There’s so much music coming out all the time that it’s hard to keep track. On those days when the influx of new tracks is particularly overwhelming, we sift through the noise to bring you a curated list of the most interesting new releases (the best of which will be added to our Best New Songs playlist). Below, check out our track roundup for Monday, June 23, 2025.
Caroline Polachek – ‘On the Beach’
Caroline Polachek’s lumbering, hypnotic new song, ‘On the Beach’, is her contribution to the soundtrack for the new PlayStation 5 video game Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, which is out this week. Accompanied by an alternate ‘Timefall Mix’, the track was co-produced with Danny L Harle and co-written with Harle and Hideo Kojima, the game’s writer, director, and designer. “I was listening to Caroline Polachek last year and became a big fan of hers,” Kojima said in a recent interview. “After I put that on my Instagram, she contacted me, and then she DM’ed. We kept in touch and then eventually met up in Paris, and that’s when she told me she wanted to write a new song for Death Stranding 2. She works very fast. You heard her song when you saw the Plate Gate — it’s called ‘On the Beach’.”
In a press release, Polachek shared: “‘On The Beach’ was actually one of the first songs I ever made with Danny L Harle, but it was too alien and industrial- almost too evil – to work sense on Pang, so I set it aside til the right thing came along. When Kojima approached me about DS2, I showed him the sketch of it and he agreed that it was a perfect fit, and so eight years after starting this song, it got reopened, extended, and finished for the perfect setting.”
Wet Leg – ‘davina mccall’
Wet Leg have put ‘davina mccall’, the third single of their upcoming album moisturizer, which is breezier and more relaxed than the first two. The sweetness is appropriate: it’s “a song about pure, unadulterated devotion,” according to a press release.
The Lemonheads – ‘In the Margin’
The Lemonheads have released a fuzzy, infectious new song called ‘In the Margin’, which accompanies the announcement that their new album Love Chant will be out October 24. “I wanted to have a riffy song, so I wrote riffs all over it,” Evan Dando said of the track. “The body of the song was Marciana’s. It’s like a full-on eighth grade girl revenge song: ‘Stupidly I left the escape plans out so they could find my way.’”
Superchunk – ‘No Hope’
Superchunk’s latest single, off their forthcoming Songs In the Key of Yikes, brought to mind a song I haven’t thought about in a long time: the Vaccines’ pretty great 2012 single of the same. It’s not surprising you can spin the same words into a chorus these days, and Superchunk’s is pretty catchy, too. “The last…10 (?) years have given us plenty of material for crushing nights and endless days, and this rollercoaster is only going down at the moment, but here we are singing,” Mac McCaughan commented.
Ada Lea – ‘something in the wind’
“I had a dream about this song and remember nothing,” Ada Lea said of ‘something in the wind’, the latest single from her forthcoming LP when i paint my masterpiece, which pulls you right into its spell. “There is a constant in everyone’s life, which is the dream. When we recorded the song, Luke, who produced it, suggested we slow it down so Tasy could improvise a busy drum solo. Then, Jonas, engineer, sped the song up to its regular speed. Like a slowed down wink to Leonard Cohen himself.”
Golden Apples – ‘Noonday Demon’
Golden Apples have announced a new record, Shooting Star – September 19 – with the gauzy, fuzzed-out ‘Noonday Demon’. According to bandleader Russell Edling, the song “addresses the way anxiety and paranoia can make you sort of lose track of yourself and your identity — turning your world upside down and alienating you from the people around you at the same time.”
Kae Tempest – ‘Diagnoses’
Kae Tempest has dropped ‘Diagnoses’, the third single from the forthcoming Self Titled LP, Co-produced by Fraser T Smith and Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers, the track is “a Summer banger about antipsychotics and HRT,” in the artist’s own words. “And loving each other regardless of how mental we are.”
Kneecap – ‘THE RECAP’
Kneecap have officially released ‘THE RECAP’, their defiant single featuring drum & bass artist Mozey. Taking aim at UK politician Kemi Badenoch, the song was previously available on SoundCloud and is being shared on streaming ahead of the group’s Glastonbury performance.
Horsepower – ‘Coins’
Horsepower – the moniker of the New York-based singer-songwriter Charlotte Weinman – has shared a new single called ‘Coins’. Featuring contributions from brothers Noah (aka Runnner) and Ben Weinman, the project was inspired by the likes of Hole, Sleater-Kinney, and Lomelda, though this new track also brings to mind Samia with a more pronounced slowcore influence. “This is the first song I wrote for the EP,” Weinman said. “I started writing it the night my partner of many years and I decided to break up. The version I wrote that night was like a million verses longer and the lyrics were completely raw and pathetic, which I say with love. They were open wounds. The only lyrics that remain from that first pass is the chorus. As I’ve gotten distance from the situation that begot the song, a lot of my sadness has been energized, and I’ve been more interested in exploring the anger. So we fanged this song, too. It’s been fun watching people connect to it when we play it live.”
Coral Grief – ‘Paint By Number’
Seattle trio Coral Grief have previewed their debut album, Air Between Us, with a mesmerizing new song called ‘Paint By Number’. “For this song, we started playing around with rhythmic elements that were fun to bounce off of each other,” the band said. “It developed into a contemplation on learning how to bring liveliness and color into bleak times, which is a constant effort these days.” Who doesn’t resonate with that?
