Dear listeners,
Overhead fluorescent lighting. Inoffensively gray waiting room chairs. A finger mechanically clicking the same keyboard key over and over in a strangely hypnotic rhythm. These are all things I will never look at quite the same after seeing the surreal video for FKA twigs’ latest single, “Eusexua.”
For years now I’ve been awaiting the follow-up to twigs’ ambitious, shape-shifting and deeply moving 2019 album, “Magdalene.” Last week, she finally revealed its release date (Jan. 24, 2025) and its title: “Eusexua,” a word she coined to describe a sensual state of euphoria. Much like the haircut she sports in the title track’s music video — a kind of architectural, high-fashion skullet? — this is something that can really only be pulled off by FKA twigs.
Even if “Eusexua” isn’t your vibe, though, I hope you’ll find something in this collection of new music — culled from the past few weeks of our Friday Playlists — that will fill you with such an unfamiliar type of joy that you have to invent a word to describe it. We’ve got retro-tinged country (from Margo Price and Billy Strings), a bit of celestial folk (from the Kentucky singer-songwriter Joan Shelley) and even some good old-fashioned indie-rock (from a perennial favorite of mine, Soccer Mommy).
String some lights up and change the course of time,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. FKA twigs: “Eusexua”
Driven by a persistent, skittering beat, this track finds twigs singing entirely in her vaporous upper register, as if she’s grasping skyward at a higher state of being. “I was on the edge of something greater than before,” she sings in the poignant closing moments — hopefully a harbinger of what’s to come on her upcoming third LP.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. Soccer Mommy: “Driver”
Since her 2018 full-length debut as Soccer Mommy (a name I will forever hear in my head as Senator Bernie Sanders once pronounced it), Sophie Allison has been putting out a remarkably consistent string of albums that showcase her own melodic and melancholic take on ’90s-influenced rock. Her fourth LP, “Evergreen,” comes out on Oct. 25, and I’ve loved all the singles she’s released from it so far, including the chugging, bittersweet “Driver,” which is all about being with someone who quiets one’s anxieties and sets the mind at ease.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Margo Price featuring Billy Strings: “Too Stoned to Cry”
“I’m lonely, but too stoned to cry,” the country renegades Margo Price and Billy Strings sing on this irreverent nod to Hank Williams (who certainly knew the feeling, but never sang about it quite as explicitly). This track is actually a cover of a little-known tune by the Dallas-born singer-songwriter Andrew Combs, whose original, more bare-bones version is certainly worth checking out. But I like what Price and Strings do with the song, too, recasting it with a rich, countrypolitan arrangement that gives it a throwback feel.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Joan Shelley: “Mood Ring”
The Kentucky folk singer-songwriter Joan Shelley’s lovely 2022 album “The Spur” got a lot of play in my home — particularly in the early morning hours, when I wanted to greet the day with something gentle — so I’m excited to hear that she’ll be releasing a new EP next month. This luminous title track is certainly a promising preview. “Have you heard that there’s music in the walls?” she asks in her soft but spirited voice, before letting Nathan Salsburg embroider the track’s final moments with some inspired electric guitar playing.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Mustafa: “Old Life”
The Toronto-born singer-songwriter and poet Mustafa makes music of disquieting tenderness, his low but nimble voice drenched in potent emotionality. Following a promising stretch of singles, features and a 2021 EP that my colleague Jon Caramanica named his favorite release of that year, Mustafa will finally release his long-awaited debut album, “Dunya,” on Sept. 27. The elegiac “Old Life” is a perfect introduction to Mustafa’s distinctly modern take on folk music, cut through with street reportage, Arabic influences and collagelike samples.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Queen Naija: “Good Girls Finish Last”
The R&B artist Queen Naija prepares to leave an unfulfilling relationship and strike out on her own on the defiant slow jam “Good Girls Finish Last.” “It doesn’t really matter how much I cry,” she sings, “because you don’t know what you want.” The mournful mood lightens toward the end, though, when she leads a playful call-and-response — “Let me hear you say ‘fed up,’ all the ladies say ‘fed up!’” — that eventually gives way to liberated laughter.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. Paris Paloma: “Boys, Bugs and Men”
“For somebody I thought was my savior, you sure make me do a whole lot of labour,” the English folk-pop artist Paris Paloma sang on her 2023 breakout single, “Labour.” The sharp, driving “Boys, Bugs and Men” takes on similarly wide-swath issues of gender and power, though this time the scenes are even more intimate, lively and vivid: “You said those words, and suddenly I’m 5,” Paloma sings wryly, as if through gritted teeth, “and the boys are bringing bugs just to kill them for my eyes.”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“7 New Songs You Should Hear Now” track list
Track 1: FKA twigs, “Eusexua”
Track 2: Soccer Mommy, “Driver”
Track 3: Margo Price featuring Billy Strings, “Too Stoned to Cry”
Track 4: Joan Shelley, “Mood Ring”
Track 5: Mustafa, “Old Life”
Track 6: Queen Naija, “Good Girls Finish Last”
Track 7: Paris Paloma, “Boys, Bugs and Men”
Bonus Tracks
Another beautiful single that will appear on Mustafa’s upcoming album: “Name of God.” Think Frank Ocean meets Sufjan Stevens.
Also, over the weekend I finally got around to reading Sasha Weiss’s New York Times Magazine cover story about Ezra Edelman’s nine-hour Prince documentary, which, because of disputes with the Prince estate, may never be released. It’s an engrossing, well reported and incredibly nuanced article that is absolutely worth your time, though it’s likely to ignite a tantalizing desire to see the documentary.