There’s so much music coming out all the time that it’s hard to keep track. On those days when the influx of new tracks is particularly overwhelming, we sift through the noise to bring you a curated list of the most interesting new releases (the best of which will be added to our Best New Songs playlist). Below, check out our track roundup for Wednesday, February 26, 2025.
Little Simz – ‘Flood’
Little Simz has announced a new LP, Lotus, out May 9 via AWAL. It’s led by the creeping, cinematic ‘Flood’, which features production from Miles Clinton James and guest spots from Obongjayar and Moonchild Sanelly. The track is accompanied by a black-and-white video by Salomon Lighhelm.
Julien Baker and TORRES – ‘Tuesday’
Julien Baker and TORRES have shared a new song today, which is Wednesday, called ‘Tuesday’. Tuesday is the name of the girl TORRES sings about, using country music tropes to revisit the ways passion can be bound up with shame. “And if I could only go back in time/ I’d rewrite our whole story,” she admits. “And now I know that your shame was not mine/ And I am perfect in my Lord’s eyes.”
Great Grandpa – ‘Ladybug’
Great Grandpa have shared a new single from their upcoming album Patience, Moonbeam, ‘Ladybug’, which is vibrant and explosive. “Every once in a while you find yourself tripping on a beautiful day with a best friend and stumble into the middle of a stranger’s wedding in a park,” the band explained. “It’s always these small fickle, fleeting moments we’re seeking that can never be bottled or sustained. What good luck does the ladybug bring? We scream together for those shared seconds of unadulterated joy. We’ll feel ok when it comes back again right? Kid Cudi did it first.”
Jane Remover – ‘Dancing With Your Eyes Closed’
Jane Remover has shared a clubby, hard-hitting new single, ‘Dancing With Your Eyes Closed’. It’s taken from the forthcoming album Revengeseekerz, following previous cut ‘JRJRJR’, which we named one of the best songs of January.
Billy Idol – ‘Still Dancing’
Billy Idol has announced his first album in 11 years, Dream Into It, which is out April 25 ad features Avril Lavigne, Joan Jett, and Alison Mosshart of the Kills. “‘Still Dancing’ is really a reflection of my whole journey,” Idol said of the lead single. “From the punk rock period through to now. And I’m still looking towards the future, still living the life I set out to live.” He continued: “At the start of the song I’m recalling the early times in London, when I was living in squats or at friends’ apartments, all my belongings in a plastic bag. Everybody at home or work told you what you were doing was never going to happen. But punk rock gave me an opening. I was surrounded by people who loved the music as deeply as I did and you were going to throw caution to the wind, believe in what you were doing and grab on for dear life. As the song says, there have been many moments along the way where I’ve been self destructive. But what’s seen me through is that unflinching belief in the music that started all those years ago. That’s been the greatest gift of all.”
Eli Winter – ‘Cracking the Jaw’
Eli Winter has announced a new album, A Trick of the Light, with the eerie and enveloping ‘Cracking the Jaw’. The Chicago-based guitarist described it as “the closest thing I have to a pop song. It’s quite dark in comparison to my past work—a car about to crash. I began playing it on solo tours, and its focus tightened as I rehearsed and performed it with Tyler Damon, Sam Wagster and Andrew Scott Young. Almost everything you hear comes from the lucky thirteenth take. On some level I hope it sets the title to music.”
Deerhoof – ‘Overrated Species Anyhow’ and ‘Sparrow Sparrow’
Deerhood have dropped a pair of stirring songs, ‘Overrated Species Anyhow’ and ‘Sparrow Sparrow’, whose proceeds will go to The Trevor Project. “Every penny from this release goes to The Trevor Project, because in the new world we want to create, we need today’s trans youth to grow into tomorrow’s trans adults,” the group said. “This ‘Double B-Side’ is meant as a life beam to anyone who has been feeling dehumanized by mainstream society lately. Anyone who didn’t find themselves in the rankings of which races, nationalities, genders, or belief systems have equal value. Anyone who sees life on earth as something more than some capitalist death match. Anyone who got thrown under the bus in the past year’s race to the bottom. Anyone who isn’t one of 2781 billionaires who’ve taken control of the world. Anyone refusing to lick the fascist boot.”
more eaze & claire rousay – ‘lowcountry’
more eaze and claire rousay have shared a new cut from their collaborative EP no floor. Like previous outing ‘limelight, illegally’, ‘lowcountry’ alludes to a San Antonio bar where the pair used to hang out, glitching it to life. “There’s a throughline of the track’“limelight, illegally’ to this, where some of the bartenders who worked at Limelight moved to Lowcountry,” more eaze explained. “This is the most unhinged track in a way. When we decided this one was ‘lowcountry’, claire was adding a lot and pushing it. I decided, “OK, I’m going to push it even more, too.”
Free Range – ‘Storm’
Free Range, aka Chicago singer-songwriter Sofia Jensen, has shared a heart-warming new song called ‘Storm’, which will appear on their sophomore LP Lost & Found. “I have a song on my last record that some people mistook for being a song about touring, when in fact I had never been on tour at the time when I wrote the song. So this song was my intentional ‘song about tour,’” Jensen explained. “It’s about the whiplash that you start to feel when you’re constantly leaving home, as well as the excitement and emotional extremes that come with it.”
Hana Vu – ‘Records’
Hana Vu has unveiled a new EP, Movies, which features stripped-down versions of songs from last year’s Romanticism. It also opens with a fittingly pensive new song called ‘Records’. “I really wanted to capture the feeling the early demos on Romanticism had,” Vu wrote. “No frills, just pure emotion. Really the saddest possible versions of these songs.”
Shura – ‘Richardson’ [feat. Cassandra Jenkins]
Shura has teamed up with Cassandra Jenkins for the wistfully warm ‘Richardson’, which precedes her upcoming full-length I Got Too Sad for My Friends. “I fell in love with Cassandra’s record at a low point in my life,” Shura shared in a statement. “It felt like an armchair I could crawl into. It accompanied me on long walks I took around my apartment in Greenpoint. I always knew I wanted to work with Cassandra on something. After a few conversations it became obvious to the both of us that it had to be this song. That Cassandra would accompany me here. A song about walking, thinking, and trying to find comfort somewhere, as Cassandra’s voice accompanied me on those walks then.”
Dirty Projectors, David Longstreth & s t a r g a z e – ‘At Home / Circled in Purple / Our Green Garden’
David Longstreth has shared a three-song suite from Song of the Earth, the upcoming song cycle performed by his band Dirty Projectors—Felicia Douglass, Maia Friedman, Olga Bell—and the Berlin-based chamber orchestra s t a r g a z e, conducted by André de Ridder. “Past reports of Dirty Projectors going full prog are greatly exaggerated; until now I’ve never released an album with a straight-up suite of songs,” Longstreth said of the suite. “As the slashes in the title imply, this is a three-song suite. It’s just the way it happened. Consider it an entry in your ‘A Day in the Life’ / ‘Paranoid Android’ / ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ / ‘Sicko Mode’ category: a sprawling journey that feels like slipping into a dream. A kaleidoscopic river-of-consciousness.”
Miya Folick – ‘Felicity’
Ahead of the release of her new album Erotica Veronica on Friday, Miya Folick has shared one final preview. ‘Felicity’ leans on the lesser-known definition of the word: “finding appropriate expression for one’s thoughts,” which, according to Folick, is “a cornerstone of the album: putting language to how I feel, which I didn’t do for so long because I didn’t know it was a feeling I was allowed to have.”
Deradoorian – ‘Set Me Free’
Multi-instrumentalist and composer Deradoorian has announced a new LP, Ready for Heaven, arriving May 9. It’s led by the striking and heavenly ‘Set Me Free’. “This album is partly about watching humanity erode,” Deradoorian explained. “It’s about mental struggle, and it’s avowedly anti-capitalist. I mean; would we have all these identity labels we have to live by, if we didn’t live in a capitalist world?”
No Windows – ‘Return’
No Windows have announced a new EP, The Great Traitor, which will be out May 9, with the mesmerizing and ominous ‘Return’.Suz “When I wrote [the lyrics for] Point Nemo I was very much a teenager and very hormonal still,” the duo’s Verity Slangen said. “I think this EP is coming out of that a little bit. For me, it’s a mediation between being a younger person to being someone in my 20s who’s figuring things out a bit more.”
Thanya Iyer – ‘Low Tides’
‘Low Tides’ is the lead single from Montreal artist Thanya Iyer’s third album, TIDE/TIED, which lands April 30 via Topshelf. The alluring, kaleidoscopic tune “is about moving through those spaces where we lose our ability to dream – drowned in stagnation – numbness – despair – but also continuing to hold the quiet strength, hope, and trust needed to carry us forward,” according to Iyer.
Maria Usbeck – ‘Mantarraya’
Ecuadorian-born, Brooklyn-based artist Maria Usbeck has announced a new record, Naturaleza, sharing the enchanting, groovy ‘Mantarraya’ along with the news. “Humanity stands at a breaking point; we’ve lost our bond with the natural world,” Usbeck said in a statement. “We deem ourselves superior, advanced, yet it’s only through harmony and a symbiotic relationship with nature that we can avert an inevitable doom.”
Smut – ‘Dead Air’
Chicago band Smut — vocalist/lyricist Tay Roebuck, guitarist Andie Min, bassist John Steiner, guitarist/synthist Sam Ruschman, and drummer Aidan O’Connor – is back with a new song called ‘Dead Air’, which absolutely soars. The group recorded the track in New York with Aron Kobayashi-Ritch (Momma) at a studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Suzzallo – ‘Tsunami Waves’ [feat. Ben Gibbard]
Rocky Votolato’s new band Suzzallo are releasing their debut album, The Quiet Year, on May 2. Votolato formed Suzzallo after the tragic loss of his child in a car accident, and the poignant new song ‘Tsunami Waves’, which features Ben Gibbard, deals with the immediate aftermath. “Deep grief can feel like literally being knocked off your feet by huge waves that come out of nowhere when you least expect it,” Votolato shared. “Every other memory you have puts you underwater. I think that’s why I was drawn to this imagery and I thought tsunami waves were the perfect metaphor and concept to describe what I was going through. I needed art and songwriting more than I ever have before making this record, and I’m so grateful I had distorted guitar sounds to channel all this loss into. This song is about finding your resilience even as the waves keep coming at you. Couldn’t be happier with how the song turned out and it was such a joy and honor to get a chance to work with Ben Gibbard on it as well. I love everything he added to it, especially his backups and the bass 6 he played in the post-chorus, which I think created one of the prettiest moments on the album.”