melina Duterte) sings about an eroding friendship, or perhaps a romance, in “Cards on the Table.” The track places a wistful, breathy melody atop a nervous electronic pulse, while backup vocal harmonies — from Duterte and Mini Trees (Lexi Vega) — billow behind her like chemtrails. In a few verses, the singer moves from hunch — “You give just enough to keep me around” — to certainty: “Say it: You let me down,” she realizes.
Hannah Frances, ‘Surviving You’
In “Surviving You,” Hannah Frances sings that she’s “Smoldering as the rage lingers longer / There’s nothing more to give toward forgiveness.” A 5/4 beat creates a heaving momentum that’s compounded with layered, staggered vocals and a pileup of guitars, reed instruments and feedback. Even as she furiously breaks away, she admits to a contrary pull; the song’s final lyric is a repeated word: “homesick.”
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