The Contenders, Vol. 9: The songs we can't stop playing this week

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WILLOW's latest album, empathogen, includes one of this week's must-hear tracks, "Run." / Courtesy of the artist

As we listened to the latest batch of songs we're loving this week, we heard a lot of restless energy — music about the need to keep moving, to outrun loneliness or find comfort in mundane distractions. You'll find it in the twitchy-glitchy "run!" from WILLOW or the Illuminati Hotties earworm "Can't Be Still."

Singer and actor Dominic Fike takes a slightly stranger but no less infectious look at neurosis and obsession on "hi grace," while saxophonist Kamasi Washington upends anxiety with George Clinton and rapper D Smoke on "Get Lit," his most pop-forward song yet.

We've also got a slow-burner from the Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross score to the film Challengers, and an absolutely transcendent collaboration between composer and singer Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion that interprets Franz Schubert's "An die Musik," an 1817 ode to music and the ways it heals us.

Featured artists and songs:

1. WILLOW: "run!" from empathogen
2. Dominic Fike: "hi grace" from 14 minutes
3. Kamasi Washington, George Clinton & D Smoke: "Get Lit," from Fearless Movement
4. Illuminati Hotties: "Can't Be Still" (single)
5. Caroline Shaw & Sō Percussion: "To Music," from Rectangles and Circumstance
6. Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross: "L'ouef" from Challengers OST