Songs You Need In Your Life: July 2024

Toronto-based Adam LaFramboise records under the name Clothesline From Hell, a relatively deep-cut WWE reference that nods to the playful nature of his music. Though his earlier material dates back to 2018, LaFramboise is on a hot streak right now with “You Don’t Know” arriving soon after the similarly excellent “Open Up!” His Beck-like songs mix acoustic songwriting and processed beats and “You Don’t Know” takes the punchy drum machine sound and applies it to lyrics expressing frustration and rage. “Say it to me, do you want to go?” he sings at one point as if he needs holding back from starting a barroom brawl. Maybe those wrestling moves might come in handy. — David Renshaw

The lead single from Coco & Clair Clair’s next album, Girl, is a knife in gauzy packaging. At surface level, it’s a Y2K-evoking pop song super-engineered for the nostalgia center of TikTok’s mainframe. “You bring the boys, I’ll bring the girls / Have a couple drinks, forget about the world,” Clair Clair croons, adopting a saccharine, sing-song delivery. After the beat kicks in, though, the Atlanta duo are already delivering pointed blows to the NYC socialites stealing their swagger. “They wanna see my ass in jail / Wanna see me fail / You’re gonna have to wait for that, exhale,” Coco raps at the start of verse one. “Bitches in New York that I wanna impale / But I know they got a Dimes Square in hell.” After this initial onslaught, though, she and Clair recoat their poison pill in a sugar capsule. “I’m all about love I don’t mean to be aggy / It’s all good vibes where’s the party? Drop the addy,” Coco continues, shifting gears. “Got my jeans on, go ahead, admire the fatty / Lookin’ for the one that wants to make my name a tatty.” By the time Clair’s chorus returns, the mean-girl venom has receded beneath a smooth veneer of faux friendliness. — Raphael Helfand

The Adept landed like a mortar shell in April. Featuring at least one guest artist on every track, Kenyan death metal scene leader Martin Kanja’s debut solo LP was not only a direct shot of adrenaline to the jugular, but proof positive of his supreme talent for working in tandem: With Sam Karugu as Duma, he made one of the best records of 2020; and Drunk In Love (or Drunken Love, depending on your DSP of choice), his 2023 joint record with Welsh experimentalist Elvin Brandhi, was no less inspired. “SILENCE IN THE C-DRAL,” a new track with Italian producer Talpah, is an apocalyptic firestorm of a track, built for a club in a bunker miles underground. Like Duma standout “OMNI,” its intense atmosphere tempers Kanja’s tendency toward all-out aggression in favor of something more danceable, if no less doom-inducing. — Raphael Helfand

“jehovah witness” starts with a sensual sweep of dusk-tinged vocals a la “Drunk In Love,” but Amaarae is far from in thrall to anyone. On the track from roses are red, tears are blue, a seven-song expansion on Amaarae’s essential 2023 album Fountain Baby, she raps in a squeaky, misleadingly small voice that contains unimpeachable flexes — one is reminded of a Looney Tune character, perhaps a small bird prone to sudden, outsized bellows. She’s as uninhibited as the song’s addictive Afrorave melodies, summoning a sweaty vibe that demands an energetic private afterparty for two, or maybe a few more. — Jordan Darville

The weight of the world, the debut album from California producer Syzy, is the kind of modern dubstep album that you give to people who don’t like modern dubstep: a barrage of Rustie-colored synths rains down on each track, creating mushroom clouds of positive catharsis with every sharp and sudden deviation. It’s not surprising that “ILUUUU” stands out to me, since it samples one of my favorite songs on one of my favorite albums of all time and offers a similarly aggressive, steely beat, though Syzy cuts it with deliriously twinkling builds and drops that are far from cheap EDM festival fodder. — Jordan Darville