Shawn Mendes' exuberant heartache, and 9 more new songs

Shawn Mendes, ‘If I Can’t Have You’

A few years into his career, Shawn Mendes is becoming a bard of the forlorn. As on the best songs from his 2018 self-titled album, the new single “If I Can’t Have You” is about failing to grab what you wish was yours:

“I’m in Toronto and I got this view/ But I might as well be in a hotel room/ It doesn’t matter ‘cause I’m so consumed/ Spending all my nights reading texts from you.”

Written by Mendes with Scott Harris, Teddy Geiger and Nate Mercreau (and produced by Mendes and Geiger), this is an exuberant expression of desolation, with melodies and hooks as ecstatic as Abba.

— JON CARAMANICA

Rhiannon Giddens, ‘Gonna Write Me a Letter’

Is there anything Rhiannon Giddens can’t sing? Her new album, “There is No Other,” is a duo project with Francesco Turrisi, a pianist who also plays a global assortment of string and percussion instruments. “Gonna Write Me a Letter,” written by the Appalachian folk singer Ola Belle Reed, is a lament for a sailor away at sea. Giddens and Turrisi move it to the Middle East, with an unchanging modal vamp and an ancient North African drum called the bendir, and — especially in the final pleas to “Come home, come home” — Giddens sings it with inflections that bridge mountains and deserts.

— JON PARELES

K.Flay, ‘This Baby Don’t Cry’

With a post-punk bass line backing her up, K.Flay methodically tosses aside feminine stereotypes — “I used to think about the way that I dressed/ Like was I pretty enough, and am I good at sex” — and stacks up handclaps, guitars and noise behind her gleeful autonomy.

— JON PARELES

Logic featuring Eminem, ‘Homicide’

This would have been an incredible single on Rawkus Records in 1998.

— JON CARAMANICA

Joel Ross, ‘Is It Love That Inspires You?’

Vibraphonist Joel Ross is only in his mid-20s, and looks even younger, but he’s already widely known as contemporary jazz’s top prospect. “Kingmaker,” his major-label debut, out on Blue Note, shows that he has what it takes to build something vital on the over-farmed terrain of mainstream jazz, largely by reckoning with conflicting histories. His compositions seem to pick up on the street-wise, slithering approach that Roy Hargrove put down in the 1990s, while adding ideas from the music’s last 20 years: Lush, balladic harmonies give way to snappy post-bop swing, then fluttering, busted hip-hop beats. And in his solos, you’ll hear the proud clarity of Milt Jackson and the counterintuition of Bobby Hutcherson, but — as on the bounding “Is It Love That Inspires You?” which features Ross with only bassist Benjamin Tiberio and drummer Jeremy Dutton — he’s liable to spin off into a multidirectional hail of notes, at once centrifugal and forthright, in a style like no one else’s.

— GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

Ingrid Andress, ‘More Hearts Than Mine’

Girl falls for boy. Takes boy home to meet her family. Family embraces him. Relationship sours. Girl and boy split. Everyone’s disappointed: “If I bring you home to mama/ I guess I better warn you/ She feels every heartache I go through.” Ingrid Andress’ piano ballad is an elegantly written song about a love that lets you down that sounds like a tragedy even at the beginning, when there’s still hope.

— JON CARAMANICA

10k.Caash featuring Matt Ox, ‘Kerwin Frost Scratch That’

10k.Caash featuring GUN40, ‘Aloha’

This week, Dallas shout-rapper 10k.Caash released “Kerwin Frost Scratch That” (a collaboration with the feral young rapper Matt Ox), basically a hard-core song of a hip-hop track that’s reminiscent of the earliest Beastie Boys mosh anthems. He also put out a video for the recent single “Aloha,” which smushes together early Odd Future pastel absurdity, Dallas rap viscosity, SoundCloud rap distortion (remember that?) and the hilarious confidence of someone who still can’t quite believe rapping is his job.

— JON CARAMANICA

Sam Ospovat, ‘Kim’s Line’

“Ride Angles,” the debut album from drummer Sam Ospovat, features seven prismatic, oddly seductive tunes inspired by the 12-tone modern classical composers, the snarled energies of math rock and the rough-riding vigor of jazz improvising. Joined by pianist Matt Mitchell and bassist Kim Cass, Ospovat closes the album with “Kim’s Line,” a short, droll piece that sums up the entire record’s off-kilter allure in just 1 minute 20 seconds.

— GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

Moor Mother x Zonal, ‘On the Range’

Camae Ayewa, the poet and electronic musician who performs as Moor Mother, is abetted by the British electronic duo Zonal — Justin Broadrick from Godflesh and producer Kevin “The Bug” Martin — for the buzzing, throbbing, twitching, crackling “On the Range,” vowing “You can’t lock me in, box me out” and “No fear on me, straight faced no tear on me.” It’s viscous, unhurried and implacable.

— JON PARELES

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.