It’s Friday afternoon, which means that a band just finished playing in our office, and also that it’s time to recap all the best new songs we heard during the past week. In the past few days, we got more than a little obsessed with the new Majical Cloudz song — and as well as that, there’s another most excellent Phoenix remix, Iron and Wine getting all 19th century on us, surprisingly good new stuff from Primal Scream and Tricky, unsurprisingly good new stuff from Azar Swan and Kelpe, and plenty more. Get streaming and/or downloading, peoples!
Majical Cloudz — “Childhood’s End” We heart Majical Cloudz, and we’re very much looking forward to hearing their new album. In the meantime, there’s this lead single to tide us over, which we’re pretty sure is the same song with which the duo have been opening their live sets of late. It’s basically everything we love about Majical Cloudz — melancholy lyrics, Devon Welsh’s gorgeous voice, and understated electronic accompaniment. [via Pitchfork]
Phoenix — “Entertainment” (Blood Orange remix) We can take or leave the original, but this song has been getting some killer remixes of late — there was Dinosaur Jr.’s radical reworking last week, and now there’s Dev Hynes’s similarly dramatic deconstruction, with vocals from former Sugababes Mutya, Kesiha, and Siobhan, with whom Hynes is in the studio at the moment (and clearly having a lot of fun). [via Spin]
Iron and Wine — “Hard Times Come No More” If someone asked you which contemporary musician you’d most likely find covering a composition from 1854, answering “Sam Beam” would probably be a pretty decent bet. This song was apparently recorded for a new BBC series called Copper, and you can hear it at Rolling Stone.
Tricky — “Does It” Every time Tricky announces a new album, we’re like Charlie Brown with the football: we come running, and at the last second, Tricky makes the football disappear in a puff of suspicious-smelling smoke. But maybe, just maybe, this time we’ll get to kick, because both this song and previous single “Nothing’s Changed” bode rather well. We’re starting our run-up… #pray4us [via Ad Hoc]
Primal Scream — “It’s Alright, It’s OK” In which the song title describes the song just perfectly. [via Brooklyn Vegan]
Pharmakon — “Crawling on Bruised Knees” Speaking of tracks that sound like their name, there’s something singularly disconcerting about this track, which is seven-and-a-half minutes of ominous noise that would be just perfect for soundtracking a film about someone trying to extricate themselves from some sort of unpleasant industrial torture chamber. It’s pretty great, in other words. [via Stereogum]
Yeah Yeah Yeahs — “Under the Ground” As noted earlier this morning, you can hear the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs song right here.
Kelpe — “Answered” (Microburst remix) London producer Kelpe was making aquatic-sounding ambient electronic music when the #seapunks were still #tadpoles, and he’s got a new EP due out soon — the EP’s called Answered, and it’s out April 15. In the meantime, he’s shared a couple of its tracks — there’s an original mix of one of them here here, but we rather prefer the gentle sounds of this remix of the title track. [via XLR8R]
Azar Swan — “Lusty” Brooklyn duo Azar Swan’s “Amrika” was one of our favorite songs of last year (they recently dropped a pretty great video for it, too), and now they’re back with this most excellent new track, all clattering percussion and grinding, industrial noise. [via The Deli]
Pure X — “Someone Else” Atmospheric alt-country-esque goodness from Pure X. Now, where’s that new album? [via Pitchfork]