Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran Up the Ante, and 13 Extra New Songs

Ed Sheeran resorted to well-used card-deck analogies in “The Joker and the Queen” on his 2021 album, “=,” for one in every of his many endearing confessions of humility: “I do know you possibly can fall for a thousand kings,” he sang as piano and strings cushioned his ballad phrases. Now the music has been up to date as a celebrity alliance, bringing on Taylor Swift to commerce verses and share harmonies. It has some fan service; years later, the video brings again the actors who have been within the video for Sheeran’s earlier duet with Swift, “Everything Has Changed.” Nonetheless, Swift’s new verses increase the ante, in addition to the strain: “I’ve been performed earlier than when you hadn’t guessed.” There’s nonetheless a cheerful ending — no harm to the copyright worth as a marriage music — however Swift provides the tiniest little bit of skepticism. JON PARELES

Jazmine Sullivan has added 10 tracks to her 2021 album “Heaux Tales” to make “Heaux Tales, Mo’ Tales: The Deluxe.” She has stored the earlier album’s schematic: songs alternating with spoken-word anecdotes about transactional romance. “Roster” is a breezy, flirtatious, bare-bones rejection of monogamy. Syncopated guitar chords and flamenco handclaps accompany Sullivan as she tells somebody excellent news — “There’s yet another spot left in my roster” — however units clear situations: “I’ve acquired room to like ’em all/’trigger they all the time reply after I name.” PARELES

Ibeyi, ‘Sister 2 Sister’

Let Ibeyi welcome you to its rebirth. The French-Cuban twins have been performing as Ibeyi since 2014, however on “Sister 2 Sister,” the brand new single from their upcoming third album “Spell 31,” they sound extra assured than ever, arriving with an unequivocal message for many who see their title as an unique disruption: “Right here’s the way you say it: Ibeyi.” The manufacturing is sparse however strong, a harmonious, chanted refrain driving a reaffirmation of sisterhood. “Decelerate, now we’ve grown, let’s begin new,” they sing, over the type of austere percussive ambiance that made their music so arresting within the first place. ISABELIA HERRERA

Caroline Polachek, ‘Billions’

Caroline Polachek sails by way of majestic conundrums on “Billions,” her newest collaboration along with her co-producer Danny L. Harle. Hovering digital chords and an electroacoustic mesh of percussion — tablas, synthesizer blips, string-like plinks, notes working backward, quietly thumped downbeats — accompany a serenely airborne melody with a distant trace of Celtic ballad. The lyrics are fragmentary — “psycho, priceless, good in a disaster” — whereas the association broadens with voices and orchestration. By the tip, a youngsters’s choir has taken over, singing in counterpoint to proclaim, “I by no means felt so near you,” however leaving all mysteries vast open. PARELES

[Transgressive but relatable pop star] covers the well-known [song about falsity of fame] by [renegade rock band] in honor of [blatant commercial opportunity] — a smash! JON CARAMANICA

Odesza that includes Bettye LaVette, ‘The Final Goodbye’

There was loads of drama in Bettye LaVette’s 1965 single “Let Me Down Straightforward,” and in her a number of re-recordings the music, which was written by Dee Dee Ford a.okay.a. Wrecia Holloway. LaVette sang in regards to the connection that is still with an ex-lover, regardless of how a lot the singer desires to maneuver on: “I do know it’s not over from the final goodbye.” Odesza, which brings some Slavic melancholy to four-on-the-floor dance music, samples probably the most heart-rending phrases of LaVette’s vocals and stretches out the anguish, proving once more how traditional the music stays. PARELES

Brian Jackson, ‘All Discuss’

In his timeless collaborations with the griot-poet-commentator Gil Scott-Heron, Brian Jackson didn’t simply play dazzling jazz piano elements and lithe flute solos: He wrote or co-wrote most of the duo’s best songs, and generally even took over lead vocal duties. “All Discuss” is the lead single from “This Is Brian Jackson,” his first true solo album in over 20 years, and it’s a reminder of Jackson’s many skills. A peppery funk anthem, the observe is shaded with the identical Caribbean inflections that coloured the music he made with Scott-Heron and the Midnight Band and returns to their inspirational, consciousness-raising mode with a cleaner, condensed, Twenty first-century studio sound: “Our world is what we make it,” Jackson sings. “So all we gotta do is make up our minds.” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

Congotronics Worldwide is an Web-era phenomenon: a world alliance of tradition-rooted however plugged-in bands from Kinshasa with their followers from throughout the indie-rock spectrum and the hemispheres, together with Deerhoof, from California, and Juana Molina, from Argentina. The Belgian label Crammed Disc really organized a European tour for the Congolese teams Konono No. 1 and Kasai Allstars and an equal variety of rockers again in 2011. Stay recordings from these reveals and subsequent studio collaborations — in individual and distant — have lastly yielded a double album due April 29, “The place’s the One?,” named after the cross-cultural confusion over rhythm. “Banza Banza” exemplifies the album title; it begins with an digital roar, brutal bass and scrabbling guitars, and for a full minute of ricocheting beats, guitars, noise and vocals it’s not clear the place the downbeat is. Even when a strong four-on-the-floor unmistakably kicks in behind the lead vocals of Kabongo Tshisense from Kasai Allstars, the observe is explosively overstuffed. PARELES

Pusha T, ‘Food regimen Coke’

Anybody involved that there aren’t any new methods to say outdated issues ought to seek the advice of Pusha T, who dutifully wakes up day-after-day and refines refreshing approaches to rapping in regards to the spoils of the drug commerce. “All people get it off the boat, proper?/However solely I can actually have a snow battle,” he says on “Food regimen Coke,” lyrics delivered with a snarl and an implicit little curlicue flourish on the finish. For Pusha T, these boasts are as snugly and acquainted as a cashmere blanket:

They mad at us, who wouldn’t be?
We turned all the things you couldn’t be
The whole lot your mama mentioned you shouldn’t be
The Porsche’s horses revving like “Take a look at me!”

CARAMANICA

Central Cee, ‘Khabib’

For the final couple of years, Central Cee has been exploring the lighter aspect of U.Ok. drill, however “Khabib” tilts within the different path — an ominous manufacturing, a title referencing one of the feared MMA fighters and a few cleareyed revelations: “All the time making an attempt to get the celebration turnt, that’s how I acquired nicked at Wi-fi/I informed little bro after I stepped out of cells, ‘It’s calm, sooner or later I’ll headline it.’” CARAMANICA

Brandee Youthful, ‘Unrest II’

It’s ever rarer to search out artists who use their phrases selectively, or in no way — who don’t over-explain themselves, however imbue their work with a sense that’s fuller than language can convey. Sontag talked about it when she described artwork turning into “an instrument of formality,” setting itself unfastened from that means. It’s no easy times for that type of factor. However on “Unrest,” a brand new two-track single from the harpist Brandee Younger, the title is the one obvious reference to the social upheavals and deeper histories that impressed the music, recorded amid the pandemic at Rudy Van Gelder Studio: The devices say the remainder. Youthful makes use of repetition and depth to create a tide-like pull on her instrument, whether or not taking part in solo — as on “Unrest I” — or in a bunch. On the one’s second observe, she rides alongside the propulsive bass taking part in of Rashaan Carter and the drumming of Allan Mednard, letting them do the racing, and sustaining her poise amid the anxious fray. RUSSONELLO

Portugal. the Man, ‘What, Me Fear?’

“Feel It Still,” the 2017 smash by the Alaska-rooted band Portugal. The Man, harked again to a Motown beat and casually proclaimed “I’m a insurgent only for kicks.” 5 years later, the state of affairs sounds way more dire. The beat continues to be peppy, and reverbed guitars sustain the retro tinge, however the makes an attempt to shrug issues off are way more clearly acts of denial, and totally futile: “Home is burning down, whoa/don’t disturb me.” PARELES

Helena Deland, ‘Swimmer’

Private loss and worries about international warming merge in “Swimmer.” Helena Deland sings in a hushed, humble voice over acoustic guitar selecting and rumbling noise undercurrents. She’s singing to somebody who gained’t be round lengthy, who flinches at a chilly ocean swim however who additionally realizes that “The hotter waters get, the extra the oceans broaden.” The music contrasts temporary human lifetimes to the inexorable forces of nature; the noise is the everlasting sound of crashing waves. PARELES

Ethan Iverson, ‘The Everlasting Verities’

For those who nonetheless affiliate the pianist, composer and critic Ethan Iverson with the Dangerous Plus, the famed anti-jazz trio that he left in 2017, you gained’t be completely thrown off by “Each Word Is True,” his newly launched Blue Word Information debut. Plenty of the album’s 9 Iverson originals have the identical droll, diatonic structuring that outlined his writing for the outdated band: It’s Bacharach meets Brahms meets John Lewis. On “The Everlasting Verities,” Iverson is joined by two stalwarts of the jazz lineage, every with deep expertise in piano trios: the bassist Larry Grenadier and the drummer Jack DeJohnette. RUSSONELLO