The Bloody Beetroots feat. Paul McCartney & Youth
Out of Sight
Somehow, the mashing-up of a Macca blues-rock banger (from his Fireman project) with EDM production and what sounds like a children’s choir singing the “na-na-na” refrain from “Hey Jude” back- ward is not a disaster.

Beady Eye
Don’t Brother Me (Sony)
Sounding like a cross between John Lennon and senile-era Bob Dylan, Liam Gallagher takes what may or may not be an acoustic- guitar-centred potshot at that guy he used to be in Oasis with.

Vieux Farka Toure
Yer Gando (Six Degrees)
Can’t afford a round-trip ticket to Mali this summer? Slap Vieux Farka Touré on the turntable, and enjoy the bonus that you won’t have to spring for mosquito nets, malaria pills, or sunscreen.

Alessi’s Ark
Big Dipper (Bella Union)
Lighter-than-cotton-candy dream pop that’s like landing in an enchanted circus where the ringleader looks just like Julee Cruise, only less creepy.

Aoife O’Donovan
Lay My Burden Down (Yep Roc)
Country-scented alt-folk that makes you wish someone would start up No Depression magazine again, if only because Aoife O’Donovan would look pretty great on the cover.

Lost Society
Lead Through the Head (Nuclear Blast)
Punk-flamed metal that’s made for radio airplay, but also for dropping a couple of eight-balls, slamming back a 24-pack of Schlitz, and then killing everything in sight. Use under adult supervision.

Washed Out
It All Feels Right (Sub Pop)
Lord knows what Ernest Greene has been listening to (or smoking), but he seems to have traded in his melancholically blissful synthetic dreams for something buoyant and vaguely Caribbean. And it all does indeed feel right.

Schoolboy Q feat. Kendrick Lamar
Collard Greens (Top Dawg)
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but given the artists involved here, how much you wanna bet that the greens in question are actually the kind you smoke, the kind you spend, or both?

Pure X
Thousand Year Old Child (Acephale)
Admit it: sometimes you feel like a 1,000-year-old child, as if you’ve seen everything but still know nothing. The gen- tly unfolding fuzz and jangle of this song capture that sensation perfectly.

Zomby
Overdose (4AD)
If the jungle-tastic break beat propelling this bass-bombed cut sounds familiar, that’s because it was used on every drum ’n’ bass song released between 1994 and 1997, back when Zomby’s target audience thought Sesame Street was the coolest thing going.

M.I.A.
Bring the Noize (Mercury)
On the aptly titled “Bring the Noize”, Mathangi Arulpragasam spits so fast we have no idea what she’s on about, although you might pick up on something about “the fucking banks”, plus a line or two swiped from Kris Kristofferson, of all people.