Feist returns with a moving ballad on imperfect love, plus new music from beabadoobee, Lana Del Rey, Daughter, Kelela and more

Star Tracks compiles the most interesting new music from a broad range of established and emerging artists. This week’s playlist features tracks from Feist, beabadoobee, Daughter, Lana Del Rey, Kelela, Tayc, You Me At Six, and Caroline Polachek featuring Grimes and Dido.

Click here to listen along to the Spotify playlist.

Feist: Love Who We Are Meant To

On Valentine’s Day, Canadian singer-songwriter Feist returned after a six-year stretch without new solo music to offer a simple but poignant reminder: “Sometimes we don’t get to love who we are meant to.”

Coming from a lesser artist, that sentiment (and its timing) might feel like a bit of a buzz kill, but in the hands of Leslie Feist, it becomes a moving meditation on the alluring imperfection of love.“So will I let it wreck me / Or wreck my dream of family?” she sings softly over delicately plucked nylon strings, quietly conjuring the spirit of Joni Mitchell. “Even denial is romantic/ And that’s romance’s disadvantage.”

This one will leave you in a puddle, but it packs the type of emotional punch typically absent from a Hallmark holiday. Feist’s sixth studio album, “Multitudes,” drops April 14. — Richie Assaly

beabadoobee: Glue Song

Old-fashioned, romantic, dreamy, lilting — how fitting beabadoobee’s swoony single landed on Valentine’s Day. “Glue Song” feels like a classic love ballad, heavily inspired by the likes of Elvis and Frankie Valli. You can sense Taylor Swift’s influence here, too — echoes of “Lover” that peek through beabadoobee’s echoing guitar and earnest lyrics — and that makes sense, given the Filipino-British singer’s upcoming stint on Swift’s Eras Tour. Strings, horns and classy percussion frame the guitar-forward “Glue Song” with nostalgia and ambience as beabadoobee sings of gentle, comfortable love. A surefire add to wedding and anniversary playlists around the world. — Aisling Murphy

Daughter: Party

Everything about Daughter’s new single, “Party,” is nostalgic to me. The subdued guitar and minimalist 2010s indie rock production take me back to the echoey soundscape I bore witness to at 16, dressed in my best black turtleneck for their “Not to Disappear” tour. The new pressed flower album cover hearkens to the past, dried and preserved for future introspection. Lyrically, lead singer Elena Tonra reflects on the night she decided to give up alcohol and what she lost to get there.

Something that feels different, though, is the delicate optimism woven through the track, in Tonra’s gentle ad-libs or the exultant bursts of rolling snare. The trio’s upcoming album, “Stereo Mind Game,” promises to explore the “conflicting voices we all have in our heads.” I can’t wait for it to break and then mend my heart in all sorts of ways. — Dhriti Gupta

Lana Del Rey: A&W

Yes, Lana Del Rey’s latest song, “A&W,” is named in reference to the fast-food chain, but it also serves as a look into her “experience as an American whore,” taking listeners on a seven-minute journey through each era — and perhaps a new one — in her discography.

Beginning with slower vocals (think: “Chemtrails Over the Country Club”) and a classic Jack Antonoff background track, Lana sings of her childhood innocence before exploring adulthood: mainly of sex and getting high with “Jimmy,” a recurring character in her work.

“It’s not about havin’ someone to love me anymore / No, this is the experience of bein’ an American whore,” she sings in the Old Hollywood style the artist is known for. But around the midpoint of the song, Lana ditches the ballad-esque vibe for … trap music?

Similar to the sounds of “Lust for Life” and “Ultraviolence,” Lana raps, albeit with pretty repetitive lyrics, over a track that is unlike anything we’ve heard from the artist to date, complete with heavy bass, distorted vocals and the most iconic line in the song: “Your mom called, I told her you’re f—ing up big time!” OK, Lana!

A new era of Lana has clearly arrived. And love him or hate him, (I’m looking at you, Richie), Antonoff deserves all the praise for producing “A&W.” — Alessia Passafiume

Kelela: Raven/Bruises

Over the past several years, R&B has been reshaped and stretched in fascinating new directions by a vanguard of mostly women, from Solange to SZA to FKA twigs to Sudan Archives to Syd. But perhaps no artist feels as mysterious and subversive as Kelela, whose long-awaited sophomore album “Raven” arrived this week.

Influenced by Black futurists like Herbie Hancock and Sun Ra, and created in collaboration with mainly queer and Black producers like Nguzunguzu and Kaytranada, the album is a seamless blend of R&B and electronic club music — one that immediately wraps its tentacles around you until you are fully immersed.

It’s tough to recommend a single song from the album, though I’m partial to transition from the title track — a starkly beautiful song about moving on from a broken romance — to the slow-burning “Bruises.”

“It’s like you’re running in slow motion but still so fast taking different turns,” Kelela told Vulture. “Basically, I want it to feel like a whirlwind. Or like a slide. When you’re on a water slide, it gets dark at a period right before it spits you out.” — RA

Tayc: Encorps

If you’re still bouncing off the love and energy from loved ones and friends from Valentine’s Day, Tayc’s romantic, R&B and Afrobeats-infused EP, “ROOM 96,” might be the perfect addition to your weekend playlist.

The Cameroonian-French artist dropped 10 tracks on Valentine’s Day, following a two-year hiatus. From start to finish, the EP takes you on a romantic listening journey through a perfect mixture of lively Afrobeats and slow, melodic R&B vocals.

“Encorps” is one of the tracks I instantly gravitated toward for its bouncy beats, Tayc’s silky, harmonic vocals and hint of trumpet instrumentals, as he sings about sharing an intimate night with a lover. The single is expected to be accompanied by a music video.

And if you enjoy “ROOM 96,” some of Tayc’s past bangers that are beloved internationally include “Le Temps,” “N’y pense plus” and “D O D O.” — Madison Wong

You Me At Six: A Love Letter to Those Who Feel Lost (feat. Cody Frost)

English band You Me At Six’s song “A Love Letter to Those Who Feel Lost,” off their newly released eighth album “Truth Decay,” is a standout on an album that sometimes feels like it’s being a little too safe.

Throughout their long career, the best word I can think of to describe the band has been “reliable.” Never taking more than three years to release an album, they’ve been a pop-punk and alt-rock mainstay, delivering a constant sound even as the genre’s popularity had its ebbs and flows. On “Truth Decay,” they do experiment at times, but I often found myself longing for something more.

“A Love Letter to Those Who Feel Lost,” which features guest vocals from Cody Frost alongside frontman Josh Franceschi, is a sweet, simple album closer that instantly rose above the rest of the record’s tracks for me. Reminiscent of their older song “Take On the World,” “A Love Letter to Those Who Feel Lost” feels a bit like a warm hug. It’s earnest and heartfelt and, while not overly complex, it ends the album on a high note. — Sima Shakeri

Caroline Polachek: Fly to You (feat. Grimes and Dido)

Like many art-pop fans, I was immediately intrigued to see that Caroline Polachek’s (very, very good) new album, “Desire, I Want to Turn Into You,” included a track featuring my problematic fave (Grimes) and the extremely unproblematic British singer Dido. More often than not, these seemingly random collaborations fall flat, but oh boy, “Fly to You” is an instant classic.

Trading verses, Polachek, Grimes and Dido each bring a distinct flavour to the song’s simple melody, the ambling serenity of their voices thrown into relief by the presence of a somehow understated drum and bass breakbeat. “Ooh, I fly to you / After all the tears, you’re all I need,” Polachek sings on the climactic chorus, her vocals weaving among Grimes’s robotic intonations.

It’s a bizarre, immediately arresting track, one that offers testimony of pop music’s limitless bounds. — RA

SHARE: