5 songs you need to hear this week

Every Thursday, the Paste staff and contributors will choose their five favorite songs of the week, awarding one entry a “Song of the Week” designation. Check out last week’s roundup here.

Song of the Week: Willi Carlisle, “Mason Jar at the Center of the World”

Born “a sinner at the center of the world,” raised on Cheap Suit Serenaders and Tony Rice tapes, bred and blistered in punk bands, and stationed in the folksong of Ozark hills, Willi Carlisle writes about his home like it’s mine and yours. “Mason Jar at the Center of the World” is about a place where “comets fly” and “old dogs bark”—a place where a sip of ‘shine is like communion on a son of the soil’s tongue. Carlisle and his friends pal around a crying fiddle and a fretless banjo, in a fever that feels like, as he puts it, “getting drunk at the Civil War reenactment.” He sings like Confucius delivering an AA proverb at the top of a plateau. “Whenever you’ve gone, buddy there you are,” he says before the ‘shine jar rolls downhill like a Chef Boyardee can and lands bare in his fireside rowdiness. “Mason Jar at the Center of the World” is another reason why no one sings about the world like Carlisle. If you don’t take my word for it, you should definitely take Tyler Childers’. He produced this song. —Matt Mitchell

Johari Salleh: “Johana”

When in Malaysia and Indonesia for a DJ gig, Habibi Funk discovered Johari Salleh’s music and became, as the label writes on Bandcamp, “head over heels” with it. Salleh is responsible for shaping the voice of Malay jazz music, and now we’re getting access to it through Habibi Funk’s sister label, Audible Beauty. Jazz Dari Angkasapuri, a collection of nine songs previously available only through a few dozen locally pressed copies from fifty years ago, is coming out next month, and lead single “Johana” is astonishing. Salleh’s trumpet playing is spiritual, but the ensemble of modal grooves and funk dressings he puts into his arrangements shows not only a deep trust in jazz but a devotion to melodies that recite myths like folk songs. —Matt Mitchell

Lily Seabird: “Portal to the Past”

A “Portal to the Past” is a very real thing in the world of Lily Seabird. The Vermont musician began writing the song—the latest single from her upcoming album Lightspheres on Their Way—after waking up from a particularly transportive dream on a porch in the dizzying New Orleans swelter. The song extends the initial poem Seabird wrote into a sprawling, seven-minute ballad that almost recalls Jason Molina’s twangy slowcore. “Dwelling too much can sometimes create what feels like a portal and bring you right back to where you once were, that’s the portal to the past,” Seabird explains of the song, where she reminisces on a past relationship she once thought might last forever: “Well I said I’d give you everything, but time took it all away,” she croons before an epic instrumental outro, tailor-made for getting lost in your own past too. —Abby Jones

Nick Hakim: “Endlessly Waiting”

Nick Hakim is one of the best producers making music today. “Endlessly Waiting,” the latest single from his upcoming album I Can See, shows precisely why. Hakim’s sonic palette is varied, and here he delves deeper into the idiosyncratic elements that underpin his specific brand of R&B. A hypnotic piano part tinkles over the track, repeating over and over as Hakim sings mournfully. The woozy intimacy to the sound is familiar for his work, and it remains even as the track’s orchestrations bloom with an almost Baroque pop-style flair. When the song gets denser and murkier, its groove remains deliciously precise, with a sharp drum beat holding it together. As with so much of Hakim’s work, the beauty of “Endlessly Waiting” comes from its interiority; he murmurs into the microphone, allows the song to broaden, then narrows it back down again to where it started, a cyclical effect that mirrors the song’s title. One often gets the sense that the music Hakim is making is not really talking to us but to himself, an introspective search for love, understanding, or enlightenment. That is often what makes it so good. —Mariam Abdel-Razek

Starcleaner Reunion: “Never Odd Or Even”

For a few years now, New York City’s Starcleaner Reunion have been steadily churning out insistent, trippy sophisti-pop with bite. This September they’ll finally bless us with their debut album Umbrella, which they’ve announced this week with “Never Odd or Even,” an excellent shapeshifting number about keeping secrets and then telling them. “This song explores the experience of a personal secret leaving that protective space in someone’s mind,” the band explains. “Never Odd Or Even” deliberately avoids spilling the beans, however, and it’s better off that way: As the track switches on a dime between motorik propulsion and moments of slower, off-kilter psychedelia, it builds tension in uncertainty, letting lyrics like “where will I go now?” open up a whole slew of disconcerting possibilities. —Abby Jones

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