Beyoncé’s seventh studio album, “Renaissance,” is a stunning nightclub fantasia, a nimble, freewheeling journey by means of many years of dance music that feels virtually Prince-like in its ambition. Sequenced seamlessly between the humid beats of “Cozy” and the immaculately produced disco throwback “Cuff It,” the Afrofuturistic “Alien Superstar” is a daring pop homage to ballroom tradition and an embodiment of the escapist, self-celebratory ethos that programs all through “Renaissance.” “Unique, that’s what you are,” Beyoncé intones from on excessive, “Stilettos kicking vintage crystal off the bar.” Grace Jones, who seems later in the album on the charismatic “Move,” actually looks like a touchstone right here, however in the album’s liner notes Beyoncé additionally shouts out the familial affect of her late Uncle Jonny, a queer Black man who, she writes, was “the first person to expose me to a lot of the music and the culture that serve as inspiration for this album.” The phrase distinctive turns into a motif all through “Alien Superstar,” and in the track’s outro, a sampled speech from Barbara Ann Teer, the founding father of Harlem’s National Black Theater, drives the level house, resonantly: “We dress a certain way, we walk a certain way, we talk a certain way, we paint a certain way, we make love a certain way. All of these things we do in a different, unique, specific way that is personally ours.” By the finish of this track, it goes with out saying: Same for Beyoncé. LINDSAY ZOLADZ
Rosalía, ‘Despechá’
Rosalía sounds aggressively unbothered on the studio model of “Despechá,” a fan favourite she’s been enjoying reside on her Motomami World Tour. Influenced by Dominican merengue, “Despechá” is a quintessential summer season jam, constructed round a buoyant piano riff and an insistent beat. There’s a present of defiance driving Rosalía’s vocals, although, as she makes an attempt to shake off the reminiscence of a disappointing lover on the dance flooring: “Baby, no me llames,” she begins (“Baby, don’t call me). “Que yo estoy ocupá olvidando tus males” (“I’m busy forgetting your ills”). ZOLADZ
U.S. Girls, ‘So Typically Now’
The music of Meg Remy’s ever-evolving venture U.S. Girls has not often sounded as modern because it does on the synth-pop “So Typically Now,” which makes the satirical chunk of its lyrics that rather more stunning. “Brooklyn’s dead, and Kingston is booming,” Remy vamps on this cheeky critique of pandemic-era exodus, gentrification and rising housing prices. A thumping beat and a shiny sheen that’s someplace between Robyn and Kylie Minogue gives the basis for Remy’s social commentary, whereas sky-high backing vocals from Kyle Kidd take the monitor to the subsequent stage. “Gotta sell all my best,” Remy sings archly, “to buy more, not less.” ZOLADZ
Rina Sawayama, ‘Hold the Girl’
Orchestral anthem? Dance-floor thumper? Fingerpicked folk-pop ditty? Hyperpop twitcher? Choral affirmation? Rina Sawayama chooses all of the above on “Hold the Girl,” a vow to reconnect along with her youthful self — (*10*) — that flits from type to type, cheerfully claiming each one. JON PARELES
Robert Glasper that includes Masego, ‘All Masks’
Pandemic malaise and endurance are the basis of “All Masks,” which appears again on years of “all masks, no smiles.” Over a murky, oozy monitor with synthesizer chords that climb patiently solely to fall again to the place they began, Masego sings about “Looking like you’re in disguise every day/Breathing my own breath.” “All Masks” comes from an expanded model of “Black Radio III” due this fall, persevering with the keyboardist Robert Glasper’s decade-long sequence of “Black Radio” albums that merge R&B, hip-hop and jazz. A pensive, darting piano improvisation close to the finish of the track is a whiff of chance amid the constraints. PARELES
Brian Eno, ‘There Were Bells’
“There Were Bells” is a threnody for planetary extinction from Brian Eno’s coming album, “Foreverandevernomore.” The LP, he has stated, is about “our narrowing, precarious future,” and it returns to songs with lyrics and vocals after greater than a decade of primarily instrumental and ambient works. “There Were Bells” begins with birdsong and floating, glimmering sustained tones. Eno croons, in what might be a lullaby or a dirge, about pure magnificence, however then human destruction ensues; as the monitor deepens, darkens and thunders, he observes “storms and floods of blood,” till nobody can escape: “In the end they all went the same way,” he sings, leaving an echoey void. PARELES
Rat Tally, ‘Prettier’
Addy Harris, who information as Rat Tally, faces continual melancholy in the elegantly heartsick “Prettier”: “Sorry, I’ve just been down for the past decade,” she sings, over fingerpicked guitar. “I always did think I’m prettier when I’m unhappy/So do you,” she provides, as synthesizers bubble up behind her. “When I drop, I plummet,” she sings — analyzing herself with cool compassion, questioning what may change. PARELES
Plains, ‘Problem With It’
Plains is a brand new group fashioned by Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and the underrated singer-songwriter Jess Williamson — two Southern-born musicians who started their careers in the indie-rock world however whose more moderen albums have reconnected with their nation roots. Crutchfield and Williamson’s voices mix gorgeously on Plains’ hard-driving debut single “Problem With It,” which can seem on the forthcoming album “I Walked With You a Ways.” Crutchfield’s smoky twang takes heart stage on the verses, however Williamson’s harmonies flesh out the refrain in order that the strains land like daring, confident mantras: “If you can’t do better than that, babe, I got a problem with it.” ZOLADZ
Amaarae, ‘A Body, a Coffin’
Amaarae, from Ghana, has an airborne, Auto-Tuned soprano in “A Body, a Coffin,” from an EP known as “Wakanda Forever Prologue” that begins the rollout for the film “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” A crisp, staccato Afrobeats rhythm monitor, just a little flute lick and a swarm of now-you-hear-them, now-you-don’t computer-manipulated voices again her as she sings about dealing with lethal odds: “You was in danger/I needed a savior.” The monitor ends, in Marvel Cinematic Universe style, as a cliffhanger. PARELES
Palm — previously an indie-rock band that brandished jittery, asymmetrical, tangled guitars — has used its 4 years between albums to study digital devices. “Feathers,” from an album due in October, reveals the band’s new mastery with a clanging, lurching, meter-shifting track that enjoys programmed, multitracked precision whilst Eve Alpert sings about spontaneity. “Imma make it up as I go,” she lilts, and for all its premeditation, the track swings. PARELES
Bobby Krlic, ‘KJ’s Discovery’
Bobby Krlic, who normally information as the Haxan Cloak, has composed the rating for a brand new Amazon sequence, “Paper Girls,” and “KJ’s Discovery” is from its soundtrack album. It’s one-and-a-half minutes of aggressive six-beat and four-beat propulsion: drums and gongs interwoven with digital blips and throbs, like an ominous, time-warped gamelan. PARELES
