So many artists, so little time. Each week we review a handful of new albums (of all genres), round up even more new music that we'd call "indie," and talk about what metal is coming out. We post music news, track premieres, and more all day. In these concertless times, that includes daily livestreams and live concert videos we love. We publish a monthly playlist of some of our favorite tracks. Here's a daily roundup with a bunch of interesting, newly released songs in one place…
KANYE WEST - "DONDA"
Kanye has honored his late mother Donda on her birthday with a new song featuring Donda herself reciting lyrics form KRS-One's "Sound of da Police."
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THE GO! TEAM - "COOKIE SCENE"
UK group The Go! Team are back with their first new music in two years. An album is due later this year but before they get into that, they'll release infectious new single "Cookie Scene" in September via Memphis Industries. “The stripped back swinging percussion of ‘Iko Iko’ by the Dixie Cups and the loud crunchy shaker in Salt-n-Pepa’s ‘Push It’ were both inspirations," says Team leader Ian Parton, adding "I’ve always loved the way Bollywood or William Onyeabor songs would have random laser beams and electro toms popping up. I wanted to mix the street corner with the intergalactic, to take Detroit to outer space.”
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BILLY NOMATES - "HIPPY ELITE"
Having released a string of terrific singles, UK artist Billy Nomates will release her self-titled debut album on August 7 via Invada (the label run by Porthead/Beak>'s Geoff Barrow. She's also just shared new single "Hippy Elite," that somehow mixed postpunk elements with twangy country harmonies.
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THIBAULT - "DRAMA"
Australian band Thibault, which includes Nicole from '90s cult band Minimum Chips plus members of Parsnip, release their debut album on September 4 and have just shared this groovy, organ-fueled single. As Stereolab's Tim Gane put it, it's "Beautiful baroque pop with a swish of European supernatural fairytale film music." Nicole herself says "Drama" is about "the realisation that I was experiencing pretty intense levels of legit 'drama' in my life for a couple of years and it kind of became my new normal. I didn’t know if I was ever going to recover from it, but I did... I think! I mean now we have a global pandemic so there is that too, but at least it’s not something I had anything to do with for once."
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HOVVDY - "RUNNER"
Austin duo Hovvdy released their third album, Heavy Lifter, last year, and now they've shared new single "Runner" which Charlie Martin says "draws from memories of my childhood in Dallas - the spirit of running around as a kid with an amount of freedom that would probably be considered unsafe nowadays. It also unpacks the dynamic of an absent parent who nonetheless gives good advice. We need both positive and negative influences in life, I think."
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YO LA TENGO - "JAMES AND IRA DEMONSTRATE MYSTICISM AND SOME CONFUSION HOLDS"
Hoboken indie rock icons Yo La Tengo have finally joined Bandcamp and their first release on the service is this ambient piece with a somewhat self-explanatory title. For more explaining, here's Ira Kaplan: "If you’ve spent any time hanging out with us at our rehearsal space in Hoboken—that pretty much covers none of you—you’ve heard us playing formlessly (he said, trying to sidestep the word 'improvising'). Most of the songs we’ve written in the last 25 years have begun that way, but often we do it for no other reason than to push away the outside world. In late April, with the outside world weighing on everybody, we determined that the three of us could assemble in Hoboken without disobeying the rules laid out by Governor Murphy, and resumed . . . “practicing” hardly describes it, because we’ve done no practicing per se, and anyway what would be practicing for . . . playing. James set up one microphone in the middle of the room in case we stumbled on something useful for the future. Instead we decided to release something we did right now."
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NO JOY - "FOUR"
Here's another single from Montreal band No Joy's upcoming album, Motherhood. It's a wild one, mixing acid house with the band's signature ripping shoegaze. There's a new video, too, which follows "Kanienʼkehá꞉ka (Mohawk) visual artist Ashley Diabo at her home in Kahnawake. Ashley's art is inspired by her home, family, Pennywise and nature."
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BLACK MAGNET - "DIVINATION EQUIPMENT"
Oklahoma City industrial act Black Magnet (aka James Hammontree) have announced a new Sanford Parker-recorded album, Hallucination Scene, due September 4 via 20 Buck Spin. First single "Divination Equipment" is pretty filthy stuff, and should appeal to fans of anything from Streetcleaner-era Godflesh to newer bands like Uniform.
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LIFE FORCE - "SPARK OF DISSENT"
Life Force (a new-ish band led by Matt Fletcher of Shai Hulud and Zombie Apocalypse) have shared the second single off their upcoming Hope and Defiance (following "Out Front" ft. Tim McMahon of Mouthpiece), and it's a pure adrenaline rush of tough '90s-style hardcore. Pre-orders are also now up at the New Age Records webstore.
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INCANTATION - "FURY'S MANIFESTO"
Incantation have debuted another track off their upcoming album Sect of Vile Divinities (due 8/21 via Relapse), and it's another face-melter. Bassist Chuck Sherwood tells Decibel it's "a more crushing choice from the album to express blasphemy towards religious ethics and its failure to the very evil that the faiths themselves created."
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BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG - "A NEW ENGLAND" (BILLY BRAGG COVER)
Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong continued his No Fun Monday covers series with a cover of Billy Bragg's "A New England," which he actually put out this past Friday "because no one knows what day it is anyway." True. Billie also adds, "I love this song penned by Billy Bragg. Also a great version by Kirsty MacColl." He revvs the song up a bit and kinda turns it into something that sounds like late '70s punky power pop.
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FIELD MEDIC - "OLDER NOW (IT HURTS)"
Kevin Patrick Sullivan is releasing a new Field Medic song every month and here's the July edition, a gentle and jaunty track about the march of time.
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FOLLY & RIGHT TURN EDDIE members - "PINK" (MOHAWK BARBIE COVER)
Jersey Interchange is a quarantine project created by NJ's Christian Lesperance that features over 50 musicians from NJ's long-running punk scene covering NJ punk songs. There's a new song released every Monday and the seventh installment was released today: a cover of Mohawk Barbie's "Pink" by Jon Tummillo (Folly), Patrick Tummillo (Right Turn Eddie), and Agim Colaku (Folly), and the cover also incorporates a little of Fear’s “New York’s Alright (If You Like Saxophones)." Read more about it here.
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CONCRETE - "EXECUTING VENGEANCE"
Albany metallic hardcore maniacs Concrete are releasing their new album Everything Ends Now in August, and you can read more about the skull-crushing new single here.
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FUNERAL FIRES (mem GATHERERS, COARSES) - "PARTY PUKE"
Funeral Fires is a new post-hardcore band with some familiar faces -- drummer Adam Cichocki (Gatherers), bassist Brandon Gallagher (Coarse, Trace Amount), guitarist Matt Popowski (Tidal Gloom, ex-Gatherers), and vocalist Kyle Galloway (ex-Lakota De Kai, Kingmaker) -- and you can read more about their debut single here.
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MOSES SUMNEY - "MONUMENTAL"
Moses Sumney released the excellent double album græ this year, and now he's directed, and starred in, a short film previewing designer Thom Browne’s SS21 collection, as he sings his version of the Olympic Hymn. "What does it mean to pose statuesque on top of a marble podium, at a time when statues across the world—long-standing symbols of white supremacy—are literally being toppled?" Moses asks. "What does it mean to appropriate the Greco-Roman statue, a long-standing placeholder of white male virility and beauty, and replace it with my Black body? A body that has historically been disregarded as far less beautiful and in more recent years, objectified? What does it mean to objectify myself?"
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BOB MOULD - "FORECAST OF RAIN"
Bob Mould has shared a second track from his forthcoming album Blue Hearts. While not as obvious of an invective rager as first single "American Crisis," "Forecast of Rain" is no less confrontational and angry, setting its sights on organized religion.
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SPARKLE DIVISION (WILLIAM BASINSKI) - "TO THE STARS, MAJOR TOM"
Disintegration Loops composer William Basinski has formed Sparkle Division with Preston Wendel. The duo began after Wendel, who was Basinski's studio assistant, played the composer some of his own work and they then decided to create together. Sparkle Division are about as far away from the The Disintegration Loops as you can imagine, making loungy, jazzy pop that recalls '60s spy themes and '90s electronica.
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BILL CALLAHAN - "35"
Bill Callahan is releasing a new song every Monday from his new album Gold Record. Here's the third track on the album, a slow sad number: "35." Even more than the other two songs we've heard off Gold Record so far, this "35" is a real showcase for his voice with spare, atmospheric accompaniment. He's got an uncanny ability to make it sound like he's just singing to you.
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Looking for even more new songs? Browse the ‘New Songs’ archive.