Today's Top Tune

Grammy-winning producer Leon Michels, best known as El Michels Affair, treats us to an instant classic, “Kodak.” The song is a picture perfect masterclass in space and arrangement — mellow and fluid, with a slow drum beat floating amidst the gauzy instrumentation. It’s guaranteed to put you in a dreamy, creative mood.

Funny how a song named “Draggin’” can really lift you up. This works because of singer-songwriter Hannah Cohen’s magical way of blending disparate ideas. The song is off her newly minted album Earthstar Mountain, and was produced by her partner and collaborator Sam Evian. The album draws from the pair’s combined wide palette of musical taste which includes Dusty Springfield, Gal Costa, Minnie Ripperton, and Sly & The Family Stone.

Brooklyn-based musician Kendra Morris explores chaos and catharsis, what she describes as an overlap of her messy little Brooklyn apartment and the clutter that accumulates in her head. The melody and rhythm for “In My House” came both from Morris tooling around on her Casio and from her speaking tongue twisters while walking her neighborhood.

We were excited to meet up with Jacob Alon, a seemingly otherworldy Scottish folk artist, while at SXSW this year. Like Nick Drake, Alon showcases a light touch on his acoustic fretboard and skims across it with intricate fingerpicking and bittersweet lyrics. Bleak and beautiful, “Fairy In A Bottle” comes from his debut album In Limerence and opens an early chapter on what we expect will be a long and beautiful musical journey.

Raised in Havana, Cuban singer Rita Donte was weaned on her grandmother's record collection where she became drawn to the music. From there she traveled to Mexico City to absorb the rich music scene, before ultimately landing in Baja California Sur. Donte’s personal journey informs her new album Ritual — connecting her love of Mexican jaranas, Cuban tres, and some contemporary influences. It’s time to move to the rhythm of “Zunzun Baba.”

Pioneering electronic music producer Mark Pritchard teams with Radiohead/The Smile frontman Thom Yorke to share the full collaborative album Tall Tales (out in May). The LP unites everything you love about both luminaries: rich aural textures, multi-layered electronics, and thrilling genre-fluidity across a dozen tracks. So let’s start with “This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice.”

TV On The Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe steps into his own spotlight on his debut solo album Thee Black Boltz — out April 18. Capturing the vulnerability of the loss of love, Adebimpe massages the heart with incisive lyrics and his signature electro rock ‘n’ soul sound on “God Knows.”

She’s back! Cool and classy Lady Wray shares “Best For Us,” a song about love and commitment produced by the endlessly seductive Grammy-winner Leon Michels. The pair are currently in the studio cooking up what will become Lady Wray’s third album… with “Best For Us” as an excellent sign of what’s to come.

The music of Brixton-based Black Country, New Road makes us feel like we’re “Besties.” Their imaginative mix of sounds comes from classically trained as well as self-taught bandmates, and their new album Forever Howlong (due April 4) promises a heady palette that blends everything from folk, to prog, to baroque pop, to points beyond. It’s also their first release to feature lead vocals by Georgia Ellery.

Literal blue-eyed soul man Luke Marzec has the type of rich, booming, wise-beyond-its-years voice that’ll make you do a double take. And he’s got saxophone skills to match(!). Tune into “I Can’t Get You Out of My Mind” for some proper, classic sounds comin’ atcha from England’s Wye Valley.

Spanish-American singer-songwriter Victoria Canal first began using her voice as a way to process grief… and she gained some serious fans in the process. Coldplay’s Chris Martin is quoted as saying, “one of the best songs ever written” about Canal’s exploration of the topic — “swan song.” She offers a wider range of subject matter on her freshly released album Slowly, It Dawns, and her band’s sharp spin on Adult Contemporary pop provides an excellent vessel for unpacking relationship dynamics. Hear it all play out for yourself by grabbing today's free download of “Talk.”

French-Chilean artist and activist Ana Tijoux recently shared her first new music since the mid-January release of her 2024 LP VIDA. Longtime fans of Tijoux’s trademark lyrical, sophisticated flow will find much to love in “Muévelo,” as she considers both the track and her forthcoming EP Serpiente de Madera to be a “return to her essence: beats, rhymes and turntable scratching.”

Download “Favorite Kind of People” from Philly-based, self-proclaimed “humanoid alien” Jaco Jaco for instant cool points. Its loose grooves and liquid funk are guaranteed to bring good vibes only — whenever and wherever it gets played. And there’s plenty more where that came from, Jaco Jaco’s new LP Gremlin is set to drop on Friday, March 21.

Benjamin Booker entered a new sonic world when he tapped LA-based, “producer’s producer” Kenny Segal to work on LOWER, his first new album in seven years. Booker has always eluded categorization; his rootsy, punky, R&B tones all coming together to make something signature. By enlisting Segal, he’s added extra crispy hip-hop beats and a surreal dreaminess that you’ll hear all over Today’s Top Tune: “NEW WORLD.”

Swedish singer-songwriter, composer, and jazz trombone wunderkind Ebba Åsman is readying her third album, When You Know, for release on March 21. For a glimpse of what’s in store from the record, check out the sumptuous single “Did I Go?” — a hypnotic, boldly produced ode to the uncertainty of life in your twenties.

Some people seem to exist primarily to tilt the world’s balance towards positivity. Multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, arranger and ethnomusicologist Dexter Story is one of those people. His latest release is Sinesrat, an EP comprised of previously unreleased work dating between 2012-2014. Slip into your sauciest fit and saunter down the nearest street to the sounds of the EP’s jaunty, wordless groover “New Piazza.”

Happy Pisces Szn + Women’s History Month to us all! Electro-eclectic musical mainstay and activist Madame Gandhi is preparing to release the LP Let Me Be Water on May 16; “Pisces Knockout” is its swaggering lead single. Let Me Be Water is “made by all women and non-gender conforming individuals in partnership with the music nonprofit We Make Noise, which seeks to harness the power of music, technology, and community to advance global gender equity.”

Teenaged, Long Beach singer-songwriter Josefine Neumann taught herself acoustic guitar during the height of the COVID pandemic, began self-releasing her compositions in 2023, and has never shown any signs of slowing down since. Neumann’s intricate melodies and classic folk singer delivery are perfect for sparking careful reflection. We invite you to do just that by tuning into “Andromeda,” from Neumann’s 2024 LP My Greatest Fears.

Hologram Teen is the solo project (and anagram) of former Stereolab keyboardist Morgane Lhote. The French native who’s now based in Los Angeles has a feel for disco and ‘80s pop from her homeland. We’re drawn to “Connection transpacifique.” "I lost my brother two years ago,” says Lhote, “and ’Connection transpacifique’ is an homage to him and the bond we had. He lived in Tokyo so the song talks about being connected across the Pacific Ocean, almost telepathically. I wanted the song to celebrate him so chose to have playful lyrics in French on top of an upbeat, funky track that is influenced by the 1980s collaborations of Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson. The German DJ and musician Sandra Zettpunkt ("The Legendary Bang," "Die Fünf Freunde") is on vocal duty here and did a fantastic job singing obtuse rhymes in French."

Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Joe Ely has released his twenty-ninth solo album, Love and Freedom. To tackle the turmoil and social issues we’re living through, we turn to Ely’s sweet sadness in the Tex-Mex sound of “Adios Sweet Dreams.”