Today's Top Tune

LA neo-soul group The Altons will release their new collection of songs Heartache in Room 14, on Valentine’s Day, but we don’t need to wait to share the love. They’ve generously gifted us with the early single “Your Light” — a dreamy, declaration of love with a call-and-response chorus for you to chime in on.

Let’s call him a polymath, cause these are just a few of the skills he’s aced: singing, rapping, playing bass and producing music… It's Dylan Cartlidge whose song “New Day” is a soulful, joyful antidote if you’re having a dreary time of it. 

Two decades after his debut with Animal Collective, Noah Lennox (best known as Panda Bear) delivers more of the signature sound we’ve come to love via his  latest single ahead of new album Sinister Grift, “Ferry Lady.” 

But don’t take our word for it, LA singer-songwriter Jessica Pratt is among the first to experience and review Panda Bear’s first album in five  years. She says: “On Sinister Grift, Panda Bear cuts a lone figure, bracing himself against the winds of fortune and calamity. Noah’s pure and poignant lamentations are less elusive this time around, as though our narrator has awoken from a sobering dream. Singing a familiar round on an imperiled path, Panda Bear presents a set of torch songs conveying hard-fought wisdom, buoyant despite the load they bear.”

LA-native songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Kowloon will soon deliver his sophomore album. His latest track finds him stepping into a sound that plucks from 80’s new wave, to African Highlife — intertwining his dulcet tones into a bopping beat on “Heart Begins With You.” 

Mexican band Karen y Los Remedios stir cumbia and downtempo sound together into their own heady blend. Their 2023 album Silencio — an exploration of epiphanies that come from sitting with silence — caught the ear of fans and critics alike, and now has a remix issue that includes “Las Muchachas,” reworked here by Mexican Institute of Sound. 

It’s been seven years since we last got new music from Benjamin Booker, but don’t despair — a new album is on the way! Lower is out January 24, with the first taste being “Same Kind Of Lonely,” a track full of fuzzy guitars and whispered singing. Benjamin says: “I was thinking a lot about existence and the natural world — how things that start off so beautiful are often twisted into something unsettling or sinister. Maybe the disconnect between the natural state of things and the modified state of things is the source of a lot of pain, suffering, and loneliness in the world.”

Amayo, the Nigerian-born former frontman for Afrobeat collective Antibalas, strikes out on his own with his debut solo album, Lion Awakes, out January 17. The record is dedicated to his grandmother, a shamamic medicine woman, and Amayo’s Kung Fu practice. “Black Magic Sister” offers up a chorus of voices which Amayo says is, “about offering blessings for an abundant mindset. It’s also a prayer for twins and a wish for those who lost close ones.” 

It’s the last day of the year, and what better way to celebrate the end of 2o24 and the rise of 2025 than with LA-based artist Declan McKenna, who started his own new chapter this year by taking control of his music by self-releasing his recordings. Let’s pop the cork on “Champagne.” 

One of our favorite musicians and producers, Tom Misch, has recently unveiled his new EP, Six Songs. A master at R&B-infused, smooth, soulful melodies, we share “Colourblind” featuring Loyle Carner.

Brazilian native Rogê has been referred to as LA’s samba king, shedding new light on a classic sound. Joyous and sunny, “A Força,” or “strength” in english, is off his new Latin Grammy-nominated album Curyman II.