The Next 12 Songs You Need To Hear

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Today we explore the relationship between your past and your present self with Noga Erez, dive into psychedelic indie pop with Citizen, hear a jazz standard gorgeously sung in Estonian by Susanna Aleksandra, and get a laugh from a whimsical tune about being stuck in the house too long by Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors.

Be sure to check back on Tuesday when we begin the cycle again and guide you through 12 more new songs you need to hear.

Addison Grace - "Honeysuckle"

Addison Grace is your average 19 year old woman working a retail job in Utah. In 2014 she began posting ukulele covers to her Instagram account, and has since embraced Tik Tok where her content has garnered her over 2 million subscribers in only a year allowing her to sign with Warner's Level Music. Her latest single Honeysuckle is a tenderly sweet acoustic track in which she give gratitude about observing the blossoming of the one she loves.

Tik Tok was kind of the perfect medium where I could share my personality and share my thoughts and share jokes, but not have to take the time to edit a 10-minute video.

Citizen - "Blue Sunday"

Hailing from Toledo, Ohio lead vocalist Mat Kerekes formed the band with the brothers Hamm, Nick on guitar, & Eric on bass, after departing from their former band Sound of Glory. They played their first show on January 28th, 2010 at Frankie's Inner City in Toledo, Ohio. Since then they've released 4 albums and crisscrossed the country several times. Blue Sunday is the third single off their latest release Life In Your Glass World. The track is a departure from the usual hardcore sound into the world of psychedelic indie pop exploring their willingness to conform.

I don’t have a lot of regret but there have definitely been times when we felt powerless during the band’s existence. This time we really owned every part of the process. It’s easy to feel like you’re on autopilot when you’re in a band, but that’s not a good place to be this far into our existence. We consciously knew we wanted to break free.

Noga Erez ft. Rousso - "Story"

Noga Erez grew up in grew up in Caesarea, Israel where she studied different instruments and explored many styles of music while studying at The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. She was a part of several ensembles as a vocalist, keyboardist and percussionist, and served as a military musician during her conscription in the Israeli Defence Forces. Her first single Toy won rave reviews from The New York Times paving the way for her to perform at a multitude of festivals. Story, off her second album Kids, features her boyfriend Rousso and explores the dichotomy between two people’s past and present selves.

This is the first time we tell a story about our relationship in a song and video. It’s a song about a couple fighting and how, in that situation, sometimes what you hear the other person say is not what they actually said. The making of this video was a 10-day couples therapy session for us. As we rehearsed the pretend fighting and martial arts moves we knew that, at times, one of us would get punched just a little too hard. It was so intense and interesting to live in this world, where our relationship comes alive in the most physical way.

Joey Bada$$ & DJ Scheme - "Trust Nobody (2 My Brothers)"

Jo-Vaughn Virginie Scott, better known as Joey Bada$$, was born in Brooklyn, New York. The first of his Caribbean family to be born in the United States, he originally enrolled at Edward R. Murrow to study acting. Though he transitioned towards music in the 9th grade, with a focus on rapping. He began his career by uploading freestyles to Youtube which caught the ear of Jonny Shipes the founder of Cinematic Music Group. Trust Nobody is a collaboration with Dj Scheme where Joey spends his time speaking to his feelings about people’s intentions and reflecting on his own mental health over a laid back beat.

There’s fashion and then there’s style. Fashion recently started coming into hip-hop, but style has always been predominant in hip-hop. The context behind that line was me wondering when worrying about labels became forefront for a hip-hop artist. You know what I’m saying?

Susanna Aleksandra & Joel Remmel - "Sa tulid augustis (You Came a Long Way from St. Louis)"

Susanna Aleksandra is an Estonian jazz singer, lyricist and composer currently based in Los Angeles. She has a deep passion for learning languages holding a degree in French language and literature and is fluent in 6 languages. This allows her to effortlessly play with words and melodies from many traditions. Her latest release The Siren features mostly original material written by Susanna with the addition of a few jazz standards. Here we have her singing the 1947 Bob Russell tune You Came a Long Way (From St. Louis) in her native Estonian.

I walked into a store to buy a hat and started chatting to another customer, a true Parisian lady in her 60’s. We became friends, she gave me her business card with a photo of her in her youth. She held an elegant pose that looked so easy for her. The Siren is a metaphor for a woman who looks so elegant but possesses a lot of inner strength.

Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors - "I Need To Go Somewhere"

Drew Holcolmb began his solo career in 2003 recording his first EP from his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. While attending the University of Tennessee, Holcomb met Ellie Bannister. The two eventually married and settled in Nashville. Shortly after the wedding he collaborated with Nathan Dugger and Rich Brinsfield to form a band, and the three decided Ellie would be a perfect fit. The group has gone from a supporting act to selling out shows throughout the United States. Their latest single I Need To Go Somewhere is a humorous yet cathartic look at life in the time of Covid.

I’ve written most of my records by myself. This one, I invited my band mates to write with me. I’ve spent ten years with these two guys on the road together. We’ve been through everything. They were at my wedding and I was in some of their weddings.

Haviah Mighty - Obeah

Haviah Mighty is a Canadian rapper from Toronto, Ontario. She began music lessons at the age of 4, and began producing music at the age 15. She independently released her first mixtape, No Studio, in 2010. In 2016 she won a national talent competition, So You Think You Can Rap Canada. Her new single Obeah, referring to a hostile spiritual practice that many Jamaicans fear, explores the toxic energy of jealous friends. The accompanying music video tantalizingly plays out like a horror movie.

I was in singing class for seven years as a child. My sisters played the piano, so there was always something to strive for that I wasn’t doing that they were doing. I was always looking up to them. I feel like because I had this lack of balance when it came to being social from the age of, like, one to eight, my parents filled that void and reminded me of my own self-worth.

Protoje - "Righteous"

Oje Ken Ollivierre, popularly known as Protoje, was born to the Jamaican singer Lorna Bennet and a former calypso king from the island nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. He first gained popularity for his 2010 mixtape Lyrical Overdose Volume 1, featuring mostly hip hop-influenced songs. When he released his single Kingston Be Wise in November 2012, the music video became the most viewed YouTube link Jamaicans. His latest single Righteous features a one-shot visual with Protoje jogging through a road in a mountainous area of Kingston, Jamaica, bursting his illustrious dexterity of lyrics to the camera.

Seeing the things that I’ve missed out on, not only in my own career [but for instance] missing my daughter’s first birthday. You see me on the cover chasing her; it’s symbolic of trying to catch up. When people work, we’re focused. Sometimes we don’t even see the things we’re missing. My schedule is unbelievable, bro–I’m running a label, producing three albums, managing artists, doing my career. I’m locked in. If I’m not locked in, there’s no chance.

El Michels Affair - "Dhuaan"

El Michels Affair is a cinematic soul group led by New York-based musician Leon Michels. After recording their first album they toured with Raekwon and other Wu-Tang Clan members. Feeling each others vibe they soon began collaborating eventually releasing a wildly popular full cover album, Enter The 37th Chamber. Their 2021 release Yeti Season takes a different turn drawing upon Turkish pop and prog rock featuring vocals from Hindi language singer Piya Malik and The Shacks. Their song Dhuaan is accompanied by a playful visual where a young girl follows a yeti into the wilderness for an epic dance party.

From the very beginning, I knew I didn’t need to have these melodies that return. I wanted to make each song have these little mood shifts halfway through. When I listened to all those soundtrack records, that’s what they basically do. That’s what I took from the soundtracks—to make mood pieces, rather than traditional songs.

Jon Batiste - "I Need You"

Jon Batiste was born in Metairie, Louisiana. His parents, Estella and Jean Batiste, were owners of a grocery store and a hardware store in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. Growing up immersed in a musical family tradition he picked up the drums at 8 switching to piano at 11. He began his career at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam at the age of 20 where he produced and performed his own show, and has since gone on to work with the varied talents of Stevie Wonder, Prince, Willie Nelson, Lenny Kravitz, Ed Sheeran, and Mavis Staples. Batiste dropped this single, I Need You, off his new album We Are at the beginning of 2021, decidedly choosing to embrace hope in a time of despair. The song is a dizzying and jubilant anthem of defiant joy, evocative of Batiste’s community-based musicianship.

Well, funny enough, when I was a kid, the first musical influences that I can remember actually came from video game scores, believe it or not. It's kind of like the thing around me that - everyone across the world reveres, you know, New Orleans music and culture and all these things. I kind of had that as a backdrop that I almost took for granted as being normal everywhere else. But the stuff that really caught my ear when I was 8, 9 years old was Sonic the Hedgehog and, you know, Final Fantasy VII.

Celeste - "Hear My Voice"

Celeste Epiphany Waite was born in Culver City, California, but when her parents divorced when she was 3 she went with her mother to the United Kingdom, settling in Dagenham at the age of three. At the age of 10, Celeste spent a year doing ballet at a performing arts school where teachers had offered her a scholarship. She accidentally wrote her first song, Sirens, with her former bandmates at the age of 16. The song was inspired by the death of her father and was published to YouTube where it got the attention of her current manager.

She recorded 3 songs for the original soundtrack for The Trial of the Chicago 7. Hear My Voice was the lead single off the album, and earned her a nomination for Best Original Song at the 93rd Academy Awards. The song is a wistful take on the importance of every action we take.

He had already come up with the lyric ‘hear my voice’… and when I heard that from Daniel, I had more of an idea about how this song should feel, something written in the spirit of protest, run parallel to the key themes of this movie. So I started recording melodies and writing down bits of lyrics at home. I literally recorded the first vocal in my bedroom and in my bathroom.

Zero Trust - "Birch"

Zero Trust is a veritable supergroup comprised of members of east coast hardcore band members from Coheed and Cambria, Bulldoze, and Full Scale Riot. Vocalist BJ Allen fronts the band delivering sharp and dynamic lyrics. He transitions between a bone-rattling death growl and melodic phrases with ease. In their first single Birch the band seeks to unite all who are oppressed. Reminding us that if we wipe away the haze of media we find there is more that unites us than divides.

Birch is about exploring the part of your mind that knows the whole system is against you, while also knowing that if humanity were to be unified, civil and just we would be in a much better position.

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Or, you simply scrolled down here...doesn't matter because here we are with the 24 songs you need to hear this week!

Youtube Playlist:

Spotify Playlist:

And, as always, remember to check back on Tuesday when we begin this cycle again and guide you through 12 more songs you need in your life.

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Much love from my family to yours!

Namaste,

Charlie Le Fol