Despite the ease of access that streaming has brought to the distribution of music, the volume that's released can make it a daunting task to find unique new stuff every week. In this recurring weekly feature we put together a short list of new songs from the past week that stand out amongst all the noise and deserve a spot in your rotation.
All songs featured in this recurring series can be found in our scrmbl selection 2025 playlist on Spotify or Apple Music.
Fuki Kitamura — “Inori”
Ahead of her first album coming out next week, emerging artist Fuki Kitamura takes listeners on a miniature journey on “Inori.” The music around her warps and twists, going from rippling piano lines to discombobulated electronic bursts to a blurred version of both. Whizzing through it is Kitamura's vocals, sometimes reserved, other times soaring, at a few moments approaching R‘n’B smoothness...and sometimes multiple Kitamura's appear in the mix to really raise the drama. Listen above.
Gekkan Pam — “Yume No Youna Hibi”
While the cobwebbed organs in the intro might suggest the beginning of hazy dream-pop, Gekkan Pam kick open “Yume No Youna Hibi” with a blasting guitar riff that evokes a sense of adventure. As the tune brings the scrappy vibe of the summer-minded indie-rock bands from the early 2010s, the idol duo embrace the thrill felt in the here-and-now. “I know this is just a dream / that I’m going to wake up,” they sing at the top, but it doesn’t stop them from living it all up as soon as the guitars hit.
kinoue64 — “Kakuuseikatsu”
It seems no matter the tempo, the voices heard in a kinoue64 song are burdened by something much larger than them. “Every morning, I can’t help thinking about things I can’t do anything about,” goes the opening lyric of “Kakuuseikatsu,” and the despondency cuts through when it’s sung through the wobbly, awkwardly punctuating voice of a Vocaloid, like it can barely muster the energy to complete a single thought. While a more sprightly riff kicks open this new song than kinoue64's usual shoegaze, it lightens the mood from hellish to “just another day” at best.
ReGLOSS — “2co1”
Hololive's premier attempt at creating a pop group out of VTubers delivers an overall enjoyable listen on latest full-length Snapshot. It works best when the quartet plunge into electro-pop fantasia, and nothing here matches the deliciousness of “2co1.” Guest producer DE DE MOUSE gives the song a neon-bright house groove, all centered around piano bounces that move everything further, even when the group lets everything melt down come the breakdown. Listen above.
Yuri — “Business Bata”
It's easy to shower praise on producer Sasuke Haraguchi for his fragmented approach to constructing a pop song, but he's just as good at adjusting his soundscapes to match a singer's strengths. Some of his best work comes with Yuri, and latest number “Business Bata” brings out the best in both of them. Musically, Haraguchi keeps it relatively sparse, creating a rubbery electronic melody with touches of deep house. There's a few harsher instances, but it's mostly serving as a way for Yuri to show how well she works with repetition, repeating words over and over again in a song about being caught in a pattern. She makes even seemingly unexciting words like “late-night ramen” become verbal treats, and the song around her gives her all the room to show her skill at its fullest. Listen above.
xiexie — “innocence”
Xiexie’s bluesy indie-rock have always been a bit washy, like it’s music echoed from the subconscious. In “innocence,” off of their upcoming zzz EP, that haziness really sets the song’s complex, ambiguous mood. Not quite tragic yet definitely in pain, longing for love lost yet the loss too recent to be nostalgic, the central singer herself still sounds in the process of fully comprehending what exactly had just happened to her. If xiexie seem adrift, that’s not a bug but how the music is supposed to be.
