Today's Top Tune

Loss has long been a theme in Angel Olsen’s work, though her forthcoming album “Big Time,” out June 3rd, turns to the far-reaching capacity of new love, written during the time of Olsen’s personal journey coming out as queer. “All The Good Times” has all the feels.

KCRW DJ SiLVA not only spins records on the radio, she creates them. Her latest labor of love (apart from her infant daughter) is the house-based “Elevate Us,” a banger from start to finish.

Orange County-based, Vietnamese-American producer and multi-instrumentalist kelz delivers the soothing musical balm “My Friend,” which she considers her magnum opus turning loss into transcendence.

To celebrate the imminent release of 8-piece collective Kokoroko’s long awaited debut album “Could We Be More,” we raise our arms in praise of their intricate brand of afrobeat artistry. That artistry is alive and well via the flashy brass, bustling percussion, and congregational energy of “We Give Thanks.”

On her brand new EP “EL SUR,” Mexico City’s Girl Ultra amps up her R&B sound through more textures and BPMs. With “Punk,” — featuring indie rockeros Little Jesus — we hear an homage to the sounds she grew up loving, alongside vestiges of her formation as a musician in disco/funk bands, and years as a house DJ.

A thrilling collaboration was born from a mutual love shared between Afro-funk collective Ibibio Sound Machine, and Grammy Award winning, indie-dance pioneers Hot Chip. The groups found each other through a long history of enjoying each other’s sets on festival stages worldwide. From there, it was only natural that Hot Chip would step in to produce Ibibio Sound Machine’s fourth album, “Electricity.” Standout track “All That You Want” will give you hints of Giorgio Moroder, and Grace Jones while simultaneously serving you its own signature style.

Canadian avant-pop singer-songwriter, Dan Bejar, lets his curly locks down for once. “LABYRINTHS,” the latest album under his Destroyer moniker provides the perfect vessel for delivering this optimistic romp of a track, “Eat The Wine, Drink The Bread.”

“La Paz” is the latest from Swiss baritone, and producer of gentle indie-electro vibes, Sam Himself. Weary and itching to travel during lockdown, Sam became nostalgic for an all-night solo road trip from Peru to Bolivia he took years ago. This was a journey that found him low on gas and hungover, but his focus on making it to the city of La Paz remained intact throughout.

Supermodel, advocate, and musician Karen Elson says of her new song: “‘Broken Shadow’ is about recognizing that we’re all flawed, complicated, and a little bit f**ed up and making peace with that. It’s about loving the broken parts of yourself. COVID strangely catapulted me into this frame of deep reflection. I did a lot of work to reconcile places in the past I deemed broken or complicated and showed the shadow back to myself. I’m telling the shadow, ‘You’re my friend and a part of me. Let’s continue’.”

Each song on Gaby Moreno’s new album “Alegoría” displays a different mood and sets a different tone expanding her sonic expression. Heavily influenced by blues and rock, Gaby Moreno showcases a new facet of her musicality with a rocker known as “Nobody’s Wrong.”