A lot of the newer Girlpool songs are like "Chinatown": steady, sparse, slow-burning. The corresponding low-res video of the pair fumbling around the titular Los Angeles neighborhood is almost as sweet as their tour doc, and features cameos from West Coast friends Slutever and RL Kelly. Knowing they just recently packed up and moved across the country to Philly adds an extra layer of glassy-eyed nostalgia to a song that already aches. I am nervous for tomorrow and today, they sing, their girlish two-part harmonies as intuitive as ever. Seems like as long as they've got each other, there's not a whole lot to be nervous about. — Patrick D. McDermott
There isn't an obvious, objectively best new Aphex Twin track in the treasure trove of unreleased material he's set loose this week—it all depends which Aphex you like. For me, it's the synth weirdo who leans in heavy on his pop intuition, like on famous tunes "Boy/Girl Song," "Avril 14," and "Alberto Basalm," or Selected Ambient Works Vol. 1. He has a way with melody and arrangement that can be simply stunning, and "Make A Baby" is a welcome addition to his canon of euphoric lullabies. — Alexander Iadarola
"High Fashion" caught me completely off guard: Metro Boomin, Southside and Wondagurl serve haunted house bounce and Travis claws his way through it, as he can be counted on to. But an increasingly tortured Future exercising demons all through his second verse felt too real: I seen a psychiatrist, the devil inside me, and I'm trying to hide it, this lean got me nauseous, but I keep on using. It felt like this interview in song form: a therapy session we're lucky to sit in on. — Matthew Trammell
Little Simz's London-based Space Age collective dropped a four-track, 17-minute EP out of nowhere this week. On Twitter, she explained, sort of: "there's no rules to this shit, we go off feelings and vibes." And what a vibe it is. On "No Pressure," the crew trades heady, dexterous flows over a delicate beat. There's an intimate, effortless comfort level between them that'll make you feel like you accidentally plugged your headphones into a private Space Age conversation. — Rawiya Kameir
When I saw Jerry Paper perform in Brooklyn last December, I was caught completely off guard. He danced and karate chopped like no one was watching, all while wearing a loosely tied kimono-esque robe. The onstage caricature he portrays is all over the place, just like his thought-provoking synthpop. His latest single, "Destroy," uses a combination of kitschy keyboard harpsichord and fake percussion sounds to create a mesmerizing melody that, for all the monotone singing, is still extremely catchy. —Misha Sesar
I love songs like "Pusher," where the beat pulses with a smooth shuffle like a caterpillar moving across a leaf and the vocals are delivered with a perfect mix of passion and passionlessness. By the time the drop hits, you're like David Guetta freaking out at Tomorrowland: entranced, utterly spaced, and practically begging for another hit. — Larry Fitzmaurice
This brand new trio from Brooklyn have their roots in the underground dance music scene: singing, spinning, and snapping respectively. Together, they hone in on the simple yet medicinal power of the loop on their debut offering, "All My Dreams." It's a tactilely textured track that distills the euphoria of classic house into a warm blur. —Ruth Saxelby
What can't Untold do at this point? After deconstructing techno with Change In a Dynamic Environment and flipping bass music on its head with last year's nasty, brutish Black Light Spiral, the Hemlock boss recently returned with an insane two-tracker, "Doff" b/w "Phive." The A-side is where it's at here, with springy sproings that sound like someone detuning a guitar while really stoned and a pummeling jackhammer beat bound to give you a headache in the most awesome way. — Larry Fitzmaurice
Austin Millz Searching For Gotham mixtape has a lot of neat stuff going on, but one thing I was particularly excited to see was Anjelihs' name on the tracklist. My interest first piqued when I heard his zoned-out "Beneath The Grapevine," and realized he is from a city five or so minutes from where I grew up: Lawrence, Massachusetts. "5 A.M. In Lawrence" is more of that foggy R&B; here he sounds a like a blitzed Nostalgia, Ultra era-Frank Ocean. — Zara Golden
In an interview with Rookie, high-schooler Nidia Minaj talks about making beats until 3 or 4 in the morning. "Sometimes I forget to eat," she says. "When that happens my mother will start yelling at me." "Principe" is a good example of how that precocious determination can pay off. The title is ostensibly a reference to the Lisbon, Portugal record label which has releases by the likes of DJ Marfox and Tia Maria Produções, and the tune itself is equal parts deep and bubbling, stimulating and sedating. — Alexander Iadarola
On Blackheart, her newly released second solo album, Dawn Richard sounds like a warrior who's just come home from battle—scarred and war-weary, but triumphant. "Billie Jean", the album's second single, sees Richard cosplaying as a woman casually trading in sex and prenups; she's talking about groupies and Instagram models, sure, but she's also talking about her own complex relationship with the music industry. — Rawiya Kameir
As someone who pays a lick of attention to the various strains of art-pop emerging from the underground, I'm getting slightly exhausted by "academic" attempts to deconstruct musical genres. My red alert should go off, then, while approaching GABI, a project centered around the one-named-for-now Gabrielle, whose formal training and experience writing for chamber orchestras screams "Serious Music." But "Fleece," a cut from her forthcoming debut Sympathy, breathes and sighs with unpretentious airs, as Gabrielle's voice rises and falls in gorgeous shapes while being cushioned by swathes of piano, strings, and horns. Oneohtrix Point Never's Daniel Lopatin contributes production touches to Sympathy, and you can tell that GABI is a kindred spirit. —Larry Fitzmaurice
You might not know Emily Yacina by name, but if you're at all familiar with the music of Alex G, you probably know her voice. She's an old friend and longtime collaborator of the DIY rock wunderkind (that's her in the "Harvey" video), but she's quietly prolific in her own right, too; her latest straight-to-BandCamp EP is a short and stunning four-track collection. FADER contributor Colin Joyce compared her to a young Cat Power, and he's definitely onto something; like Chan Marshall, Yacina is a singer-songwriter with a knack for sleepy melodies and simple, direct imagery. Opener "Bruise" sounds like one: black, blue, and just painful enough. — Patrick D. McDermott