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Dan DeLuca's picks: Erykah Badu, David Bowie, Denise Mina, and more

Erykah Badu, "Phone Down." Texas R&B priestess delivers spare and hypnotic rap-singing in which she boasts of having the ultimate power in this digital day and age: "I can make you put your phone down." From her But You Caint Use My Phone mixtape.

Erykah Badu's new track is "Phone Down."
Erykah Badu's new track is "Phone Down."Read moreNBC

Erykah Badu, "Phone Down." Texas R&B priestess delivers spare and hypnotic rap-singing in which she boasts of having the ultimate power in this digital day and age: "I can make you put your phone down." From her But You Caint Use My Phone mixtape.

David Bowie, "Blackstar." The 10-minute title track (and trippy video) from Bowie's forthcoming album, due on his 69th birthday on Jan. 8, takes the Brit-rock changeling back into an experimental sci-fi direction. An enticing intro to an album whose goal, producer Tony Visconti says, "was to avoid rock."

"Blood, Salt, Water," by Denise Mina ((Little, Brown, $26). A new Alex Morrow novel from Mina, the superb Scottish crime-fiction storyteller. She's up there with Ian Rankin among practitioners of character-driven Scottish noir.

Sam Amidon.

Eerily quiet and contemplative Vermont-bred singer, guitarist, and banjo player, most recently heard from on 2014's becalmed Lily-O. Not above covering Katrina and the Waves. Opening for San Fermin, 8 p.m. Wednesday at World Cafe Live at the Queen in Wilmington.

Bottle Rockets, "Dog."

"Sometimes life is just that simple," Brian Henneman sings on the Festus, Mo., roots-rock quartet's South Broadway Athletic Club. The video celebrates canine companionship, with appearances by pooches of a slew of Americana acts, including Neko Case, Kelly Hogan, and Carlene Carter, all of whom seem to agree with the song's to-the-point declaration: "I love my dog."