{"id":295229,"date":"2026-02-13T01:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295229\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T01:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:55:08","slug":"5-songs-you-need-to-hear-this-week-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295229\/","title":{"rendered":"5 songs you need to hear this week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every Thursday, the Paste staff and contributors will choose their five favorite songs of the week, awarding one entry a \u201cSong of the Week\u201d designation. Check out last week\u2019s roundup here<\/a>. Follow @pastemagazine<\/a> on TIDAL for weekly music playlists.<\/p>\n

Song of the Week: MUNA, \u201cDancing on the Wall\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"I\u2019ve been rooting for MUNA since 2021, when a Columbus crowd made the newly-released \u201cSilk Chiffon\u201d sound like a #1 sensation. If you were there that night, you\u2019d have sworn the trio were taking the express lane to superstardom, too. Are they there, though? If opening for Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour or having a Tiny Desk concert count, then sure, they\u2019re flirting with the A-list. It seemed like Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson found their rightful place in the queer pop pantheon on MUNA. \u201cAnything But Me\u201d? Now that\u2019s a hit song. Every MUNA number should sound that huge. \u201cDancing on the Wall\u201d somehow sounds huger. It\u2019s not just a gay pop banger on steroids, but a lead single that knocks the door off its hinges with a catchy, thudding kick. Everything I wanted MUNA to be five years ago is out the window. This is bright, loud, transportive pop music: pitch-shifted \u201cwhen I\u2019m with you, I\u2019m on the wall\u201d playbacks that soothe; a tasty chorus woven into a smart tempo shift at the bridge. I\u2019d bang my head against the wall for a million more songs like it. \u2014Matt Mitchell<\/p>\n

Belgrado: \u201cLabirynt Marze\u0144\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"I\u2019ve been spinning the new Belgrado EP since it dropped last Friday. The once-upon-a-time post-punkers have walked through hallways of dub and wave music to get here, to the hallowed halls of Cabaret Voltaire, Pet Shop Boys, and Movement-era New Order. El Encuentro is four ceremonies of intoxicating, big-room synth energy, but \u201cLabirynt Marze\u0144\u201d es lo mejor de lo mejor. Spain\u2019s got some great pop music spilling into its streets (what\u2019s Melenas up to these days?), and this track especially pockets an elegance baked red by a Balearic sun. Patrycija Proniewska\u2019s vocal shards refract her bandmates\u2019 vibrations: Fernando Marquez\u2019s guitar bends are full of chrome, while Louis Harding twirls a damp bass line above Jonathan Sirit\u2019s throbbing, ritualistic snares. I think a song like this could power an entire city. \u201cLabirynt Marze\u0144\u201d spangles all the way down. \u2014Matt Mitchell<\/p>\n

Chuquimamani-Condori: \u201cthought of you e dj edit\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"On Bandcamp Friday, Chuquimamani-Condori shared an EP of country music refinements. Luzmila edits is a fast but enchanting listen that pairs big, Western melodies with Chuquimamani-Condori\u2019s style of Andean rhythms and clipped blasts of noise. Their use of David Ball\u2019s \u201cWhen the Thought of You Catches Up With Me\u201d in \u201cthought of you e dj edit\u201d is splendid, scratched by disarming interstices of found sounds, electronic collages, and maybe a Jos\u00e9 Padilla sample too, though I haven\u2019t yet confirmed that one. Ball\u2019s voice is interrupted by a laughing vignette, crackles of static, and unsettled noise but resumes above the mix. His singing grows louder and louder, the chords tighten up and coil, and Chuquimamani-Condori\u2019s touch fully emerges in warped howls and guitar-string squeaks that become one sun-white spume. \u201cthought of you e dj edit\u201d is an activated, time-traveled re-imagination. \u2014Matt Mitchell<\/p>\n

E L U C I D feat. Sebb Bash: \u201cMake Me Wise\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The strings on the latest single from I Guess U Had To Be There creep along like shivers up a spine, slowing at the track\u2019s outro into a deep, trudging bass line. Over this eerie, paranoid waltz, E L U C I D raps, \u201cScarcity is a lie of the state.\u201d His voice grows gruffer and more desperate, digging up the roots beneath his \u201cbad nerves\u201d only to find good reasons for them\u2014mass surveillance, manufactured inequity, state violence. He may be \u201cgetting [his] hands dirty\u201d but the empire he\u2019s living in has blood on theirs. Wisdom doesn\u2019t come without fear, and sometimes the most frightening forces are not the ones that take you by surprise, but the slow, banal evils lurking in the periphery. \u2014Grace Robins-Somerville<\/p>\n

Kevin Morby: \u201cJavelin\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"I\u2019ve been a Morbyhead ever since the folk rock singer-songwriter\u2019s excellent track \u201cParade\u201d closed out an equally excellent episode of BoJack Horseman back in 2015, so obviously I\u2019m thrilled there\u2019s a new record on the horizon\u2014all the more so now that lead single \u201cJavelin\u201d has dropped. Morby\u2019s first proper single since his last album cycle in 2022 (for This Is a Photograph) finds him back in middle America: a half jet-lagged troubadour, half anxious husband-in-progress, padding around \u201cthis old cowtown in the Bible Belt\u201d while the frame widens around him into something almost cosmic. The arrangement is all charming affability and unhurried brightness\u2014springy drums, jangling guitar, Aaron Dessner resisting the urge to overdecorate\u2014yet the lyrics keep bending toward eclipse imagery, the sun slipping behind the moon as time itself \u201cpaints a picture now,\u201d turning what could\u2019ve been a simple road song into something closer to a secular hymn about sticking around. And then there\u2019s Amelia Meath\u2019s voice, multitracked into a one-woman choir that keeps ghosting in around Morby\u2019s lines, like the person he\u2019s always flying back toward is literally baked into the horizon. For a song preoccupied with whether you\u2019re a has-been or a husband, a passing fling or a life partner, \u201cJavelin\u201d lands on something simple and stubborn: you fall, you get back up, you run\u2014back through the air, down the highway, toward the life you keep choosing even when it scares you. \u2014Casey Epstein-Gross<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every Thursday, the Paste staff and contributors will choose their five favorite songs of the week, awarding one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-295229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}