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Midori Jaeger: ‘Planted’
Midori Jaeger, a cellist and songwriter from Japan who studied at the Royal Academy of Music and is now based in London, often builds her songs atop pizzicato cello parts that sketch harmony, counterpoint and shifting meters as they hop around her voice. “Planted” follows an EP she released in March, “(Un)planted,” and it glancingly addresses a failed relationship: “Like a withered branch you were planted here/Too late or too soon.” The spartan production — cellos, drums, vocals — gives her the space she’s claiming.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
daine: ‘PQC’
The Filipino-Australian songwriter daine (Daine Lauren Wright) has been putting out singles, EPs and mixtapes since 2020 and has collaborated with electronics-wielding genre-twisters like Ninajirachi and Underscores. “PQC” previews daine’s official debut album with a song about a lingering, misplaced attachment: “I’m over-reactive, overly romantic/’Cause I’m wrapped in the passion, can’t seem to let it go,” daine sings, adding some perky, “oh-whoa-oh-ohs.” Yet what could have been clear, upbeat power pop arrives with sonic complications instead. Blotchy distortion, faraway piano loops and hyperpop vocal stutters wreck any pretense of nonchalance.
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Jordan Patterson: ‘Cinderella’
Romance tangles with second-guessing in “Cinderella” from Jordan Patterson’s new EP, “Songs From a Valley Girl.” Her tremulous voice conveys all the anticipation and uncertainty of a new liaison. “I’m feeling strange today, but I think I like it,” she realizes, in a song that begins with her waltzing acoustic guitar and layers on instruments and vocals that echo her contending doubts and hopes.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
Yendry: ‘Mala Mia’
Yendry apologizes, tearfully and sincerely, for leaving someone behind in “Mala Mia” (“My Bad”). She knows they’ve been close and they’ve told each other everything; she knows it’s “a goodbye like a stab in the back.” But she’s not in love, and she “didn’t promise you anything.” Yendry, who is Dominican, delivers her regrets in a retro, string-laden bolero with a few contemporary touches: bongos that hint at bachata and a multitracked a cappella interlude. But the heartache is timeless.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
What’s New on the Charts
Steve Lacy: ‘The Feeling’
In 2022, Steve Lacy had a No. 1 hit with “Bad Habit,” a bleary mixture of mid-tempo rock and R&B that wallowed in regret and insecurity. Four years later, he has previewed an album due July 17, “Oh Yeah?,” with “The Feeling,” another mid-tempo testament to confused, frustrated longing that has arrived in the Hot 100 at No. 75. “There’s one I thing don’t know/am I your baby?,” Lacy asks, in harmonies that hint at the Beach Boys or Animal Collective. This time he’s singing to someone he was close to, veering between impatience and desperation. Is he reconciling, or stalking?
