Essential Tracks This Week: Perfume Genius, McKinley Dixon, and more

Cody Critcheloe

Another week comes to an end, and with it, a roundup of the best new songs it had to offer. Among the songs we can’t stop listening to are a team-up between two great art-pop artists, an emotional hip-hop song with rich instrumentation, a one-minute noise rock/hardcore ripper and more. Queue up this week’s Essential Tracks.

Perfume Genius – “No Front Teeth” (feat. Aldous Harding)

Admittedly, the video for Perfume Genius’ latest single might upstage the song a little, which opens with Mike Hadreas waking up in an ice skating rink, then later features a pretty psychotic waffle-making scene, a sex scene, guns—it gets wild. But the song itself is spectacular, a six-minute epic featuring Aldous Harding’s guest vocals that travels from gorgeously gentle ballad to rowdy rock climax and then back to its softer and more serene aesthetic. The whole thing is a work of art, really, so get comfortable getting weird with it, mind-boggling visuals and all.

From Glory, out March 28 via Matador.

McKinley Dixon – “Sugar Water”

Richmond-born, Chicago-based McKinley Dixon takes a maximalist approach to hip-hop that heavily incorporates live instrumentation with elements of jazz, soul and gospel—all of which can be heard on “Sugar Water.” Featuring Quelle Chris on a guest verse and Anjimile providing a hook, “Sugar Water” is Dixon at his best—soulful, defiant, joyful. A song about trying to make moments last forever, it’s powered by both both grief and celebration, of warmth and of humanity. It’s as bright and buoyant a song as you’ll ever hear about life’s cruelest irony, that those you love won’t be around forever.

From Magic, Alive!, out June 6 via City Slang.

Maria Somerville – “Garden”

It’s fitting that Irish artist Maria Somerville is a new addition to the 4AD Records roster. From the moment that “Garden” begins, it evokes the gothic darkness and minimalist drum machine pulse of classic Cocteau Twins, and that’s never a bad thing. It’s caught between the adjacent worlds of post-punk and dream pop, melancholy and romantic, gorgeous and just a little grimy. It’s the kind of winter-day escape that rewards a closer headphone listen, with whooshes of atmosphere and effects on the fringes that bring dimension to its landscape—hills, valleys and an unmistakable chill in the air.

From Luster, out April 25 via 4AD

EYES – “Better”

Maybe we’ll just reserve one slot a week here for one minute of furious metal and hardcore? (See: Last week’s Iron Lung ripper.) We’ll mull that over while we play the latest from EYES a few times. The Copenhagen group were included in our list of the best noise rock albums from 2023 you might have missed, and this one’s short enough that if you have to take a bathroom break or something, it’ll require restarting. But it’s worth it—all 60 seconds of this is bruising and brutal, streamlined and searing, an instant gratification sequence of fucking shit up that you really shouldn’t miss.

From SPINNER, out April 25 via Prosthetic Records.

The Null Club – “Slip Angle”

It makes only every kind of sense that a member of Gilla Band and a member of Mandy, Indiana would sound right at home on a track together, and on “Slip Angle,” that’s exactly what we get. The first song released from the upcoming debut EP from The Null Club, the new project of Gilla Band guitarist/producer Alan Duggan Borges, is a tense, minimalist and yet explosive burst of industrial noise that draws from a similar sonic palette as that Irish noise rock group, but even more menacing and rooted in primitive electronic sounds. And on this song, Valentine Caulfield of Mandy, Indiana lends her vocal talents, chanting in French as the track’s percussive loop and eerie drones gradually grow more unsettling until they ultimately get washed out in a blistering cacophony.