CHIHIRO
By Billie Eilish
Whenever Billie Eilish releases an album, it feels like she’s looked into the future and set the tone for pop music to come. Chihiro relies on a techno undercurrent with a groovy bassline which consistently builds into something huge and cinematic toward the end – which herself and producer-brother Finneas evidently have a knack for, given they already have two Academy awards. Chihiro means “a thousand questions” in Japanese, and in the lyrics Eilish asks more than 10 of them. It’s also the lead character’s name in Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 animation Spirited Away, with the song showing similar themes of coping with loss – Eilish has professed a love for the film in the past. There’s confidence, sincerity, and originality to this whole album release, but Chihiro is one of the frontrunners. – Alana Rae
Danger I
By Vera Ellen (featuring Oli Devlin)
Ahead of her tour with Reb Fountain and Voom, Taite Prize winner Vera Ellen has released Heartbreak for Jetlag, a six-track EP of bedroom recordings, all sweetly mopey numbers of various levels of emotional devastation (at its strongest on enough). But the standout is Danger I, a tag-team duet between Ellen and Hans Pucket frontman Oliver Devlin. The pair’s interwoven vocals, possibly essaying two sides of a broken relationship, is a heartbreakingly lovely thing. Deserves to be a hit – and a Silver Scroll contender, too. – Russell Baillie
nudes
By Luna Shadows
There’s an Imogen Heap essence in the vocoder-ness of nudes. It’s the opening and titular track from LA-based New Zealander Luna Shadows’ new EP. Certainly mellow, and fully banking on the vulnerable vocals and lyrics to carry it, she tells the story of being led on and the complications that come with being in a new relationship with your own baggage: “Skeletons in closets / Swept under the carpet / Runnin’ through thе halls with you / Hold me like I’m haunted”. – Alana Rae
Delphinium Blue
By Cassandra Jenkins
This haunting, quasi-ambient soundscape by New Yorker Jenkins is the second such single in advance of her forthcoming My Light, My Destroyer album. While we could confidently say it won’t get much radio mileage, taken together these songs – especially the earlier Only One – suggest a classy, mature album for late night listening and intimate moods. – Graham Reid
Boa
By Megan Thee Stallion
Although enormously successful, Megan is here again to remind us just who she is and who she ain’t (“all my diamonds dancing, I ain’t need to make no TikTok”) in a rap of lyrical clarity and assertion (“I do what I want to do . . . bitch or pervert”). Over a beat by LilJuMadeDaBeat, also known for his work with Beyoncé, this is very catchy. And you don’t wanna mess with her. – Graham Reid
Take A Bite
By beabadobee
Maybe its reflective of the Y2K trend, but beabadobee’s Take A Bite feels rather New Zealand in a Bic Runga-meets-Anika Moa way. A guitar strum taking the lead over sweet vocals cements this feeling, along with its introspectiveness. It feels like a quick over-analysis into new feelings, but beabadobee also explains it as a song that finds “comfort in chaos”. – Alana Rae
Days are Dogs
By Shellac
There’s a tribute to the late American alternative rock cult hero Steve Albini in the new issue of the Listener. In the meantime, here’s one of the funnier, punchier, and most cowbell-powered tracks off his band Shellac’s sixth album, To All Trains, released posthumously this week. – Russell Baillie
Hineraukatauri, comp Gillian Whitehead
by Bridget Douglas flute, Al Fraser taonga puoro.
In Māori tradition, Hine Raukatauri is the goddess of music and dance, and appears as a case moth who sings her beautiful song to attract male moths. In Gillian Whitehead’s Hineraukatauri - one of the most successful pieces to combine orchestral and traditional Māori instruments - the musicians create a fluttering duet, the flute notated and the pūtōrino improvised. #NZMM – Richard Betts
