Today's Top Tune

Hot off the press, Brighton producer Flevans is back with moody instrumental music peppered with luxurious vocal samples on the album “A Short Distance to Fall.” Sit back and get into “Heartaches,” served up on a bed of house and trip-hop.

Presenting their struggle with love, or better yet, the myth of love, Fever Ray’s Karen Dreijer transmits from the head and the heart on the new album “Radical Romantics.” And, much like love, “Carbon Dioxide” is one of life’s essentials on this planet.

“Bloodline Maintenance,” the 17th album by SoCal favorite Ben Harper, was inspired by the influence and loss of his father. Harper’s first non-instrumental album since 2016 is fueled by his signature lap steel guitar sound, alongside a massive percussion section, guitar, bass, and drums, most of which he plays himself. “Where Did We Go Wrong” is part of this artist’s commitment as an activist and reconfiguration of new Black Americana.

A superbly gifted storyteller, Andy Shauf returns with a new concept album in February. His records unfold like books, with each song a chapter filled with nuance and vibrant characters. “Wasted On You” is the first track from the album “Norm,” which Shauf self-produced and plays all the instruments you hear.

Five-time Grammy winner and newly-inducted Country Music Hall of Famer Marty Stuart celebrates five decades of merry music making with this reigning bluegrass rocker. “Country Star” is a feel-good autobiographical song that you might hear opening one of his effervescent shows.

A love song that knows no gender, “Mi Manera De Querer” was the last track Mexican mega-star Natalia LaFourcade wrote for her new album, “De Todas Las Flores.” Her first record of original material since 2015 is replete with lyrical poetry and exemplary craft alongside the stylings of New York guitar icon Marc Ribot.

Grammy-winning guitarist and Black Pumas co-founder Adrian Quesada stopped by MBE recently to share some of his favorite tracks, including his guilty pleasures. We pay it forward by sharing the monumental instrumental “The Rise Of The Have Nots,” from his solo album “Jaguar Sound,” of which Quesada says: "I imagined an animated sci-fi film with a revolt against oppression of all kinds, and the song plays out like a musical story, climaxing with a long but victorious battle."

At 7 years old, Molly Joyce lost her left hand in a car accident. Since then, she has fluctuated from denying her disability to embracing it. As a musician, Joyce centers her new album “Perspective” around ideas of disability and punctuates the concepts and realities of access, interdependence, care, weakness — and, on, Today’s Top Tune “Resilience,” just what that means.

“Pigments” is the debut album collaboration between Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn, and is the story of finding your inner voice through self-expression and community via the New Orleans’ arts scene. Dreamy and free, and guided by clarinet, saxophone, guitar, and strings, “Vantablack” expands Richard’s sound palette into the neoclassical.

Tom Skinner, drummer for Sons of Kemet and The Smile has music of his own, a full album under his own name. “Voices of Bishara” was born when Skinner gathered a group of musician friends for a session where a classic album is played through speakers in its entirety followed by a free form improvisation based on the original. This time, it was Tony Williams’ 1964 Blue Note solo album “Life Time” that provided the fodder. Let yourself be open to the title track “Bishara,” the Arabic intention for “the bringer of good news.” Happy Thanksgiving!