Photos by: Maiko Rodrig; Earl Sweatshirt/Warner Records; Sharna Osborne
Each week, The FADER staff rounds up the songs we can’t get enough of. Here they are, in no particular order. Listen on our Spotify and Apple Music playlists, or hear them all below.
Earl Sweatshirt, “Static”
The shit-talking peak of Earl Sweatshirt’s otherwise gracious, redemptive new album Live, Laugh, Love is “Static.” “It don’t really take no time to see / These niggas ain’t on timing” Earl sneers on the song’s opening milliseconds, barely leaving room for the opening notes of Black Noi$e’s triumphant beat. Its melodies could be pulled from an old cartoon about King Arthur, but Earl is focused on the here-and-now and how no one’s touching him in the present. Earl tears through the competition with the hunger and audible disdain of someone devouring a plate of grilled fish despite the few errant bones that get stuck in his teeth. —Jordan Darville
Deftones, “~metal dream”
Deftones is the most revered rap-metal band of the ‘90s among a new generation of artists and fans, and private music, their first album in five years, is an apt showcase of why. Rather than chase trends or past glories, Deftones gleefully tinker with rapturous melodies and crushingly heavy textures with a sense of fun. It’s most visible on “~metal dream,” a song that filters Deftones staples, like Chino Moreno’s cosmic skate-brat raps and their penchant for anthemic choruses, through the sharp steel wire of dance-punk. — JD
Unflirt, “Sea Song”
“Sea Song,” the London singer-songwriter’s first release via FADER Label, is a dreamer’s anthem: the quiet yearning of a hopeless romantic distilled. Materializing with a breezy melody and gossamer vocals, the song blooms into a chorus propelled by drumbeats and buzzing guitar chords that hit like waves. “It’s written in everything that grows/Oh the wind lets me know/That you’re the one,” she sings, though it’s unclear whether we should feel triumphant or wistful or a little of both. — Nora Wang
ADÉLA, “SexOnTheBeat”
Every few years, a new pop girly arrives and disrupts the whole game. For the mid-2020s, that’s ADÉLA, The FADER’s latest GEN F star and a provocative fresh voice. Her new single is giving flavors of Lady Gaga, Madonna, and Britney but her club pop is more than a sum of its references. “SexOnTheBeat,” a critique on the industry busted into overdrive, is horny, carnal, submissive, with a music video that’s better than anything I’ve seen in ages. —Steffanee Wang
Oliver Sim, “Obsession”
Oliver Sim’s new solo song marks the first time he has released something that wasn’t produced by his bandmate, Jamie xx. For “Obsession” he teamed up with producers Bullion and Taylor Skye of Jockstrap to create an ode to infatuation and ’80s synthpop. Sim lays himself bare over a taut bassline and Pet Shop Boys-style drums, asking the eternal question: “I only ever want to be loved. Is that too much?” —David Renshaw
ear, “Theorum”
Yaelle Avtan and Jonah Paz are ear, a duo trading in punchy bedroom pop if said bedroom is being used to pre-game a night at the club. “Theorum” is their latest single, a synth-heavy song that starts out sounding like it should soundtrack Ryan Gosling in Drive and gets progressively more fried as it progresses. Avtan and Paz trade stony vocals back and forth, letting you in on the secret world they have been building. Check it out before their debut project, The Most Dear and The Future, drops September 3. — DR
Ouri, Charlotte Day Wilson, “Behave!”
Ouri and her former tour mate Charlotte Day Wilson come together on the soft and blissful “Behave!” Harp strums delicately lap against a more robust drumbeat and R&B melodies on a song best listened to after midnight. — DR
Universal Space Jam, “BLAOW”
Universal Space Jam is New York City natives Isaiah Barr, a saxophonist and founder of the ONYX Collective, and Griff Spex, a rapper who strings together unconventional flows and knotty rhyme schemes. Their new song “BLAOW” starts out like a ticking bomb and continues with controlled blast after controlled blast, with Spex rapping over ominous synths and percussion. Barr appears blowing notes that spiral away from the tight groove and out into the atmosphere. —Raphael Helfand
Patrick Shiroishi feat. Gemma Thompson & Aaron Turner, “Mountains that Take Wing”
Patrick Shiroishi can twist his saxophone into just about any form — a chisel in The Armed, a blanket in Fuubutsushi, and, in his solo work, whatever shape he desires. On the new single from his forthcoming album Forgetting Is Violent, it swims in a sea of guitar feedback. As the static ebbs and flows, Shiroishi slows and accelerates, is razor-sharp or satin-soft but always sleek as it slides through the tides. — RH
E.R. Visit, “Bees in the Couch”
E.R. Visit is the solo project of Stone Stone Filipczak, half of the Philly freak-folk duo @. Alone, he stretches his natural tenor voice into a clean falsetto register and then contorts it into a nasal snarl, a dissonance that works to great effect amid lush, twinkling instrumentation. The song’s finest moment comes near the end of its two-minute run, when the vocals glitch out before the chorus hits one last time harder than before. —RH
