The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.

A baptism is a ritual signifying rebirth; leaving past sins behind; the beginning of a contract signifying the end of solitude, self-doubt, and pain. It’s not something Jean Dawson has ever sounded like he needed. His 2019 album Bad Sports introduced an artist that thrived in a perpetual motion pastiche — in this case, a flood of flannel-paneled indie rock and abstract hip-hop. He followed it the following year with Pixel Bath, a superior effort with more genres in its toolbox. The concept of baptism is prominent in “PIRATE RADIO*,” Jean Dawson’s new song. His renewal, however, doesn’t come from a divine source. As ever, it’s within.

Even in the context of Dawson’s shifting catalog, “PIRATE RADIO*” is striking. It has all the ingredients of a flop: it’s a Bon Iver-indebted folk song with mere traces of rap on its hook and a soaring sincerity beneath every plucked acoustic guitar string and swooning fiddle. But Dawson lands it without a stumble, his voice filled with Justin Vernon’s tremolo from the jump as he describes his search for redemption: “Push my head underwater / See how long it’ll hold / Way down in the deep end / Rinse the sins from my clothes.”

The song’s power lies in the hook, as cathartic as anything released in pop music this year. “Pull up nobody panic / Why did you vanish?” Dawson sings, his voice distant as if looking over a vast and empty expanse. “Hold up, needed a hand, and / Nobody had it.” “PIRATE RADIO*” is the sound of someone alive on their own terms, unattached to any rules or dogma. Keeping with his iconoclastic creative streak, Jean Dawson celebrates rebirth for rebirth’s sake.

October 16 – San Diego, CA – Voodoo Room
October 18 – Las Vegas, NV – The Space
October 19 – Phoenix, AZ – Rebel Lounge
October 21 – Austin, TX – Come and Take It Live
October 22 – Houston, TX – Warehouse Live
October 23 – Dallas, TX – Cambridge Room
October 25 – Atlanta, GA – Masquerade Hell Stage
October 27 – Washington, DC – Union Stage
October 28 – Allston, MA – Brighton Music Hall
October 29 – Philadelphia, PA – The Foundry
October 30 – Brooklyn, NY – Elsewhere
November 1 – Montreal, QC – Le Belmont
November 2 – Toronto, ON – Velvet Underground
November 4 – Detroit, MI – Shelter
November 5 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
November 6 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th Street Entry
November 8 – Denver, CO – Cervantes Other Side
November 9 – Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court
November 11 – Vancouver, BC – Biltmore Cabaret
November 12 – Seattle, WA – Chop Suey
November 13 – Portland, OR – Holocene
November 15 – Oakland, CA – The New Parish
November 17 – West Hollywood, CA – The Roxy