Best New Songs (April 20, 2023)

At Paste Music, we’re listening to so many new tunes on any given day, we barely have any time to listen to each other. Nevertheless, every week we can swing it, we take stock of the previous seven days’ best tracks, delivering a weekly playlist of our favorites. Check out this week’s 10 best new songs, in alphabetical order. (You can check out last week’s songs here).

Alaska Reid: “She Wonders”
“She Wonders” is not just a mystical, distorted slice of electronic alt-rock; it’s an awe-inspiring piece of storytelling from Reid who, with her debut LP Disenchanter on the horizon, is quickly establishing herself as a literary force unbound by any textbook sonic architecture. Beginning like a mid-1980s synth-wave track and erupting into a woozy 1990s resplendent, “She Wonders” centers the focus on Reid’s lush, lullaby vocals that skate across a narrative of disenchantment and exhaustion from playing live shows and finding small stardom. “And the mist of Texas rain / Makes a halo ‘round her face / And he asks her on the Jackalope patio / Do you feel like a rockstar on stage? / She says it never lasts / I feel 8 and 70 years old so fast,” she sings. —Matt Mitchell

Cory Hanson: “Horsebait Sabotage”
If you weren’t familiar with Hanson’s acid-soaked country eruptions, then here’s your chance. The Southern California native’s fourth LP, Western Cum, is on the way, and third single “Horsebait Sabotage” is a gargantuan, literary beast channeling delicious earworm descriptors and hair-raising imagery. “Soldiers trained to read by ear / The sound of scribble by the pen / Deep sea radar westerns / Submarines the size of sardines,” Hanson sings. The arrangements are cracked, as he blisters through an enormously smooth vibrato of riffs. If Steely Dan had been Gonzo journalists in a Wild West swamp, you’d get Cory Hanson. “Horsebait Sabotage” is an intoxicating, enthralling and absurd wake of delirious rock ‘n’ roll. —Matt Mitchell

Crooks & Nannies: “3am”
“3am” is a great cauldron of everything Crooks & Nannies are good at. Seriously, it’s the epitome of a multi-hyphenate in song form. From sax-heavy jazz to emo to plucky synth-pop to heat-seeking indie, “3am” is, possibly, the duo’s grandest statement yet. The fact that it wasn’t included on the No Fun EP originally only solidifies just how deep their bag of songs goes. With a mystifying trumpet performance from Madel Rafter’s dad—John Rafter—and a chaotic, confessional stream of lyricism from Sam Huntington, “3am” refuses to bend to the will of any one texture. What a joy it is to watch a band at the top of their game make such dazzling, singular tracks; how lucky we are that Crooks & Nannies have so, so much left to give. —Matt Mitchell

Dream Wife: “Orbit”
London-based trio Dream Wife’s third LP, Social Lubrication, arrives in June, and their latest single, “Orbit,” is a great depiction of sharing space with someone you love again. Frontwoman Rakel Mjöll stunts on “Orbit,” with a vocal performance that sounds like the lovechild of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Hot Chip. It’s a post-lockdown track through and through, written “through the joy of jamming together and locking into the groove like a multi-limbed, space-age organism.” “In our past lives, were we brothers? / In our past lives, we definitely knew each other,” Mjöll sings. “You could’ve been my best friend / You could’ve been my mother / You could’ve been someone that I would lean on.” “Orbit” is colorful punk rock done right, with undertones of 1980s synth-pop and post-punk simmering underneath Mjöll’s spell-binding shrieks. —Matt Mitchell

Elisapie – “Taimangalimaaq (Time After Time)”
The songs on Elisapie’s fourth album Inuktitut are not her own. The record consists of 10 cover versions of popular tunes that stirred within the Canadian artist some deep seated memories of her complicated youth and the community she found among her fellow Inuit people in Nunavik. But Elisapie has made these familiar songs her own by translating the lyrics into the Inuktitut language and stripping the music down to the studs. These bare bones renditions are haunting in their simplicity. Pop chestnut “Time After Time,” originally recorded by Cyndi Lauper, is turned into gaseous electro-folk with Elisapie proving that the impact of a song’s message is still accessible even when you are unfamiliar with the words being sung to you. —Robert Ham

Lauren Bousfield – “Headstone Prices on Credit”
In her day job, Lauren Bousfield produces music for TV and online content—the kind of easily digestible tunes that you might often forget two minutes after the program or commercial has faded to black. She saves all of her pent up frustration caused by her dulled creative spirit for the experimental electronic music she makes under her own name. It’s a conflicted sound, with at least a half dozen genres clashing together in a giggly scrum. As heard on “Headstone Prices on Credit,” the first single from forthcoming album Salesforce, these personal compositions are also a way for Bousfield to work out her conflicted feelings about the nature of capitalism. The lyrics drop mentions of Mickey Mouse hats and work in lines inspired by the poem on the inside of Burj Khalifa, the current tallest building in the world. When intoned over a frantic breakbeat and fritzing circuitry, it feels as though she could take down the entire system with one swing of a wrecking ball. —Robert Ham

Mega Bog: “Cactus People”
I’ll stop spreading the good word about Mega Bog when she stops making great tunes, so saddle up, because there is no end in sight. The third single from the Bog’s forthcoming LP End of Everything—”Cactus People”—is a stunning, glitzy foray into modernist synth-pop. Through a search for meaning, vocalist Erin Birgy lets her surreal lyrics unfurl into a great sequence of Western imagery coupled with fear in the wake of abandonment. “Ghosts of all the desert bugs / Under purple pens / Picture your favorite friend / Grabbing up all of the stones we like / And jump back in bed,” she sings. After lead singles “The Clown” and “Love Is” threw our jaws at the floor, “Cactus People” follows suit to an even greater degree. Dare I say it’s a modern-day synth-pop classic? Yes. All hail the Bog; all hail “Cactus People.” —Matt Mitchell

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Mo Troper: “For You To Sing”
Following-up his incredible 2022 album, MTV, the Portland singer/songwriter Troper is back with a searing, two-minute power pop face-melter ahead of his self-proclaimed “MTVI” that’s set to come out at some point in the future. “For You To Sing” is an exquisite amalgamation of Magical Mystery Tour-era harmonies and Guided by Voices guitar licks. “There’s something I’ve been working on / Can’t wait to show you when I’m done / My heart breaks / When you’re away / Singing songs he wrote for you to sing,” Troper professes over jangling chords and a tasty bassline. This is a track we’ll be spinning at Paste for a while. —Matt Mitchell

ther: “big papi lassos the moon”
Last week, ther released their sophomore album, a horrid whisper echoes in a palace of endless joy. The final single from the cycle, “big papi lassos the moon,” is a subtle, vibrant story that begins with a line that’ll stop you in your tracks: “My favorite baseball player was shot with a gun,” vocalist and guitarist Heather Jones sings. Written by Jones, the track conjures imagery of Boston Red Sox legend David Ortiz and the beloved Christmas film It’s a Wonderful Life, using both as vehicles for critiquing the global capitalism that plagues America. “big papi lassos the moon” strikes a balance between naivety and temptation; daydreams of the cosmos after buying into corporate greed. All of that thoughtfulness splayed atop a gentle acoustic arrangement makes ther’s latest one of the most-gripping and inviting singles in recent memory. —Matt Mitchell

Tinariwen – “Kek Alghalm”
Touareg ensemble Tinariwen have been putting the anthemic “Kek Alghalm” in their live setlist for many years now, knowing how much of an effect it has on their audiences. What us Western listeners are missing, however, is the message of liberation and rebellion. It’s a directive that the group is hoping to get across with much more clarity in the version they have recorded for their forthcoming full-length Amatssou. Over their hypnotic grooves and fluttering guitar lines, they sing of the complicity of their people, wondering why “they remain silent in the face of so much disrespect / perpetrated shamelessly with uncovered face.” It’s a damning notice that hopefully won’t get lost in the psychedelic swirl of the music. —Robert Ham