And just like that, summer was over. But you’re not ready to let go of the memories and the feeling just yet – and it wants to stick with you too. Music is intrinsically linked with memory, and we’ve put together a playlist of tracks that have been accompanying us over the glorious days of sunshine and have shared them with you below.
Below is the track list and some notes from our team about why they’ve selected them for this month’s playlist.
@ – “Punish My Mind”
You wouldn’t expect a song called “Punish My Mind” to start with a whimsical synth line and samples of a screeching monkey, but such is the weird alchemy of @. The latest from their forthcoming album maintains that intriguing combination of whimsy, forlornness and monkey sounds across three-minutes of bobbing and fluttering indie psych. It’s a mini epic that shows off their multiple talents, including harmony, production and straight-up emotive songwriting. – Rob Hakimian
Arca – “Finisher”
Make of Arca’s recent years in the wilderness – as a DJ, painter, influencer – what you will, XXXXX proves not only a successful comeback but is also her best work to date! Transgressing multiple sub-genres, the Venezuelan composer created what can only be called a cyberpunk opera! “Finisher” might be they key track to that approach: a paranoid synthetic orchestra piece that could have fit on Boards of Canada’s Inferno, it morphs into a physical experience, climaxing in a spoken word passage and the sound of swords stabbing. A killer track, in every way! – John Wohlmacher
Cleo Sol – “Gentlewoman”
When Cleo Sol sings, we listen. The reclusive soul singer doesn’t need to do traditional press or touring at this stage; she’s happy living her quiet life, and we’re happy to hear about it, whenever she deems it time. Her new album is a tour-de-force, and its title track encapsulates all that makes it great; low-key but precise playing, gorgeous little adornments, and Cleo in the groove, letting her voice melt and spread like warm butter over it all. Where it could wrap at three minutes, it stretches for another little while as she and her collaborators invite you to vibe; it’s irresistible. – Rob Hakimian
DIIV – “The Fountain”
If you’re a shoegaze purist, clutching your Ride or MBV records and sneering at the present zoomer fuzz pop infestation, I have bad news. First, you’ll have to get over yourself. Second, DIIV – those long-ordained torchbearers of tradition – have decided to hand the reins over to A.G. Cook, PC Music’s puppetmaster. The result? Exactly the fever dream you’d expect. On “The Fountain”, DIIV’s guitars still glow like a dying sun, but here, there’s now a cold, synthetic pulse threading through as well; a chill that creeps in and dares you to call this familiar. It’s a song that feels like it’s arguing with itself, beautiful and belligerent, and you can’t help but watch the whole thing unravel. Sorry, purists. – Kyle Kohner
DJ Karuso, MC Menor Rf, MC Braian, MC Theuzyn, MC Gudan – “DISPONIBILIZA”
The producer Dudu Croupper has said that you need to live daily in Belo Horizonte to understand the nuances of funk mineiro, which seems preposterous since DJ Karuso sounds nothing like his more famous counterparts such as DJ Swat. Though living hundreds of miles away from contemporaries like Mc Gw, Karuso and company dial in to similar techniques including speaker-bruising bass, vocals recorded as if the microphone is inside the throat, and punchy, nearly arrhythmic samples. “DISPONIBILIZA” also explores Eastern tonalities, with a spellbinding melody at odds with the bluntness of everything else around it. This is also dance music, lest you forget. – Steve Forstneger
Ian Noe – “Leeann”
Ian Noe’s upcoming third album spotlights the Kentucky singer-songwriter’s bent for precise and often spooky lyricism, vintage melodies, and drawly vocals that ooze a gothy Romanticism. With “Leeann”, Noe captures the life of a person traveling around, dabbling in drugs, hanging out in pool halls. A slightly off-key piano part and draggy drums give the track an otherworldly feel. The lines “The bottles we drink / under our sink / never catch no dust” illustrate Noe’s use of poetic language to describe an everyday event. Throughout the song, Noe expresses a lingering sadness while never losing sight of possibilities (“If the holler gets rough, keep your head up / Welcome home”). – John Amen
Interpol – “So Rides The Reindeer”
This strange, quietly devastating ballad perfectly encapsulates why Interpol’s eighth album became an immediate fan favorite: aided by multiple layers of instrumentation and one of Dan Kessler’s most heartfelt guitar performances, Paul Banks imagines himself as the Nordic animal, weathering the storms of fame and withering youth. The alien soundscape of electronic drums, icy synthesizer and organ beds and Brad Truax’ pulsing bass give the track a uniquely futuristic tone – romantic science fiction, if you will. A standout track on an album with no skips, “So Rides the Reindeer” hopefully becomes a regular in future setlists! – John Wohlmacher
L’Rain – “borderline”
On her fourth album, L’Rain finds a vast landscape of mysterious psychedelia. Existing in a weightless underwater world, “borderline” is as abstract as it is memorable – and wholly indescribable! A song to succumb to, to dive into, get lost in. Ahead of its time, and yet so familiar… – John Wohlmacher
Lambchop – “No Chicago”
In his 40+ year career as a writing and touring musician, Kurt Wagner has been everywhere. His voice wears that weatheredness beautifully, but his new Lambchop album Punching The Clown invites in countless others to join it. That’s where we find him on closing track “No Chicago”; a simplistic synth and guitar undercurrent while a panoply of voices join in combination to sing out names of a bunch of cities – or provide gorgeously cascading harmonies. Why, after naming dozens of cities seemingly at random, it ends with “No Chicago”, who knows. But it’s undeniably charming. – Rob Hakimian
Nelly Furtado – “Maneater (Ritual Version)”
BPM Curates implies advocacy, as in “we like this, check it out”, but sometimes this column is a great way just to explore (like it or not). Nelly Furtado is a year and two days younger than me, so I’ve been around since “Like A Bird”. (“Promiscuous” earned my side-eye.) The nearly seven minutes of this reinterpretation has set all the original version’s elements upright on a table and domino’d them. Cascading, improvised piano and a commanding, spoken-word vocal approach will have you checking this record’s digital spine. – Steve Forstneger
Phoebe Bridgers – “Still Standing”
“Still Standing”, Lost Weekend’s greatest emotional tour de force, examines grief at its most complex; a meditation on Phoebe Bridgers’ feelings towards her late father, whom she has said struggled with addiction and committed domestic abuse during her childhood. Across the song, she details her father trying “to make me afraid”, his being readied to leave the family at any moment with a suitcase permanently left by his bed and, most disturbingly, an incident where Bridgers found her mother “bleeding over the sink”.
Yet, the abiding love that Bridgers feels for her father shines through in the lilting final chorus, which moves at whiplash-inducing pace from her reaction to the disturbing above incident, the image of her father with his “back to the ocean, burning red”, struggling to come to terms with the finality of his death (“I can’t imagine you dead / But you are everyday”) and a simple, loving send-off: “Thank you for everything”. Compared by many to Sufjan Steven’s Carrie and Lowell, owing to both’s starkly confessional reflections on troubled parent-child relationships and death, “Still Standing” is a masterful interrogation of what happens when trauma and love collide; and how our most complicated, pained relationships so often give way to the most intense grieving. – Tom Williams
Protomartyr – “Feed The Sewer”
With “Feed the Sewer”, Protomartyr exemplify the motif used on their upcoming album, Hotel Usona: floors of haunted rooms, each space a cell where a different existential horror is playing out. Joe Casey’s vocal is notably harsher than we’ve heard, as he crosses The Shining and Trumpian corruption (“Dinner is served in the crypto ballroom”) and more broadly laments the end of humanistic curiosity (“Ignorance feeds the sewer, then the national feed”). Sonically, the band mix scratchy/melodic guitars and theatrical synths/electronics, occasionally lulling into a spacious segment, only to then escalate more aggressively, as they seek, but perhaps never find, catharsis. – John Amen
Ravyn Lenae – “Find It One Day”
Brian Wilson once talked about making music that “would make the listener feel loved”. Though this isn’t a genre in and of itself, Ravyn Lenae is a torchbearer for making music that sounds like a big hug. Her latest album Blue Island is full of warm pop R&B, and “Find It One Day” exemplifies her best qualities. After a gentle opening verse, an earworm chorus opens up backed by Prince drums and 80s keys. “I’ll always love you so,” she sings, and it feels like it. – Ethan Reis
The Spook School – “Falling”
Returning after an eight year hiatus, Glasgow’s The Spook School don’t show any sign of waning during that time away. “We really wanted to make sure we came back feeling urgent and energized,” says guitarist Nye Todd, and there’s doubt about that. “Falling” is propulsive, fast, in your face, and incredibly likeable. “The world isn’t ending but it feels like it,” goes the somehow hopeful hopelessness of the song’s opening line; this is an imperative indie rock anthem, grabbing you by the scruff of the neck and taking you along for the ride. The Spook School have returned and they are straight back to business. – Ray Finlayson
Thirteendegrees° – “WHITE SOX CAPZ”
It’s not quite Kanye rhyming “esophagus” with “sarcophagus”, but the invocation of British novelist Diana Wynne Jones on “WHITE SOX CAPZ” ranks among most-least-expected references in Chicago hip-hop lore. The auto-tune-laden, non-drill cut embraces the city’s violent reputation but acknowledges that if you want a nice dinner you go to the North side. Thirteendegrees°, the so-called Ghetto Hipster, explores his bifurcated persona including a ballcap well-known in street fashion but less common among actual sports fans. – Steve Forstneger
Listen to our BPM Curates: August 2026 playlist here.
