Each week, The FADER staff rounds up the songs we can't get enough of. Here they are, in no particular order. Listen on our Spotify and Apple Music playlists, or hear them all below.
Shygirl, "F*Me (feat. Yseult)"
Fresh off tour with Charli xcx, Shygirl drops a new addition to her arsenal of horny bangers. “F*Me” appears on her new EP, Club Shy Room 2, (due on Valentine's Day, naturally) and features a guest verse from Yseult, who raps in French between beats and moaning sound effects. As she says herself at one point, “In the name of Shy we trust.” —David Renshaw
Horsegirl, “Julie”
“Julie” is the latest taste of Horsegirl’s forthcoming album, Phonetics On and On, due in February. The Chicago-based band built their debut record around fuzzed-out guitar rock from the ’90s, but “Julie” showcases the band’s stripped-down, more sentimental and melancholic side. It reflects the artistry of producer Cate Le Bon with its sparse yet melodic instrumentation and a Nico-esque drawl. “I have so many mistakes, mistakes to make with you, you know I want them too,” goes a line addressed to the titular Julie. —Cady Siregar
Yves Jarvis, “Gold Filigree”
The new songs from Yves Jarvis have suggested a return to the gospel-inspired melodies of his early solo releases after spending a few years exploring a psychedelic folk sound. With the ramshackle majesty of a Prince demo, “Gold Filigree” still feels as polished as the titular jewelry, and twinkles with admiration for a lover who’s so well put together, it could only be divine symmetry. —Jordan Darville
Ceechynaa, “Peggy”
Ceechynaa has proven herself a powerful provocateur in the space of just three tracks over the past two years. With each new release, the 20-year-old former adult entertainer cements her position as a challenger to rap’s toxic gender norms, and she digs in even deeper on “Peggy,” her first release since July 2023’s “Last Laugh” — the track that sparked her ultravirality and received a pre-sex-symbol NLE Choppa remix in January. Diverging from the classic UK drill beats of her first two singles, she opts for something a bit more horrorcore, setting the stage for a brilliant, Memphis-themed hook: “I’m peggin’ that man in the back of the bus / Feel like Three 6 Mafia, I’m gonna fill up his nose with dust.” Reversing the misogyny of Juicy J’s unforgettable “Half on a Sack” bar, she spits directly in the face of rap fans who’d rather plug their ears than let a fem MC cook. —Raphael Helfand
Cortisa Star, "Cortisa Crump"
It's been a momentous few days for Cortisa Star, a 19-year-old Delaware-based rapper whose bombastic and risqué rap songs have become the latest obsession of X and garnered a co-sign from Charli xcx. If you're new to her catalog, start with "Cortisa Crump," her February 2024 single that morphs a holy church hymnal into a bass-busting drill ripper. "Call me iconic, I'm really a legend / Racks upon racks and this shit is a miracle," she likely wrote initially as an aspirational flex that's now turned into reality. —Steffanee Wang
Sky Ferreira, “Leash”
Taken from the soundtrack of Nicole Kidman’s new movie Babygirl, “Leash” is Sky Ferreira’s first new material in over two years. As usual, she delivers a song that balances the fine line between sounding utterly committed and coolly detached. “Leash” is a goth-pop smash with lyrics that blend the movie's psychosexual themes with her own frustrations with the music industry (“I bit my tongue and bled the truth”). Fingers crossed she is able to keep the momentum going in 2025. —DR
Venturing, “Famous Girl”
Venturing is the side project of Jane Remover, the hyperpop artist turned shoegaze artist. Under this guise, the New Jersey-based musician embraces melody in a much more direct way, with clean vocals that sit comfortably above crunchy guitars and springy percussion. There is a Mk.gee or 1975-style nod to '80s pop-rock in some parts, while others feel dredged up from the deep underground Jane Remover calls home. A full Venturing album is due in early 2025, and “Famous Girl” makes me excited to hear it. —DR
Lots of hands, “masquerade”
Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s lots of hands are nothing if not shapeshifters, and the collagist duo’s latest song offers a take on Elliot Smith-infused Americana only they could deliver. “Masquerade” gives the sound of steel — banjos, and both acoustic and electric guitars — the color of an impressionist sunset, millions of tiny dots forming an impossible picture. It’s an ideal escape from the everyday noise Elliot Dryden sings of: “They’re always talking bullshit / I don’t have any time for it.” —JD
Roc Marciano, The Alchemist, “Chopstick”
The Elephant Man’s Bones, the last collaborative project from Roc Marciano and the Alchemist, was a highlight of 2022. The first single from its follow-up, The Skeleton Key, doesn’t mess with the formula: a boom-bap beat with a haunting loop seemingly pulled from a giallo movie, and Marciano offering vivid mafioso bars with a trademark sneer. “This shit light,” he scoffs at the beginning, before following through on that promise of effortlessness. —JD
Passepartout Duo, “Viols and Violas, in Mus.”
Argot, the fourth LP from Italian soft-noise duo Nicoletta Favari and Christopher Salvito, is a lovely, perplexing document of experimental interactions between acoustic instruments and electronic synthesizers. Composed on synths and then transcribed from MIDI to piano by Salvito for Favari to play, the songs are full of irregular rhythms and surprising tone clusters. Like the rest of the tracks on Argot, closer “Viols and Violas, in Mus.” is named like a crossword clue (answer: STR). But unlike the others it integrates its “unidiomatic” elements seamlessly into the context of piano and string quartet — unfortunately, there’s no actual viol on the track. What it loses in idiosyncrasy is more than made up for in the gorgeous harmonies generated by the interplay of keys and strings (or, more appropriately, strs). —RH
LUCY, “Barking”
LUCY’s ninth Cooper B. Handy album feels generally like a mixtape, but “Barking” is an emphatic closer. Over an ingenious Michael Hurley fiddle sample, LUCY adopts an uncharacteristic drawl as he sings lyrics like, “Everyone I ever met lives inside of me” and “The same dogs that I know, yeah I swear I hear ’em barking.” Despite his delirious delivery, these lines are classic LUCY — impressionistic but precise, constructing a whole world in the space of seconds. —RH