Becky G, an American singer with Mexican roots, has racked up hundreds of thousands of streams with hits in pop kinds from throughout the Americas. On most of her new album, “Esquinas,” she latches onto the rising recognition of regional Mexican music, reviving ballads by Vicente Fernández, the revered Mexican ranchera songwriter, and collaborating with present regional Mexican hitmakers together with Peso Pluma, Yahritza y Su Esencia and, on “Cuidadito” (“Be Cautious”), the Mexican singer Chiquis. In a bouncy duet, they element the type of revenge they’re able to tackle a husband seen with one other lady the night time earlier than: no breakfast, slashed tires, eviction. Spoiler: It was only a dream, however he’s been warned. JON PARELES
The Canadian electronic-pop songwriter Debby Friday, who simply received Canada’s Polaris Prize, collaborated with the Australian producer Darcy Baylis on this new single. Over a double-time break beat and calmly pulsing synthesizers, Friday sings about an obsession that retains her awake, even when the devotion is probably not fully mutual. She wonders, “Is the massive coronary heart my solely sin?” PARELES
The newest single from the British pop star PinkPantheress is a sugary confection with a gothic edge. “I simply had a dream I used to be useless, and I solely cared ’trigger I used to be taken from you,” she sings in her signature lilt, hopscotching throughout a skittish beat. Produced with Greg Kurstin, the monitor retains the dreamy appeal of PinkPantheress’s homespun bedroom-pop however provides a glittery sheen. LINDSAY ZOLADZ
Jaja Tresch that includes Coco Argentée and Denis Dino, ‘Nonji Chom’
Right here’s a burst of sheer jubilation. Jaja Tresch and two fellow Cameroonian singers, Coco Argentée and Denis Dino, commerce verses on a monitor that hurtles alongside on six-beat rhythms, drawing on bikutsi and different kinds authentic to their nation. The lyrics, within the Meta’ language, inform younger folks to heed their mother and father and to persevere. As guitars, drums, balafons (marimbas), flutes and whistles all pile into the monitor, the music soars. PARELES
Absolutely the excessive level of “Hackney Diamonds,” the primary album of latest Rolling Stones songs since 2005, is “Candy Sounds of Heaven.” It begins as a free, gospelly track that simply occurs to have Stevie Surprise on keyboards; quickly, Girl Gaga arrives to commerce vocals with — and spur on — Mick Jagger. Horns are available to push the track to a grand finale, however apparently nobody needs to let it finish, and what feels like a spontaneous studio jam lifts the track to a different peak. Even on this digital period, it feels analog. PARELES
H31R — the duo of the Brooklyn rapper maassai and the New Jersey producer JWords — conjures a sound for when lust conquers rationality on “Proper Right here.” The rap goes, “I do know higher/however when you wanna take me I might let ya,” over squishy electrical piano chords, sporadic bass-drum hits and a few tiny factor that’s simply rattling and clanking across the combine. The temper is a tossup: keen however nonchalant, defensive however reckless. PARELES
Turbulent love songs are in every single place; serene ones are a lot rarer. Faye Webster’s “Lifetime” savors a way of permanence. The tempo is a really relaxed sway, piano and guitar commerce little trickling phrases, and a chamber orchestra affords discreet help as Webster sings in a voice of bemused contentment, envisioning a lifelong connection. PARELES
There’s an eerie magnificence in “Once more,” the title monitor from the most recent album by the digital experimentalist Oneohtrix Level By no means. The glitchy, wordless composition progresses by way of cycles of malfunction and decay — melodies appear to interrupt aside, revealing the ghosts within the machines. If HAL 9000’s dying scene in “2001: A House Odyssey” makes you cry, this one’s for you. ZOLADZ
Reeds and violin explode in star bursts, over and once more. A pair of drummers push forward with a square-shouldered beat that would simply be lifted from a punk file, or from one among Junior Kimbrough’s electric blues. Alongside them, the alto saxophonist, multimedia artist and self-described “sound quilter” Matana Roberts speaks from the angle of an ancestor (or perhaps many), placing phrases to the essential consciousness that the ladies of her line have carried. “How Prophetic” arrives early on “Coin Coin Chapter 5: Within the Backyard,” the most recent in a collection of albums exploring Roberts’s ancestry and inheritance, drawing from a mixture of archival materials, interviews with relations and the artist’s creativeness. On the finish of “How Prophetic,” Roberts recites a chorus which recurs throughout the album: “My identify is your identify, our identify is their identify, we’re named, we bear in mind, they overlook.” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO
The Nationwide ends “Snort Observe,” its surprise-release second album of 2023, with “Smoke Detector,” an eight-minute stay recording that’s a spiral of desperation. The lyrics work by way of free associations, guarantees and pleas — “Why don’t you lay right here and take heed to distant sirens with me?” — whereas the band circles obsessively by way of 4 chords, falling and rising, with its guitars tangling and seething, gnashing and wailing. “You don’t know the way a lot I really like you, do you?” Matt Berninger finally asks, already realizing the unhappy reply. PARELES
Atka is the singer and songwriter Sarah Neumann, who was born in Germany however is now primarily based in London. In “Lenny,” she sings about making an attempt to save lots of a troubled man she nonetheless loves: “I want you, I at all times will,” she insists. She and her producer, Jung Kim from Gang of Youths, use frantically clattering percussion and an occasional pattern of church bells to remodel what might have been a fundamental two-chord rocker into an emotional siege. PARELES
It takes over two minutes for any prescribed melody to kick in on “Zubot,” as you’ll be able to see clearly within the accompanying video, which animates Darius Jones’s written rating. However by the point his alto saxophone syncs up with James Meger’s bass, taking part in a zigzagging, key-jumping melody whereas cellos and violins scrub and scrape round them, every instrument within the group has discovered a solution to outline itself. “Zubot” is the second of 4 actions in Jones’s new album-length suite, “Fluxkit Vancouver (It’s Suite however Sacred),” linked equally to 12-tone modernism and free jazz and the Southern soul saxophone custom. RUSSONELLO
