The majority of new music that has been released during quarantine has felt urgent and introspective—often forcing us to face uncomfortable sides of ourselves. However, California artist Lillian Frances has us looking outwards. Her debut album, Moonrise Queendom, is a joy to listen to and puts her among a group of exciting new artists to follow.

On "Pídelo," Frances invites us to look at the moon. She describes a bright summer night, which she’s in awe of—enticing us to join her skywatching. As her lyrics discretely shift to Spanish, she asks us to listen to gossiping stars, "Las estrellas son cotillas, escucha!" Her reverence for the moon and stars is contagious and vibrant with childlike wonder. And yet for a song that wanders through the night sky, "Pídelo" seems to have plenty of sunshine. A self-described "sonic collage," Frances weaves together electronic textures and rhythms with a warped playfulness that brings to mind recent Dirty Projectors.

Lillian Frances brings the same kind of fun, colorful energy to electro-pop that Sylvan Esso did in 2014. It is no surprise that six years ago, while attending a Sylvan Esso concert in L.A, she described what she was thinking on her Facebook page, “that is what I am going to do.” And so she did, and even more impressively, she managed to make her own sound along the way.

LA-based singer-songwriter Andy Leon soothes the soul in her latest single "Breadcrumbs." The track begins with a delicate guitar line that is soon joined by Leon's sweet and soothing vocals. Although the song sounds calm, cool, and collected, it dives into feelings of sadness and explores the moment you realize you're tethered to another person. She goes on to sing heart-wrenchingly, "float on, nothing's wrong / the breadcrumbs gone, gone, they're gone / and we're so far from home, so far and so alone." The song builds into an impressively emotional guitar and vocal line, backed with the support of a group of violins and a piano. As soon as the sonic setting reaches its dreamy interlude peak, it soon descends and takes us back to where we started. Leon closes the song describing how she made a wish with an eyelash and felt the fingers of the person she felt tethered to on her face all day.

Like Madonna, Cher and all other single-named pop royalty, Shamir is fierce, even in the face of heartbreak. “On My Own,” the latest single from the Philly-based musician, discusses his confidence through lost love. Through raunchy guitar riffs and melodious synths, Shamir speaks of the power he’s generated from his own self-respect. “Don’t bargain with my worth,” he sings, “cause I don’t mind to live all on my own / and I never did.” The strength Shamir carries throughout the song, in tandem with the field march feel of the drums, has morphed its meaning into what many are calling an “introvert anthem.” That description has caught on for good reason. Shamir’s vocal provides an uplifting cadence that makes wonderful company for isolation and the forever journey of self-discovery. When the full-bodied bridge hits, he finds the apex of his message. He sings, “I feel it in my bones, inside myself is where I belong.” Shamir doesn’t care to feel like he belongs, because to himself, he always did.

“June 14th,” the opening track on Lauren Auder’s two caves in EP, pulls you back into the unfiltered urgency of youth. Maybe because their sound is built on such clear dramatic arc, as a whole the EP feels very multimedia—like it should accompany a modern dance routine or a time-lapse video of a painting coming to life. From churning strings and thumping bass to twinkling bells and crackling static, “June 14th” is especially dense with sonic layers, each of which Auder has seemingly chosen with the methodical precision of an electrical engineer. Each instrumental line teems with its own separate energetic will: some on the verge of exploding into controlled chaos, others projecting an innocent comfort. And though it feels like each layer wants something different, within the container of the song they feel inextricably connected: like hundreds of lives moving together on a subway train, each can’t help but be pulled and jostled by its co-passengers towards something common. Meanwhile, the train’s conductor is Auder’s cinematically versatile voice, which floats coyly over romantic bridges (“Darling, every morning with you…”) but not before bellowing through dark tunnels of self-doubt (“I’ve been defensive since I left the womb” is a lyric I can’t stop coming back to this year). 

In an interview with Vogue, Auder revealed that the song is about “a first sexual relationship between two characters.” What they didn’t say is that the story is told so well that suddenly you are there, in it, young again, remembering that every feeling is an emergency, understanding that the way to freedom and togetherness, will always have to be rebellion.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing Grace Ludmila perform live, then you know that she is a force to be reckoned with onstage—full of motion and emotion, and musically creating something unique and authentic that comes straight from the heart. Having described performance as “the ultimate catharsis,” Ludmila puts her whole self into her music, raw and real from start to finish. This is especially true of her latest single release, “Hollow,” which is heavy on guitar and packed with gut-wrenching lyrics. Ludmila is an expert in metaphor, and she sings a series of them as a means of expressing the dissonance between expectation and reality. She is “not a dream,” but “sleep paralysis;" she is “not soft, not smooth like porcelain” but “a fleshy mass of skin that you pick off when you can’t stand to see it again.” The rhythm and structure of the song reflect this dissonance as Ludmila makes her own rules, often adding onto these metaphors beyond where the ear expects them to end. “Hollow” is a proud admission of imperfection, a refusal to live life according to others’ ideals, and, ultimately, an expression of self-love and self-respect.

Ludmila’s influences range from the singer-songwriter scene in Austin, TX, where she began her music career and released an EP at age 12, to the punk artists she discovered later and her time in New York, where she is currently based. She also does a “Say My Name” cover that will make your jaw drop. Ludmila is currently working on her debut full-length album.

This single release from New York-based multi-talented indie-pop artist Denitia begins with a beat that builds as if it were underwater, swelling to the surface before engulfing us in its rhythmic and full-bodied sound. A singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, Denitia single-handedly uses a blend of electropop, psychedelic, and R&B elements along with her disarming and reverberating vocals to create a dreamlike soundscape on “Forever.” An 808 drumbeat pulses throughout the song, perhaps in homage to the human heart, as other sounds loop in and out around it. The instrumental ebb-and-flow evokes images of waves and currents as Denitia sings, “I am a river / You are the ocean / We go together / We could just flow in.” Referencing “flowers under the sun” and “the moon and the tide,” the lyrics are filled with earthly imagery, highlighting the ways in which we are all connected, to each other and to nature, and the paradoxical illusion of any concept of “Forever.” Accompanying the song’s release on Bandcamp is a blurb from the artist that reads: “Our existence among each another can seem so complicated in our modern lives, but then you realize we are so inextricably connected to each other and the natural world. We are both infinite and impermanent at the same time.”

If you took Phoebe Bridgers to a club on a sweltering Saturday night and sweetly encouraged her to get her groove on, the triumphant result would be "Lonely Boy" by Becca Mancari.

Mancari delivers the perfect track for the summer, clocking just under two-and-a-half minutes; a decadent and triumphant pop song, which wouldn't be out of place if it were featured on the soundtrack to a beloved teen drama from the aughts. She takes her lonely subject on an upbeat ride, trying to figure them out. 

Getting a lonely person to contemplate their loneliness would normally seem like a daunting task, but Mancari goes easy on them as she spends the majority of the song gently asking "Are you a lonely boy?" Mancari is intent on driving the question into her subject's mind, to the point where they're unable to avoid figuring out why they're always a loner—but they get a bit of a pass because this "lonely boy" still tries.

Becca Mancari's first album since 2017, The Greatest Part, will be released on June 26 via Captured Tracks.