Essential Tracks This Week: Superchunk, Lucrecia Dalt, and more

A programming note: We previously published Best New Releases and Essential Tracks on Fridays, but we’ve made a slight change. Essential Tracks have moved to Thursday simply because it made more sense not to try to stack them and let two worthy features each have their own moment. With that said, this week’s batch of songs is loaded with good stuff, including Superchunk, Sudan Archives, Ganser and more.

Superchunk — “Is It Making You Feel Something”

Ever forget what qualifies as “indie rock”? Pro tip: Just repeat this mantra, “Superchunk is indie rock. Indie rock is Superchunk.” And so on and so forth. “Is It Making You Feel Something,” the first single from the quartet’s upcoming LP Songs in the Key of Yikes, is so quintessential Superchunk that it’s futile to liken its ebullient tone and speed, deliciously crunchy guitars, and upbeat nature to any other music. Frontman Mac McCaughan says this upbeat song, with its fusion of jauntily delivered power chords and pretty riffs, is Superchunk’s (irrepressibly positive) answer to the horrors happening in the U.S. If even half of the tracks that’ll comprise Songs in the Key of Yikes are this engaging and infectious, one of the band’s best records ever in its 36-year career could be just around the corner. – Kurt Orzeck

From Songs in the Key of Yikes, out August 22 via Merge.

Lucretia Dalt – “divina”

We hear sometimes useless bitching about how we don’t have a modern Tom Waits or Scott Walker. We do, and they’re women. Lucretia Dalt, one of these figures updating chanteuse and early-century European pop songwriting sensibilities with the contemporary avant-garde, here splits in both directions harder than before. The bones of this song are a ballad that could be sung by a beehive hairdo in 1960s polyester dresses and Chelsea boots; the accompanying rattling piano and electronic wobble feels like contemporary post-internet lost futures. When choosing between novelty and execution, Dalt chooses both, as any great player or songwriter should. That this is even more commanding than “cosa rara,” her single earlier this year with David Sylvian, a beloved legend, speaks to the esteem of her work. – Langdon Hickman

From A Danger to Ourselves, out September 5 via RVNG Intl.

Sudan Archives – “DEAD”

Midway through “DEAD,” Brittney Parks, aka Sudan Archives, says “Hello, it’s me/Did you miss me?” It’s an easy yes to that question, naturally, her 2022 album Natural Brown Prom Queen a stellar career-best effort that would have left anyone wanting more. But the funny thing about Sudan Archives is that she’s the kind of artist who’s always evolving, and thus the version of her that we missed is almost definitely a different one than what emerges anew. “DEAD” is no different in this regard, morphing from that prior album’s neo soul standouts to a heavy pulsing, string-laden orchestral pop (to refer to anything that Parks, a violinist, does as “string-laden” is redundant, yes, but bear with me). When the urgent bass thump kicks in, it’s clear that this grand, orchestral statement is primed for liftoff, but it’s not until 90 seconds in when the heavy throb of bass kicks in and “DEAD” punches through the atmosphere. “Where my old self at? Where my new self at?” she asks in a moment of pause. They’re all here, combining into something even stronger than the sum of its parts. – Jeff Terich

Out now via Stones Throw

Ganser – “Black Sand”

Ganser’s Sophie Sputnik wrote the lyrics to “Black Sand” years ago amid concerns over dwindling queer rights, wildfires, and Florida. She said, “And it’s strange because these things, they don’t just go away. They linger. They shift.” In the time since Ganser released their last album in the midst of the pandemic, each of these issues (and Florida) have only worsened. “Black Sand,” the Chicago group’s first single from their upcoming album Animal Hospital, operates with that reality in mind. As far as propulsive post-punk goes, it’s intentionally weathered, tired of grappling with the same disasters that were present half a decade ago. There’s a pulse to “Black Sand” that’ll catch your ears, beating in the face of a regressive state of the nation out of stubbornness rather than wishful thinking. On the other hand, it implies that Ganser haven’t lost a step since Just Look At That Sky. – Colin Dempsey

From Animal Hospital, out August 29 via felte.

Marisa Nadler – “New Radiations”

Marissa Nadler’s new single finds the singer/songwriter continuing her residency at the Bang Bang Bar. If David Lynch were going to use a country song, he almost certainly would have picked something along these lines (and as it so happens, Nadler and Lynch were Sacred Bones labelmates). By the end of the song, rock guitars wailing in the distance, yet her identity remains intact. It’s a slow burn that grows on you with each listen, with a mix shifting the dynamics of the song as it drifts you into its hazy night. It is in perfect alignment with her sound without being redundant. She gives you just enough to leave you intrigued as to what her new album will be like. – Wil Lewellyn

From New Radiations, out August 15 via Sacred Bones/Bella Union.

Lifeguard – “Like You’ll Lose”

I’ve already written a lot of words about the new Lifeguard album, Ripped and Torn, which is a spectacular set of noisy, experimental indie rock that you should make sure to put on your listening queue when it’s released tomorrow (We’ll give you a reminder, don’t worry). But the final single released from the album before it drops is the best of the pre-release batch, and a serious contender for Lifeguard’s best song to date. Dissonant yet direct, abrasive yet adrift in a dubby abyss of echoing drums, “Like You’ll Lose” navigates a weirder and darker space for the Chicago trio, channeling the pioneering, anything-goes spirit of early UK post-punk groups such as Swell Maps and This Heat while incorporating their unique sense of rhythm, melody and dynamics. This is that good, weird shit. – Jeff Terich