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The ever-surprising bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding<\/a> persuaded the mystical and ingeniously tuneful Brazilian songwriter Milton Nascimento, 81, to collaborate on a full album that was recorded in 2023 and is due in August. Its preview single is \u201cOutubro\u201d (\u201cOctober\u201d), a song that Nascimento originally wrote and recorded in the 1960s. Its asymmetrical melody carries lyrics that reflect on solitude, mortality and the possibility of joy. Nascimento no longer has the pure, otherworldly vocal tone of his youth, but Spalding bolsters him, singing in Portuguese alongside him and probing the harmonies with springy bass lines. Near the end, she comes up with a leaping, scat-singing line that he eventually joins, still enjoying what his composition can inspire. JON PARELES<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Brooklyn singer-songwriter Cassandra Jenkins delivers \u201cDelphinium Blue,\u201d the second single from her upcoming third album, \u201cMy Light, My Destroyer,\u201d with a slow, cleareyed poise. Among glacially paced synthesizers and gentle percussion, she describes the sensory overload of working in a flower shop, and daydreaming about someone special when business is light. \u201cI see your eyes in the delphinium, too,\u201d she sings, as beauty blooms all around her. \u201cI\u2019ve become a servant to their blue.\u201d LINDSAY ZOLADZ<\/p>\n \u201cWe got too much history, so don\u2019t just dispose of me,\u201d Omar Apollo \u2014 the bilingual, Indiana-born pop songwriter \u2014 begs, in English, in the slow-building but increasingly convincing \u201cDispose of Me.\u201d At first the song seems to be just a lazy two-chord vamp, but Apollo pleads his case with rising desperation as instruments subtly chime in. \u201cMy body just won\u2019t forget,\u201d he moans, going on to insist, \u201cIt was real love.\u201d His ex-partner might have a different opinion, but not in this song. PARELES<\/p>\n The Korean-Canadian songwriter Luna Li \u2014 Hannah Bussiere Kim \u2014 ponders separation and reconciliation in \u201cConfusion Song,\u201d which faces a strained relationship with unanswered questions and ambiguous beats. \u201cI thought we were taking space,\u201d she sings over a drumbeat that can be parsed as a waltz or a march. The uncertainty is built into the structure of the music, even as she asks, \u201cHow do you see it?\u201d PARELES<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Polyamory gets complicated in this yearning reggae duet. \u201cDon\u2019t be too quick to judge,\u201d the Jamaican singer Lila Ik\u00e9 urges; H.E.R. counters, \u201cYou just keep lying to yourself.\u201d Neither of them wanted to \u201close a good thing just because,\u201d but that\u2019s all they agree on. The man in question never states his case. PARELES<\/p>\n Rapsody basks in longtime love and potential motherhood in \u201c3:AM,\u201d framed as a late-night phone call; it\u2019s on her new album, \u201cPlease Don\u2019t Cry.\u201d Backed by cushy electric-piano chords and a cozy saxophone riff, Rapsody raps, \u201cIt\u2019s different when you lovers and you best friends\/I feel safe with you,\u201d while in the choruses a kittenish Erykah Badu coos, \u201cBaby you can do it, explore me.\u201d But in the last verse, it turns out that she\u2019s only reliving memories. \u201cWe grew with each other till we grew apart,\u201d she reveals. PARELES<\/p>\n Saweetie\u2019s latest single \u201cNani\u201d is a blast of sing-songy, candy-coated pop that sounds tailor made for summer. \u201cTwo shows, one night, what\u2019s that? A hundred-plus,\u201d she boasts on the verse, but otherwise it\u2019s a track more about leisurely strutting one\u2019s stuff than hustling. \u201cI\u2019m bougie, moody, tanning in my Louis,\u201d she raps. \u201cIt\u2019s a privilege just to say you knew me.\u201d ZOLADZ<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI still don\u2019t know where I am going\/But I have joy in my heart,\u201d the Colombian-Canadian songwriter Lido Pimienta<\/a> sings in \u201cHe Venido al Mar\u201d (\u201cI Have Come to the Sea\u201d), from the soundtrack to \u201cCalladita,\u201d a film by Miguel Faus. She\u2019s making a journey toward renewal, with her guileless soprano sailing above a track that begins with sparse electronic chords and gathers layers of percussion and voices, assembling a cumbia and a community out of thin air. PARELES<\/p>\n SML, a Los Angeles quintet that laces jazz with electronics, bears down on a mechanized one-chord groove in \u201cIndustry\u201d from its coming album, \u201cSmall Medium Large.\u201d The track surrounds a blipping beat with fertile, relentless improvisation: synthesizer swoops, bass jabs, blotches of noisy guitar, fragments of saxophone melody, drum kit cross-rhythms. At the end, it ratchets down as if a switch was flipped. PARELES<\/p>\n Little Feat, the Los Angeles band whose blues-rock-country-funk hybrid was Americana long before the category was named, takes a break from songwriting on its new album, \u201cSam\u2019s Place.\u201d It\u2019s a collection of blues covers sung by its percussionist, Sam Clayton. The band dug out deep cuts like \u201cWhy Are People Like That\u201d by the Louisiana swamp-rock songwriter Bobby Charles. The band lightens up Charles\u2019s version<\/a>, switching it from minor to major and summoning a New Orleans strut, underpinned by Bill Payne\u2019s two-fisted piano. But Charles\u2019s bitter complaint about greed is still all too relevant: \u201cThey take your house and your home\/They take the flesh from your bones,\u201d Clayton growls. \u201cWhy people like that?\u201d PARELES<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The largehearted Welch rockers Los Campesinos! will release their first album in seven years, \u201cAll Hell,\u201d on July 19. The lead single \u201cFeast of Tongues\u201d gradually builds in intensity, stacking clever, wordy lyrics that reference a dizzying hodgepodge of modern cultural touchstones (Bessel van der Kolk and<\/em> David Berman). \u201cI want the trust of every animal,\u201d the frontman Gareth Paisey sings on the chorus, before promising with nervy defiance, \u201cWe will feast on the tongues of the last bootlickers.\u201d ZOLADZ<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nOmar Apollo, \u2018Dispose of Me<\/a>\u2019<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Luna Li, \u2018Confusion Song<\/a>\u2019<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Rapsody featuring Erykah Badu,: \u20183:AM<\/a>\u2019<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Saweetie, \u2018Nani<\/a>\u2019<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
SML, \u2018Industry<\/a>\u2019<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Little Feat, \u2018Why People Like That<\/a>\u2019<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n