Billy Ripken spent more than a decade playing big-league baseball, and he’s the younger brother of the most beloved Baltimore Oriole in franchise history, but he’s still most famous for a 1989 baseball card where he’s shown holding a bat with the words “FUCK FACE” written across the bottom. When Matt Korvette bellows that he’s “feeling more like Billy Ripken,” that’s presumably the Billy Ripken that he means. “Moving On” is a song about being sick of this world and its petty interactions — the theatrically thrown beers, the Instagram Live broadcasts, the “middle management justifying their existence.” But where Pissed Jeans’ music was once overwhelmingly mean and scuzzy, “Moving On” sounds vast and anthemic, with keyboards and melodies and an actual singable hook. It might be the friendliest song that Pissed Jeans have ever recorded. Maybe Korvette isn’t quite finished selling off his underwear just yet. —Tom

“Spinning” is a preview of Julia Holter’s forthcoming album Something In The Room She Moves. The earthly sound serves as a mesmeric canvas for Holter’s lyrics, which float like shapeless utterances, until she clearly blurts the satisfyingly strange questions: “What is delicious?/ And what is omniscient?” It has a unique abstract beauty that absorbs the listener with its contagious sense of wonder. —Danielle

Luckily, Jamie xx’s club banger “It’s So Good” lives up to its indulgent title. It’s the English musician’s first solo song since 2022, and it’s an enveloping, otherworldly dose of house music, with playful detours and ominous undertones. Pulsating and entrancing, “It’s So Good” is the ideal soundtrack for a sweaty night of hedonism, wordlessly euphoric. —Danielle

Erika de Casier does not leave a note out of place. The Danish producer is meticulous, packing in period-perfect details into her retro-pop sheen, all designed to evoke a bleary nostalgia for the late ’90s and early ’00s. “Lucky” is a sensual supersonic throwback, with giggles peppered throughout and a slippery shuffling beat that never lets up. At least until that chorus hits, with the gently picked notes that sound like pure air, and it feels like an inevitability: “Do I like this? Do I like that? You make it real easy to love you right back.” De Casier elevates her songs beyond pure pastiche into something that feels like it’s so in the past it’s part of the future. —James

“I get ahead of myself/ Bracing for a bombshell,” Katie Crutchfield sings on her new album’s lead single. But “Right Back To It” is by no means explosive. Like so much of Waxahatchee’s later work, the song floats along at a measured pace, not unlike the boat in the music video. That vessel is piloted by Mr. Boat Songs himself, Jake Lenderman, whose own twangy indie rock as MJ Lenderman exists somewhere between the roughshod basement-show confessionals of Cerulean Salt and the tasteful country-rock maturity of Saint Cloud. He’s a dream duet partner for Crutchfield, which makes the new Tigers Blood, on which Lenderman’s voice and guitar are a constant presence, an enticing prospect.

“Right Back To It” is a brilliant proof of concept for the Crutchfield-Lenderman pairing. It’s inspired by Crutchfield’s own experience being part of a longterm relationship with fellow singer-songwriter Kevin Morby — the conflicts that knock your partnership out of balance, the renewal that follows when lovers make amends — sentiments Lenderman can probably relate to given his own romance with Wednesday bandmate Karly Hartzman. The song is magnificent with or without the video, but its watercraft imagery fits nicely with lyrics about love that carries on as steadily as a river, undeterred by life’s storms. Sonically, Phil Cook’s banjo combines with the rhythm section to form a gentle current. Lenderman’s lead guitar sends ripples through it, but neither he nor Crutchfield feel the need to make a big splash. Locking into weathered harmonies, they “just settle in, like a song with no end” — or is it just me who’s been playing this one on repeat all week? —Chris