Bad Bunny takes on salsa for Baile Inolvidable

There’s much music out there and sometimes it’s hard to keep up.

Rather than letting the algorithm dictate your music taste, you can listen to Rated by THE FACE – a playlist that’s updated by our (human) editorial team every week.

Bad Bunny – Baile Inolvidable

1,2,3 — 5,6,7! We’re not used to seeing Bad Bunny dance awkwardly, but in the video for Baile Inolvidable, a single from the Puerto Rican superstar’s sixth album Debí Tirar Más Fotos, we see him step around awkwardly in grey sweatpants in an effort to learn salsa. Sonically, the track pays homage to traditional salsa bands, enlisting an orchestra of young musicians from a public music school in Puerto Rico. Classy. TL

Travy – Forgive Me

Nigeria-born, Dublin-based rapper Travy has led a new generation of Ireland with his cultural collective Gliders. On Forgive Me, a hard-hitting highlight from his new album Spooky, he’s both braggadocious and vulnerable, rapping about his ambition to get ​“a million P’s” and asking the priest to forgive him for his lifestyle. TL

Ashbeck – Local

Ashbeck is one of the most prominent MCs in the underground UK movement once known as chill rap – which was a slightly naff and reductive name for the sound, so let’s leave it in 2024. Anyway, Ash is on good form here, hammering out sturdy punchlines over a beat which feels relentless and relaxing at the same time. Thanks to a renewed appreciation for live MCing in the UK, he was able to build hype by teasing the tune on two reputable platforms, the Victory Lap NTS show and DJ AG​’s guerilla livestream. DR

Everything is Recorded & Mary in the Junkyard – Swamp Dream #3

Rising grunge-pop trio Mary in the Junkyard’s musical journey really got going last May, with the release of their Richard Russell-produced EP This Old House. Now, the band’s singer/​guitarist Clari Freeman-Taylor has reunited with Russell on Swamp Dream #3 – which, unnervingly, implies the existence of two other swamp dreams – for his collaborative project Everything Is Recorded. It’s a richly textured, ethereal tune that’s anchored by playful percussion and has traces of a slightly disturbing lullaby. JW

Ethel Cain – Vacillator

Ethel Cain’s excellent new project Perverts is a 90 minute collection of lengthy, mostly drumless tracks for which the brooding artist has experimented with unsettling sound design and eerie ambience. Vacillator, one of the record’s most conventional songs, is a slow-paced, light-footed exploration of intimacy. It feels sad, sensual and subtly sinister. DR