Duran Duran, Roger Waters, Alex Lahey, Pile, more

So many artists, so many songs, 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. We update a playlist weekly of some of our current favorite tracks. Here’s a daily roundup with a bunch of interesting, newly released songs in one place.

PILE – “THE BIRDS ATTACKED MY HOT AIR BALLOON”

Pile announced a new EP, Hot Air Balloon, due January 5 via Exploding In Sound, and lead single “The Birds Attacked My Hot Air Balloon” finds them in woozy psychedelic rock territory.

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THE KEENING – “AUTUMN”

The Keening (ex-SubRosa) has shared another hauntingly soaring taste of her upcoming debut LP for Relapse.

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DURAN DURAN – “BLACK MOONLIGHT” FT NILE RODGERS

Nile Rodgers provides one of his signature funky guitar riffs for this new Duran Duran song. “Nile Rogers is a force of nature,” says keyboardist Nick Rhodes. “When we get into a room, we start playing, and magic happens. Nile always says that CHIC is his first band, and Duran Duran is his second. Thematically, I personally prefer the moon to the sun. Simon took the idea and ran with it.” Duran Duran’s new album Danse Macabre is out October 27 just in time for Halloween.

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EZRA FURMAN – “YOU LIKE ME,” “TETHER” & “HONEYCOMB”

The fourth and final season of Netflix’s Sex Education is out today, and Ezra Furman has again contributed to the soundtrack. She’s shared three new tracks, “You Like Me,” “Tether,” and “Honeycomb.” “What a songwriter craves is an outlet for her songs,” she says. “Somewhere to put them, something to do with her passion for arranging words into melody and maximizing their impact. And, of course, an audience. In this regard, the job of writing and recording music for Sex Education was all that I craved and more. Here was a whole world of empathetic characters and a compelling plot that had space for my voice and my band’s music to punctuate it. I have loved the task of making music for this brightly-colored landscape and its tales of teenagers finding their way to better and healthier sex lives. Being asked to write songs that match the tone of the show, I was surprised by how deeply I engaged with the characters’ emotions. Effective music has to come from an emotional place, and at first I wasn’t sure I could do it. It is a testament to the show’s writing, acting and direction that it wasn’t hard at all for me to connect to the characters’ inner lives. They awakened genuine feelings about my own life, and allowed me to create with sincerity and heart.”

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HALO MAUD – “CATCH THE WAVE (STRAWBERRY GUY REMIX)”

“Warm thanks to Strawberry Guy who added his magic to the song,” says Halo Maud of this new remix of her recent single. “I love his vision and the way he made it delicate and orchestral. Strawberry Guy is a classy pop song master and I am happy that the artistic connection I feel took shape in his beautiful rework of Catch The Wave.” Strawberry Guy adds: “Creating the remix was super special, and a fairly new process for me! At first I wasn’t really sure how the remix was going to go, so I put the tracks into Logic and just started taking instruments from the original out and playing over the top of it with my keyboard. This resulted in a much more gentle and orchestral version with a few changes in the harmony and chords. However I didn’t want to mess around with it too much as I love the melodies and chords that Maud creates! She has a beautiful dreamy sound and it was great to collaborate with that and put my own spin on one of her songs.”

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ROGER WATERS – “SPEAK TO ME / BREATHE”

Roger Waters has re-recorded the entirety of The Dark Side of the Moon with all new arrangements and here’s another taste.

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SQUIRREL FLOWER – “INTHESKATEPARK”

Squirrel Flower’s new album, Tomorrow’s Fire, is out tomorrow via Polyvinyl, and she’s shared one last early single, “Intheskatepark.” “I wrote this song in 2019 on a little toy synthesizer,” she says. “To me, this song is everlasting summer — even as things change, seasons, feelings, relationships, you can still try and feel the perfect lightness of summer, of a new crush, of a pop riff. It’s best listened to while biking around in the sunshine.”

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BLOOM – “BOUND TO YOUR WHISPERS”

Sydney’s Bloom have signed to Pure Noise, and their first single for the label is the glossy melodic/metallic hardcore of “Bound To Your Whispers.”

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LEE LEWIS – “WILLING & ABLE”

Los Angeles artist Lee Lewis is a soul singer, but one who sounds like he owns a few Cocteau Twins albums, with dreamy guitars lifting his powerful voice higher on “Willing & Able.”

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ALEX LAHEY – “NEWSREADER”

Alex Lahey’s 2023 album The Answer is Always Yes is getting an expanded edition, due out on October 6 via Liberation. It includes three bonus tracks, and she’s shared the first of those, “Newsreader,” which was inspired by Australian broadcaster Tamara Oudyn. “I remember having the news on at home one night and watching the newsreader broadcast one awful story after another and it got me thinking about the emotional toll it must take on someone to literally be the bearer of bad news to an entire population night after night, day after day. The newsreader that inspired this song, Tamara Oudyn of the ABC 7pm News Report, was the seemingly omnipresent newsreader in my household at the time this song was written. It turned out that there were only a degree or two of separation between Tam and I – next thing you know, Tam popped into the studio and laid down some BVs on this track.”

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YASMIN WILLIAMS – “DAWNING” FT AOIFE O’DONOVAN

“‘Dawning’ has multiple meanings for me: the dawning of my professional music career and a new love in my personal life, the dawning sky that appeared when I first started writing this song, and me smiling to myself with dawning recognition that I get to create music that I love for a living and share it with the world,” says Yasmin Williams of this song that pairs her delicate fretwork with Aoife O’Donovan’s gossamer vocals. “This song represents a major shift in how I approach my music and expands the possibilities of what my songs can be,”

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HOLLY HUMBERSTONE – “INTO YOUR ROOM”

Holly Humberstone’s debut LP, Paint My Bedroom Black, is out next month, and she’s given us another early taste with “Into Your Room,” an alt-pop track produced by Rob Milton and Ethan Gruska.

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VINCENT NEIL EMERSON – “LITTLE WOLF’S INVINCIBLE YELLOW MEDICINE PAINT”

Country singer Vincent Neil Emerson has announced a new album, The Golden Crystal Kingdom, and shared this harder-rocking new single. Read more here.