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.
Today's roundup also includes songs dating back to Friday due to the holiday weekend, and for even more, you can check out the list of special/exclusive Bandcamp releases from Friday.
AMINE - "COMPENSATING" (ft. YOUNG THUG)
Portland rapper Aminé has announced a new album, Limbo, due August 7 via Republic. Along with the announcement comes this bubbly new single featuring Young Thug.
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TERRELL HINES - "GET UP" (ft. VINCE STAPLES)
Terrell Hines is releasing Portal One: The Mixtape on August 7 via Capitol, and new single "Get Up" is a dose of kinetic art-funk with some fine guest rapping by Vince Staples.
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BLACK & RED (JAZ COLEMAN [KILLING JOKE] & ONDREJ SMEYKAL) - "ON THE DAY THE EARTH WENT MAD"
Killing Joke frontman Jaz Coleman and didgeridoo player Ondrej Smeykal have a new collaborative project, Black & Red, and the duo's debut single is "On the Day the Earth Went Mad," which may seem like it was written in response to everything going on right now but which was actually written before the pandemic. It's a brooding, ethereal song and very cool stuff.
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JAMES ELKINGTON - "BEECHWOOD PARK" (ZOMBIES COVER) / "CORRIDOR COUNTRY"
“I’m not really a nostalgic person, but I write about the past a lot as if it happened in a dream and I’m merely reporting on it," says James Elkington of this baroque folk cover of The Zombies' Oddyssy & Oracle classic. "‘Beechwood Park’ by The Zombies has that same feel to me. On the face of it, it seems to be an idealized view of the past that’s almost trite in its remembrance of ‘summer rain’ and ‘country lanes,’ but the winding chord sequence and spidery guitar tone makes it feel like it’s happening in a different dimension, and I’m always drawn to music that does that." The cover is paired with a new original, played in a similar acoustic style.
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AKAI SOLO - ELEVENTH WIND
Brooklyn experimental rapper AKAI SOLO has followed February's Ride Alone, Fly Together with a new eight-song EP that finds Solo delivering his abstract rhymes over psychedelic production from DJ Blackpower (aka MIKE), Edan, and more. Solo says in part, "This wind is for me. This wind is for you. This wind is for every black breath confiscated. this wind is for every black body processing grief. [...] This wind is for the firm and swift dismantling of capitalism, white supremacy, misogyny, needless phobia, and traumatizing phenomenon."
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CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS - "EYES OF A CHILD"
Christine and the Queens have a new song, "Eyes of a Child," which is theme song for the second season of Amazon Prime Video series HANNA. "It’s as bare and vulnerable as it can be, really."
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JONATHAN PERSONNE (CORRIDOR) - "SPRINGSTEEN"
Jonathan Personne, who plays in Montreal's Corridor, will release new solo album Disparitions on August 28 via Michel Records. For it he takes the sound he helped craft in Corridor and applies it to more of an '80s janglepop style a la The Field Mice and The Go-Betweens. The first single is "Springsteen," which may or may not be about Bruce, and is a fine example of the "spaghetti western rock" found on the new album.
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DAVE HAUSE - "YOUR GHOST"
Dave Hause has released a new protest song featuring Amythyst Kiah and Kam Franklin. He writes:
Sitting down to write this, I’m faced with that nagging question, do songs make any difference?
It’s a privilege to write songs for a living, and I write them to try to make some sense of the chaotic world in which we live. I watched the footage of George Floyd's murder from the safety of my home, and I experienced the outrage, despair, and grief that so many of us shared. My brother Tim and I got to work on this song that week as a way to try to process what we had all collectively witnessed. We tried and initially failed to get the right tone, but as we worked at it, we learned about our blind spots on these issues and how to wrestle with them. But that nagging question again… am I just another white guy singing about someone else’s experience? Yes, I am. But could this song make a difference? Even a small one?
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XYTHLIA - "THE EYE BATH"
Xythlia (the solo project of Ashbringer's Nick Stanger) is releasing Immortality Through Quantum Suicide on August 21 via I, Voidhanger. First single "The Eye Bath" is a totally chaotic blend of grind, death, and proggy discordance.
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PUSSY RIOT - "RIOT" FT. IXXF
Pussy Riot's new protest song was recorded with German IDM artist IXXF, and it's inspired by Peter Verzilov recently being detained and questioned by police, and by the Black Lives Matter protests. "We stand with the protesters for racial equality and justice, and demand to defund the police and punish killer cops," they write.
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CONSTANT ELEVATION (MOVIELIFE, YOUTH OF TODAY) - "KRS TWO"
Vinnie Caruana (The Movielife, I Am The Avalanche) and Sammy Siegler's (Youth of Today, Judge, Rival Schools, etc) band Constant Elevation are releasing a new EP in August, including this new song. Read more about it -- and read a list made by Vinnie and Sammy of music that influenced the EP -- here.
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SUFJAN STEVENS - "AMERICA"
Sufjan Stevens has released "America," the first single off his first proper album in five years, The Ascension. It's 12 and a half minutes long, and it finds Sufjan applying his classic whisper-singing to crackling synths and a sleepy but sputtering drum machine, and it's built around the line "Don't do to me what you did to America." It's awesome. Read what Sufjan had to say about the album and this song in particular here.
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THE FRONT BOTTOMS - "MONTGOMERY FOREVER"
The Front Bottoms announced a new album and shared this song from it, and you can read more about it here.
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FAILURE - "ENJOY THE SILENCE" (DEPECHE MODE COVER, 2020 VERSION)
Spacey, shoegazey alt-rockers Failure (whose drummer Kellii Scott is recovering from cancer) released a new version of their cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence," which they originally recorded for the 1998 Depeche Mode tribute album For The Masses, which -- as Failure frontman Ken Andrews says -- "has all but disappeared, no longer in print and not available via streaming platforms." He adds, "But we as a band are proud of our take on that song and had wanted to re-record it for some time. With the blessing of both Martin Gore and Depeche Mode, we re-addressed our version and came up with this new version for 2020."
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JERRY GARCIA & JOHN KAHN - "WHEN I PAINT MY MASTERPIECE" (BOB DYLAN COVER, LIVE IN 1986)
A new live album by The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and bassist John Kahn that was recorded at The Ritz (now known as Webster Hall) in NYC in 1986 is on the way, including this newly-released Bob Dylan cover. Read more here.
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THE RADIO DEPT - "YOU'RE LOOKIN' AT MY GUY" / "COULD YOU BE THE ONE?"
Swedish band The Radio Dept are back with thier latest in a line of 2020 singles. The A-side is a cover of The Tri-Lites 1964 single "You're Lookin' at My Guy" that they give a Go-Betweens-esque arrangement with some lovely violin; the b-side, "Could You Be the One," is a hushed original with a little horn coloring in the lines.
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THURSTON MOORE - "CANTELOUPE"
Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore has shared "Cantaloupe" from his forthcoming solo album By the Fire. "'Cantaloupe' is a song about the dance of romance and surrealism, where the hallucinations of wild dreams come true," says Thurston.
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BILL CALLAHAN - "ANOTHER SONG"
Bill Callahan will release new album Gold Record in September, and he's sharing a new song from it every Monday. He appears to be just going down the tracklist, as we got album opener "Pigeons" last week, and now here's Track 2, "Another Song."
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SUPERCHUNK - "CAN'T STOP THE WORLD" (GO-GO'S COVER)
As mentioned, a whole bunch of North Carolina artists have contributed cover songs to a new compilation benefiting long-running Carrboro, NC rock club Cat's Cradle. They've shared the first five songs from it, including Superchunk's take on The Go-Go's "Can't Stop the World."
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DAVID GILMOUR - "YES, I HAVE GHOSTS"
Pink Floyd's David Gilmour recorded a new song, "Yes, I Have Ghosts," for the audiobook of his wife Polly Samson's A Theatre for Dreamers and has now been released via streaming services. It's a baroque folk number that features David's daughter, Romany, on harp and backing vocals. “I was working on this song just as we went into lockdown and had to cancel a session with backing singers,” Gilmour says, “but, as it turned out, the solution was right here and I couldn’t be happier with the way Romany’s voice blends with mine and her beautiful harp playing has been another revelation.”
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For even more new songs, browse the ‘New Songs’ archive.