Today's Top Tune

Ten Fold is the new album by nuanced singer Yaya Bey, and if you are looking for a chill vibe from an artist with something to say, you’re on the right track. Somewhere between the sound of Roberta Flack and Nina Simone, we tune into Yaya’s frequency on ‘the evidence.’

Cheo, a founding member of the Venezuelan trio Los Amigos Invisibles, has decided to revisit and re-record some of the songs he wrote for the group, now with his new band. “Suddenly, one morning I woke up and thought ‘I miss playing these songs, I don’t have to get on a plane to play it, they are my kids and I love them,’” Cheo confides. “So I started strumming the guitar remembering them; I thought it would be painful, but nope… Why would it be painful? They always made me smile.”

The gorgeous new album My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall captures the work of one most illustrious of the handful of Black Country songwriters (let alone a woman) in Nashville. Randall’s catalog includes work with legendary artists like Trisha Yearwood and Johnny Cash but draws inspiration from the work of Ray Charles, Charley Pride, Lil Hardin Armstrong, and DeFord Bailey, to name a few.

Have you heard about Yannis & The Yaw? Well, let us introduce you: They’re the intriguing collaboration of Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis and the late, great Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen.

Tuvan throat singers Huun-Huur Tu, producer-composer Carmen Rizzo, and two-time Grammy-winner Dhani Harrison converge for their first-ever collaboration. Their new album is more than the sum of its parts, at the crossroads of different styles, rhythms, and languages through which they celebrate beauty, harmony, love, and kindness, all through the lens of vocals without words. “Dreamers In The Field,” a lilting and peaceful composition, is the title track.

We’re celebrating our mothers this weekend, and to honor them we turn to the timeless singer Alex Cuba, who pays tribute to his own mother and the work she puts into her delicious dinners, to which no one else comes close. Not only did he write the song for her, but Alex invites his mama to sing with him on “No Cocina Cualquiera”

We’re excited to premiere a new song from heavy instrumental dream team Parlor Greens, who have the distinction of recording their debut album at Colemine Records’ brand new studio at Portage Lounge in Loveland, Ohio. This trio celebrates their members with brilliant solos, as you’ll hear on the title track “In Green We Dream.”

Soul singer Bette Smith’s musical adventure was born in the church pews and street corners of Brooklyn. Today, Bette Smith announces a brand new album filled with her signature mix of soul and gospel. “Goodthing,” the title track, hints at the crunchy sound of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Back in 2018, LA roots-punk pioneer Dave Alvin and cosmic country slayer Jimmie Dale Gilmore wrote their first album together to great fanfare and kindled their lifelong friendship. The duo have announced a new full-length recording, TexiCali, coming in June that promises to deliver 11 trippy tracks, culled from the hearts of these two storytellers and providing a sonic tapestry across their home states. “We’re Still Here” celebrates their bond.

Motherhood is a game-changer for any artist, but it can also open up a new sonic horizon. Monogem is a new mom to a son, and has spent the last year in her backyard under their lemon tree. Her new ballad “Lemon Tree” carries a lilting melody, coupled with organic production and soothing saxophone peeling back the layers of a heavy world. It reminds us of what Monogem already knows: to appreciate the little things (and little ones) in our daily lives.

This June we’ll celebrate the 5oth anniversary of the seminal recording by Little Feat with a new deluxe edition of Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, featuring rare and unreleased versions plus outtakes from album sessions as well as a 1975 concert in Paris. Formed in Los Angeles in 1969, this outfit made a tasty stew of blues, country, R&B, and good ole’ rock n’ roll. We’ll share a song you may recognize, which has been sampled and covered by many — it’s an alternate version of the funky classic “Spanish Moon.”

Now that Beyonce released her country album to rave reviews, we’re seeing the buoying effect of her limelight, allowing other women artists to rise with the genre. Canadian artist Kaia Kater shines her love of the banjo with a love letter to her instrument. “In Montreal” is replete with head-spinning experimental rhythms and lyrics about a poet who feels lost and aimless, plus the added bonus of Grenadian-Canadian and Montreal native Allison Russell on vocals.

KCRW host Chris Douridas was heard declaring some fighting words about Suave Bruta, the debut album by French-Colombian double-bassist and singer Ëda Diaz: “I expect to go several tracks deep with airplay on this. My favorite album of 2024 so far. No skips.” That’s a big deal for a DJ who listens to A LOT of music on a daily basis. And we couldn’t agree more. Driven by an expansive cultural spectrum that incorporates a mix of woozy Latin American rhythms and romanticism akin to the writings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the album makes it hard to choose just one song, but we’ve settled on “Dulce de Mar.”

Composer, arranger, producer, and multi-instrumentalist are among the descriptors for the artist known as Sly5thAve, who declared that his new album, Liberation, “exploded out of me. I couldn’t write it fast enough.” The result is layered with lush orchestral arrangements, innovative improvisation, and blessed with hip-hop production. Let’s turn to the title track, through which you can hear the meaning of the word.

Brooklyn-based indie-popping Yot Club, the creation of Ryan Kaiser, has a new album, Rufus, filled with inner thoughts turned into melodies like “Human Nature,” a toe-tapping earworm fixated on the acceptance of someone you once knew who has now turned into a stranger.

Not gonna lie, we are HUGE fans of the LA-based band of brothers The South Hill Experiment, born at the end of 2022 and named after their studio on South Hill St. in DTLA. For their new EPSouth Hill & Friends, the band opens up their borders to get in the sandbox with some of their friends to play with new sounds. “Little Monk” features Karriem Riggins on drums.

Dulcet-toned vocalist Lizz Wright celebrates 20 years as a recording artist with a new career-defining album, Shadow. Wright drafts five new songs to showcase alongside some of the great classic songwriters, including Cole Porter, Sandy Denny, and Candi Staton, and enlists friends like Angelique Kidjo and, on Today’s Top Tune, Meshell Ndegeocello on bass and Brandee Younger on harp for “Your Love.”

LA tongue-in-cheek rockers EELS gear up for their forthcoming fifteenth(!) studio album, EELS TIME!, early this summer. One thing you can count on is whimsical lyrics and an unmistakable sound. “Goldy” starts with a nod to The 5th Dimension’s Marilyn McCoo.

A signature of Beth Gibbons' voice is that you recognize the artist immediately, ingrained in our hearts and minds as the sound of Portishead. Deep, lush, and profoundly engaging, Gibbons releases her debut album Lives Outgrown mid-May. Recorded over a period of ten years, this album may be her most personal output to date, digging into sustained reflection and change, as echoed on “Floating On A Moment.”

For the last 20 years, The Avett Brothers anchored their status in the Americana/folk-rock arena with sophisticated sibling harmonies, ardent lyrics, and their own blend of country influences, to the delight of fans. After five years, they’re ready to release a new album, which is self-titled and produced by the esteemed Rick Rubin.