The disco revival continues on Lizzo’s “About Damn Time”, with a rubbery “Get Lucky” bassline and a bridge full of Diana Ross glitter (“I’m coming out tonight, I’m coming out tonight”). More of a crowd pleaser than last year’s Cardi B duet ‘Rumors’, ‘About Damn Time’ is the first official single from Lizzo’s highly anticipated album ‘Special’, due out July 15. If this number is any indication, she hasn’t changed the formula too much, and sometimes – the Instagram caption one-liners; the obligatory flute solo – it can feel a bit paint-by-numbers Lizzo. But the song is best when she leans more seriously into the emotional center and shouts, “I’ve been so down and under pressure, I’m way too fine to be so stressed out.” LINDSAY ZOLADZ
Amelia Moore, ‘cry baby’
In “Crybaby,” Amelia Moore moans, “Do you like to make me cry, honey, because you do it all the time.” The production swings and vibrates with up-to-the-minute electronics: inverted tones, programmed drums, small keyboard loops, computerized vocals. But the song’s masochistic drama remains rooted in the blues and in the ways a human voice can break and jump. JON PARELES
Cisco Swank and Luke Titus with Phoelix, ‘Some Things Take Time’
Instagram’s multi-instrumentalist bedroom beat-makers, who live by the loop and lately have turned overdubbing into a visual art form — or at least visuals — are now a mini-movement: Jacob Collier, DOMi and JD Beck , Julius Rodriguez. The list goes on and will surely grow. If they are all different, most are united in their adoration of Stevie Wonder, more for his mastery of solo studios than for the expansive genius of his compositions. The moment is understandably more interested in texture and groove than duration or arc. Then it follows that “Some Things Take Time” – the funny debut album by Cisco Swank and Luke Titus, a duo of young scholars – is hardly the size of a mixtape: just 24 minutes spread over 11 tracks. And wisely, the songs themselves aren’t overcrowded. The album’s title melody is a light-hearted mix of Titus’ blistering snare-patter; Swank’s rich piano harmony, bassline with no notes wasted and synth strings; and the falsetto of Phoelix, Noname’s accomplice who contributes a guest spot. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO
Kay Flock with Cardi B, Dougie B and Bory300, ‘Shake It’
A deeply strategic song that sounds wonderfully casual, “Shake It” solves a few riddles at once. First, sample drill has been the predominant sound of New York rap, mostly from Brooklyn and the Bronx, for over a year now. But even though artists like Kay Flock and B-Lovee have had minor radio breakthroughs, the sound can benefit from an ambassador. Enter Cardi B, who is resurfacing soon, and is almost certainly the only mainstream rap star currently on the job who could jump on this rowdy drill track so seamlessly. Which is not without difficulty: this is a return to an adaptable form for Cardi, reminiscent of the way she took Kodak Black’s flow on her breakthrough single “Bodak Yellow”. Her verse here is snappy and clipped – she changes to the sound, not to force herself on it.
In the world of Lizzo
The Grammy-winning singer is known for her fierce lyrics, fashion and personality.
Technically, this song belongs to Kay Flock, who is currently in prison: he was arrested in December and charged with murder. It also features Bory300 and Dougie B, another up-and-coming Bronx rapper who has the most lithe couplet here. Contrary to the sublimated dread of the recent Fivio Foreign hit “City of Gods,” which struggles to transform its brusque style into something mellow and arena-scaled, “Shake It” is nothing but desolation. It’s true to taste drilling heritage, with bits of Akon’s “Bananza (Belly Dancer)” and Sean Paul’s “Temperature” woven through it. But it has its eyes on bigger goals. An early snippet was made available as part of the highly viral New York video show “Sidetalk,” a favorite of insiders and voyeurs alike, and jump-started “Shake It” to the kind of online ubiquity that makes for a contemporary pop hit without abandoning it. of the essence of drilling. JON CARAMANICA
Edoheart, ‘Pandemonium’
“Pandemonium” is the explosive title track of a new EP by Edoheart, a singer and producer born in Nigeria and based in New York. It’s four minutes of solid, lopsided, constantly shifting African funk with rhythmic double vision: staggered guitar arpeggios, sputtering drum beats, distant horns and overlapping voices proclaiming: “Change must come!” and, believably, “I’m free!” PARELES
KeiyaA, ‘Camille’s Daughter’
KeiyaA – the songwriter, instrumentalist and producer Chakeiya Camille Richmond – liquefies everything around her in “Camille’s Daughter”. Keyboard chords meld into wah-wah and echo, the beat drifts in late and stuttering, and KeiyaA begins and ends verses where she pleases, followed by ever-shifting clouds of her own backup vocals. “Never will you replicate me,” she sneers, utterly confident in every homemade fluctuation. PARELES
Naima Bock, ‘Giant Palm’
Weightless and unpredictable (“I’m soaring high, high above everything”), Glastonbury native artist Naima Bock’s “Giant Palm” plays a song that you would hear in a pleasant dream. Bock used to be in the British art-rock group Goat Girl, but her solo material leans more on the traditions of European folk and the deviant pop that she heard during a childhood in Brazil. There’s a bit of ’70s Brian Eno in her vocal delivery and an echo of John Cale in her arrangements, but the amalgamation of her disparate cultural influences makes for a mesmerizing sound that’s all Bock’s. ZOLADZ
Phoebe Bridgers, ‘Sidelines’
In Phoebe Bridgers’ world, even the most heartfelt love song is usually bittersweet: “Had nothing to prove, ’til you come in my life, gave me something to lose,” she sings on “Sidelines,” her first new song since her breakout. 2020 album “Punisher”; it will be featured in the upcoming Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney’s “Conversations With Friends.” “I’m not afraid of anything,” Bridgers emphasizes at the beginning of the song, before listing a series of potential fears (earthquakes, plane crashes, growing up) in the kind of gritty detail that makes her earlier statement sound a little ironic. “Sidelines” features what has since become Bridgers’ signature multi-tracked vocals – here they shimmer with an almost Vocoder-esque iridescence – simultaneously sounding numb and, quite poignantly, grappling with something haunting right beneath the surface. ZOLADZ
Wild pink, ‘Q. deGraw’
Wild Pink hails from Brooklyn, but the group specializes in the kind of open-air indie rock usually associated with the Pacific Northwest. Like the acclaimed 2021 album “A Billion Little Lights,” soaring new single “Q. Degraw” shows Wild Pink’s flair for the epic, but it’s less of an anthemic rocker than a slow smoldering mood piece. Frontman John Ross’s muffled vocals are buried under distortion that obscures them as diffusely as a moon behind clouds, though the moments when they become legible are especially influential. “I’ve been to hell and back,” he murmurs, before adding tenderly, “I know you’ve been to hell, too.” ZOLADZ
Kisskadee, ‘Black Hole Era’
Kisskadee brings together progressive rock (the Canterbury school to be precise), astronomy, chamber pop, computer sound manipulation and belief in resurrection in ‘Black Hole Era’. The music is rooted in a more or less meandering piano waltz – the meters shift – and is increasingly programmed, overdubbed, manipulated and elastic. Many transformations happen within five minutes. PARELES
FKA twigs, ‘Playscape’
FKA twigs continues to work on its art and fashion connections. ‘Playscape’, with a video directed by her with various casts, is a showcase for woolen clothing and Isamu Noguchi sculptures. After a lingering intro – isolated syllables and vocal harmonies – that reference both Meredith Monk and Take 5, she takes a full-on approach to late 70s punk, channeling X-Ray Spex’s wails and saxophone to a track. again dealing with terminology that has survived into the 21st century. century: “Identity.” With a mostly one-note melody, FKA wails twigs: “Identity! When you look in the mirror, do you see yourself?” It’s not a new song, but it’s still pointy. PARELES
Joel Ross, ‘Benediction’
With his octet Parables, vibraphonist Joel Ross plays what you could call chorales, but without vocals. The group’s repertoire evolved from a series of loose improvisations that Ross played and recorded years ago with saxophonist Sergio Tabanico. Ross went back and extracted little curves and dashes of melody from those recordings, learning the octet by ear. They developed into whole pieces over time, through a process of collective weaving, until each tune had an illusion of enclosed infinity, like Maya Lin’s land sculptures or an ancient song of praise. Indeed, Ross built the octet’s new album, “The Parable of the Poet,” around the structure of a church service. But these seven tracks try not so much to raise the rafters as to slowly rise towards them. “Benediction”, the last track, opens with a sublimely peaceful intro by the young pianist Sean Mason; at the end the song fades away while the band still enjoys the tune in harmonized community. RUSSELLO