Nav, Bjork, Central Cee and Hudson Mohawke: Here are 8 new tracks you need to hear this weekend

Star Tracks compiles the most interesting new music from a broad range of established and emerging artists. This week’s playlist features new music from FRVRFRIDAY, Ari Lennox and NIKI.

Click here to listen along to the Spotify playlist, which includes additional tracks we loved this week.

Nav: One Time

My ears perked when this wasn’t a trap track. Nav a prince of waviness when he first came to fame, departed for trap and has for at least one song circled back. It’s interesting because this spacey R&B-ish, trap influenced track is where Don Toliver lives now and where Future has always dabbled. With it’s faint synths and de-emphasized hi-hats “One Time” provides a playground for each artist’s version of this style. Toliver provides the dreamy vocals for the hook, while Nav provides the autotune and Future provides subtle flexes. Somehow Future makes “Maneuverin’ through the trenches so swiftly / Brought a bulletproof vest, solidarity / Covered up in chinchillas and LV” sound sultry in his verse. Even though the lyrics are completely off-topic the drawn vocals at the end of each bar matches the allure of the rest of the track, something Future and few others can do. — Demar Grant

Bjork: Atopos

It’s 2022, and Bjork is still keeping it weird. The first taste of new music from the 56-year-old Icelandic art-pop prodigy comes in the form of a fascinating, slightly disturbing music video set in a freaky and fantastical fungal forest. “Hope is a muscle that allows us to connect” Bjork sings, backed by an outrageous chorus of clarinets, and lurching bass drums and futurist synth stabs from co-producer Kasimyn. In classic Bjork fashion, it’s bizarre but somehow moving — an undeniable statement about …something.

“The title to the song ATOPOS is inspired by what Roland Barthes describes so magnificently in his book ‘A Lover’s Discourse,’” she wrote on Twitter. “it is about the unclassifiable OTHER, the one which we love or hate, who is the OTHER?”

I’ll let you decipher that. Bjork’s upcoming “biological techno” album, titled ““Fossora” drops at the end of this month. — Richie Assaly

Ari Lennox: Waste My Time

Very rarely do you get an invitation to waste someone’s time, especially someone at the scale of Ari Lennox, but she’s waiting. “Waste My Time” is a cheeky, carnal bluff call. A lot of people like to talk the talk, but she’s looking for someone to “Use that mouth, blow this back out / Back up every word you say.” The track only has two verses, 15 lines, outside of the chorus and post-chorus and sometimes that’s all it takes. It’s short and sweet but gets the message across very clearly. When she sings “That triple X on me, we ain’t school kids / So come over and do what it do / ‘Cause I’m tryna ‘F’ you” there’s very little else someone needs to say. Lennox’s vocals also endear a seductive quality in a way that the lyrics are talking to a specific person, but the vocals make sure that the song feels personal. — DG

Blood Orange: Jesus Freak Lighter

Blood Orange fans have a lot to look forward to. Dev Hynes’ beloved alternative R&B project is currently in the midst of opening 15 dates for Harry Styles at Madison Square Garden, and plans to release live albums of each performance: “A different set each night feat. guests/friends, songs old & new,” he wrote on Instagram. On Thursday, Hynes announced a new EP, “Four Songs,” which features a track with Erika de Casier and drops on Sept. 16. The first taste from that project, titled “Jesus Freak Lighter,” is vintage Blood Orange: a slinky funk beat, some reverby guitar, a rubbery bass line that sounds like it was directly lifted from a New Order song, and syrupy vocals that immediately burrow into your brain. It’s been three long years since the last Blood Orange album — a relatively long stretch for the prolific singer-songwriter. Fans can rest assured that his foray into “Harry’s World” hasn’t cramped his style. — RA

Central Cee: L.A. Leakers Freestyle

There’s no excuse now, London’s Central Cee has broken it down completely. Early this week Central Cee dropped by Power 106’s L.A. Leakers and spit a slang-translating freestyle that leaves no room for naysayers. Going so far as to explain “You say ‘On God, no cap,’ we say ‘Swear on your life, don’t gass’ You say ‘Spin the block,’ we say ‘Jump out and slide and crash.’” I’ve written before that Central Cee is one of UK drill’s major candidates for crossing over to establish the sound in North America and it seems he’s on to the challenge. Half the time in his freestyle he is explaining U.K. slang over a drill beat, just to be the song that fans can refer North Americans to, to understand what the genre is about. In the second half he does typical freestyle as an exhibition of skill rapping “Hoes gon’ line man up and get a commission / Back shot give a gyal whip lash / Hit that, impact like a collision.”

The freestyle is a bit of brilliant marketing not only for the scene but for Central Cee himself. Very rarely do you get the hottest artist from a genre essentially dropping an educational video for potential fans to all turn to while still feeding their core fan base. — DG

Hudson Mohawke: Cbat

Very rarely do we include 11-year-old songs here but with this track’s resurgence on TikTok, it’s worth including. Thanks to a post on Reddit that was resurfaced on TikTok that referenced this track as part of the poster’s sex playlist “Cbat” is the track everyone is listening to, at least in 15-second chunks. The royal entry capitalized by a triangle and a mélange of horns descending into pounding bass and what can only be described as a clown horn mixed mutilated by an ice cream truck jingle is one of the most unique combinations of sounds I’ve ever heard. But it oddly sounds very current. An artist like Danny Brown or even “Yeezus” era Kanye West could fit here which makes sense because this track came out in 2011 and Mohawke was one of the producers on “Yeezus.”

“Cbat,” is experimental but it’s lineage to hip hop is so obvious that it’s easy to see why someone like Kanye tapped him to work with. For TikTokers, the reddit reference will always be there hovering over the track like a spectre providing flashbacks to one of the funniest moments on the app. For everyone else, it’s a seat in Kanye’s mind to look at one of the building blocks that brought forth one of his most influential albums “Yeezus.” — DG

Mach-Hommy (feat. Juju Gotti, Big Cheeko, Tha God Fahim): Bunny Ciao

“Bunny Ciao” — a reference to a South African fast food dish — might be the greatest posse cut to clock in at under two minutes. Led by the reclusive/prolific New Jersey rapper Mach-Hommy (who had one of the best hip hop albums of 2021), “Bunny Ciao” jams four verses on top of a brilliant sample of a 1974 track by soul singer Ann Peebles. As usual, Mach sounds great, but the top spot on this track goes to the obscure MC Juju Gotti, who steals the show with a single repeating line, delivered in his best Lil Wayne impression. — RA

Yeat: Talk

Is it possible to hear this song without having a vision of Steph Curry Dancing, celebrating his fourth championship ring? Is it possible to listen to this song and not replicate that dance? The see-sawing synths combined with complimentary 808s demand movement. Yeat’s music is so intertwined with TikTok it’s hard to realize that this song just got officially released despite the key part of the track, the see-sawing mechanized synths. They’ve have been open for consumption since the Golden State Warriors won their latest NBA championship in June and it still hasn’t lost its lustre. Yeat’s guttural, vocals have also come to resemble basso profundo, in a way that’s almost impossible to replicate, especially when you factor in his galloping flow. Everything about “Talk” makes it an oddity, a novelty, that only Yeat can provide but continues to deliver, this is a single from his project “Lyfë” this year. — DG

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