The latest from Jacob and the Starry Eyed Shadows, “Racing on the Back Straight,” performs a fantastic trick: it dresses up a full-blown existential crisis in its summer best and sends it to the beach. This Glasgow solo architect, Jacob, has constructed a Trojan horse of a track, all propulsive indie rock guitars and a pop-punk chorus so immediate it feels like you’ve known...

From the German city of Delmenhorst, DJ Snudi has dispatched "Sugar Daddy," a single that lands with the curious thud of a velvet-wrapped brick. The track presents itself as a straightforward club banger, but listening to it is like trying to have a serious conversation in a room where someone keeps changing the lighting from sterile white to a pulsing, humid red. It’s disorienting,...