New Music Friday: 1/23/26

As always, New Music Friday is partly powered by Pause & Play, your weekly destination for all the new release news you can handle.

"Aperture," Harry Styles
Like I told the Jefitoblog Discord gang yesterday, I think my favorite thing about "Aperture" might be the way it reminds me of leadoff singles from the hotly anticipated albums of yesteryear. Before streaming, singles really meant something, and there was an art to whetting fans' appetites for the record without necessarily dropping your catchiest or most commercially accessible track. There's a lot to like about this song's patient build from the murmured first verse into the memorable but not super-sticky melody of the chorus — you feel like you're being let into the foyer for a few minutes before the real party gets started.

Of course, it could be that "Aperture" is the best song on the record, and the rest of it is simply rather lame. I have no idea. The album title admittedly does not inspire confidence.

"Last of a Dying Breed," Joji
The final pre-release single from Joji's upcoming album PISS IN THE WIND — now THAT'S how you title a record, Harry — "Last of a Dying Breed" offers another fuzzy nugget of the so-called "cinematic pop" he's become known for. The track's certainly cinematic; what sounds like an organ and a swirl of strings sets the stage before his hushed vocals come in, wafting gracefully over a machine-driven beat. There's darkness pulsing through here, but the overall effect is still somewhat soothing.

"Funeral," Dermot Kennedy
This is one of those songs that gets by on the strength of its singer's raw, quavering emotion — it's 1-2-3-4 dead simple in terms of its musical construction, and really, pretty much everybody has heard something like "Funeral" more times than they can count, but at this particular moment in time, I find myself increasingly susceptible to the sound of someone screaming "We set a fire to our sorrow / And watched the hurt go up in flames."

"In Violet," Searows
A properly melancholy song for grim days during the coldest time of year, "In Violet" beautifully and moodily mulls the pain of knowing you've failed to live up to the version of yourself you want other people to see. Seems apropos for us as a nation right now for some fucking reason; I can't quite put my finger on why. Might just be because my hands are balled up into fists.

"DEViL," .idk
There are a couple of ways you can approach this song, which is drawn from .idk's new Even the Devil Smiles mixtape. On one hand, you can appreciate it as part of another worthwhile statement from one of the most thoughtful MCs in the game, one that reckons with his own time spent in the penal system; on the other, you can just enjoy it as a wickedly catchy song elevated by some clever lines and .idk's flow, which is melodic in some spots, percussive in others, and playful throughout.

"Jupiter and Mars," Avalon Emerson
This week's early '90s college rock throwback comes courtesy of Avalon Emerson, who uses ringing guitars and shimmering synths to evoke the mad rush of early infatuation. Sounds like spinning in fields of heather, and who doesn't want to hear that once in awhile?

"Opal," Julian Lage
"Opal" leads off Julian Lage's new Scenes from Above LP, and sets the stage nicely; here is a small (but mightily talented) combo arranged to support the quiet, almost tentative, but finally thrillingly lovely lines spilling forth from Lage's guitar. Once you've heard this, it won't surprise you to know it was produced by the mighty Joe Henry.

"Is There Anyone Out There," Sophie Gault
I missed this last month when it was dropped in advance of Sophie Gault's just-released UNHINGED album, so consider this making up for lost time. Covering Gurf Morlix's original song with his support on backing vocals, Gault does a Mary Chapin Carpenteresque job of infusing the song's chilly rafters with the warm spirit of communion, acknowledging a bone-deep feeling of loneliness while refusing to accept that's all there is. Spine-tingling stuff.

"Is There a Place for You There?," Shintaro Sakamoto
This song's slinky beat and cascading waves of flutes — flutes! — are so entrancing that I can't even be bothered to care about the rock-solid language barrier that lies between my ears and whatever Shintaro Sakamoto is trying to tell me with the lyrics.