Real Estate (feat. Amelia Meath): Paper Cup

From Real Estate’s forthcoming album, The Main Thing (out 28 February), “Paper Cup” features the band’s frontman Martin Courtney singing with Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath. The song, which has tinges of airy island rock, details Courtney’s bouts with career-based anxiety. “Paper Cup is a song about getting older and realizing that this thing that I fell into doing over 10 years ago—being a musician, writing songs, …

U.S. Girls: Overtime

Technically a rework of a 2013 release, “Overtime,” as it appears now, is a single from U.S. Girls’ forthcoming seventh album, Heavy Light, out 6 March via 4AD. The soulful experiment by the band (led by multi-disciplinary artist Meg Remy) employs choral vocals as instruments and incrementally introduces drums and saxophone until the song reaches its peak. Each of the highly anticipated album’s 13 tracks …

Dan Deacon: Become a Mountain

Dan Deacon’s “Become a Mountain” combines classical and airy indie, and references Deacon’s time spent creating music of both genres. (Deacon’s upcoming album Mystic Familiar will mark his return from four years of film scoring.) The sprawling song—beginning with keys and whispered vocals—builds over its four minutes, eventually turning into an ethereal piece that’s laden with strings. Deacon explains in an accompanying announcement that meditation …