Every week, we bring you #SOUNDCHECK — your destination for the best new music that hit the web over the course of the week. Because you should always be prepared when someone passes you that AUX cord. This week's roundup features 10 of our favorite emerging and established artists.
Wildly popular Brazilian superstar Anitta details all the ways she doesn’t need a man on this thumping retro-pop banger with a gothic twist. (YouTube)
Amber Mark gets real about the trudgery of the daily grind on this energetic and soulful track that opens her insightful new album, Three Dimensions Deep. (YouTube)
Tomberlin’s “idkwntht” — or “I Don’t Know Who Needs To Hear This” — arrives like a quiet revelation, full of wise one-liners and a meditative guitar rhythm. (YouTube)
If Nija’s assertive, confident flow on the bass-busting “Beautiful Lies” impresses you, it’ll make sense to learn that the 23-year-old has written hits for Beyoncé, Cardi B, and Kehlani. (YouTube)
“It’s only the end of an endless time,” opens The Weather Station’s piano elegy for the world, plagued by climate change. It’s filled with beautiful, sad details: “We can still walk out on the street and buy champagne grapes...It never occurred to us to have to pay.” (YouTube)
Tanya Tagaq’s throat singing is a weapon on “Tongues,” a sharp-edged spoken-word about reclaiming the Inuit vocal practice that oozes defiance. (Bandcamp)
Lo-fi whimsical grunge-rock from flowerovlove that’s all about relishing in lightness no matter how small: “Dancing around my room, ‘cause I love this song.” (YouTube)
Ye collaborator MAPEI, Fredrik Okazaki, and Thomas Rusiak are MOR, a new band making cyber-sounding electronica with a soulful human heart. (YouTube)
San Francisco’s CLAY wields a beguiling, rich voice that is irresistible on her swooning new breakup song, “Artery.” (YouTube)
This bubblegum ode to the greatest Y2K relic, the flip phone, by newcomer janiegiirl is our latest obsession. (Stream)