At quick glance, this mix of new songs from the past three months might appear to have come from the 1990s if one only noticed the artists included: Pulp with a glorious disco banger from their first album in 20+ years, Suzanne Vega with her strongest single in nearly that long, Stereolab back from the dead sounding as if no time has passed and the inimitable Sparks still going strong on their 28^th album. 

Fellow 90s stalwarts Saint Etienne announced their new single “Glad” a few months back; when it finally dropped in late May, it fulfilled all expectations of them crafting scintillatingly blissful pop again for the first time since 2017’s Home Counties, albeit with the bittersweet reveal that their upcoming album International will be their last (they’re not breaking up but will not make any more new albums—hold out hope for an occasional standalone single.) Also nearly as much of a shock: the return of Ivy whose last new music came out in 2011. Adam Schlesinger’s 2020 death from Covid seemed to put a definitive end to the trio but the surviving members have compiled Traces of You, a new album with every track featuring instrumental contributions Schlesinger recorded over the years. It comes out September 5 (the same day as International); as for “Say You Will”, it certainly sounds like an Ivy song (and a decent one at that.)

Beloved female voices dominate this playlist from Maggie Rogers (with Sylvan Esso) covering Broken Social Scene and the ever-droll Cate Le Bon to the ever-cheeky ladies in Wet Leg (“Catch These Fists” is no “Chaise Longue” but sharp enough to stoke interest in their soon-to-be-released second album Moisturizer) and even Emm Gryner via her new hair metal (!) band Ovary Axe. To prove I haven’t lost track of actual newer artists, I’ve also included Natalie Bergman whose magnetic and vaguely sinister “Gunslinger” from her upcoming second album My Home Is Not In This World resembles a modern day Nancy Sinatra with traces of Shelby Lynne.

Glad:

1. Saint Etienne, “Glad”
2. Natalie Bergman, “Gunslinger”
3. Ivy, “Say You Will”
4. Wolf Alice, “Bloom Baby Bloom”
5. Wet Leg, “Catch These Fists”
6. Cerrone/Christine and the Queens, “Catching Feelings”
7. Cate Le Bon, “Heaven Is No Feeling”
8. Alison Goldfrapp, “Find Xanadu”
9. Stereolab, “Melodie is a Wound – Edit”
10. Pulp, “Got To Have Love”
11. Matt Berninger, “Inland Ocean”
12. Suzanne Vega, “Flying With Angels”
13. The Beths, “Metal”
14. Ovary Axe “Rise Up To Fall”
15. Alex Lahey, “Don’t Wanna Know”
16. Big Thief, “Incomprehensible”
17. Sparks, “Drowned In A Sea Of Tears”
18. Maggie Rogers/Sylvan Esso, “Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl”
19. CMAT, “Running/Planning”
20. Cut Copy, “A Decade Long Sunset”