Lars Gotrich

Every time she performs live, Erin Rae transforms her quiet storms into different hues of squalling introspection.

On the first single from The Practice of Love, out Sept. 13, the avant-pop provocateur Jenny Hval channels '90s pop, from early Robyn and Everything But the Girl to Sophie B. Hawkins.

This week's playlist unearths some extended jams across doom metal, spoken-word drone and disco-infected psych-rock.

Who would've thought that American Football's fruitful reunion would not only include some of the emo band's best songs, but also a children's choir at the Tiny Desk?

This week's mix features drone music performed on a pipe organ, ridiculously over-the-top metal from Japan, a wild avant-pop collaboration between Nels Cline and Cibo Matto's Yuka C. Honda and more.

"The band is heading in a new direction and it is time for me to move on," she writes.

Frank Hurricane pens an ode to lonely juggalos everywhere, Skáphe + Wormlust collapses a black hole with black metal and Lea Bertucci takes her sax to a grain elevator.

Our Viking's Choice column has been a safe space (or a festering wound, depending on whom you ask) for metal, punk, drone and all sorts of "weird" and/or "loud" music. Check out the latest playlist.

Where heavy metal, heady psych, dreamy ambient, furious punk and cotton-candy pop music all come to freak out. Curated by Lars Gotrich.

From the songs played between news stories on-air to the most essential releases out every Friday, we're committing a series of playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, updated every weekday.

Charli, out Sept. 20, includes 15 songs and 14 features from the likes of Christine and the Queens, Sky Ferreira, Troye Sivan, Lizzo and HAIM.

Lætitia Tamko originally wrote "Flood Hands" for a pop duo, but had to keep it for herself. The artist shares the single and announces her upcoming album All the Women in Me, due out Sept. 27.

"Vi er uendelig" ("We are infinite") captures the swooning majesty for which Efterklang is known, but on a much more intimate scale. Altid Sammen comes out Sept. 20.

Michelle Zauner slows and strips down the deliriously romantic love song to a twinkling pace.

The Spanish flamenco-pop star celebrates the beauty and danger of nail art with a fabulously fun and femme-forward video.

The newest Western Stars single is also the newest in a long line of Springsteen songs that reference the railroad.

Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss seem poised to carry the weight of the world, or at least get inside the person holding one of the backbreaking pieces.

These are songs that rip through time, across borders and into psyches with feminist post-hardcore that engages at it rampages.

The Death Cab For Cutie frontman, operating very on-brand, re-imagines a classic hardcore punk song.

This week's All Songs Considered explores the more drastic ends of the song spectrum, from cotton-candy pop to raging punk sung in Farsi.