“Every day I’m trying not to hate myself,” the pop crooner Sam Smith sings on a new single, “but lately it’s not hurting like it did before.” “Love Me More” is a simple but affecting ode to self-acceptance, and Smith delivers it with a breezy lightness that convincingly brings the message home. The arrangement keeps things airy and understated, so that even when a choir of backing singers enters in the middle, the effect is neither dolorous nor heavy-handed. The song, like Smith, keeps moving forward with a confident spring in its step. LINDSAY ZOLADZ
Regina Spektor, ‘Up the Mountain’
Regina Spektor traces an ecological treasure hunt — ocean to mountain to forest to garden to flower to nectar — in “Up the Mountain,” seeking an answer in the taste of that nectar. It’s mystical and earthy, moving from tolling piano to implacable beat, with strings and horns ganging up behind her; whether or not she finds her answer, she’s thrown everything into the search. JON PARELES
Wilco, ‘Falling Apart (Right Now)’
Wilco’s going country — or maybe it’s just going back. Jeff Tweedy has always had a complicated relationship with the genre: His work with Uncle Tupelo and the early Wilco records certainly flirted with it, but they also had the sort of punkish grit that generally earned them the “alt” prefix. There’s a straightforward sincerity to “Falling Apart (Right Now),” though, that makes the first single from the band’s forthcoming “Cruel Country” feel like fresh territory for a group 12 records and three decades into its run. “Baby, being blue, when it comes to me and you,” Tweedy sings, “it’s always on the menu.” His delivery has a playful, twangy warmth, but what really sells the song and its country bona fides is the nimble steel guitar playing of Nels Cline. ZOLADZ
Marshmello and Tokischa, ‘Estilazo’
Plenty of artists in the Latin music industry have spent the last year dabbling in electronic textures. But the Dominican dembow rebel Tokischa has never been one to conform, so don’t consider her new collaboration with the EDM producer Marshmello trend-hopping. “Estilazo” is pure Toki: raunchy lyrics, coy moans and unabashed queer aesthetics. “Larga vida homosexual,” she says on the track — long live the gays. The video is a deliciously playful romp, too: Dennis Rodman, Nikita Dragun and La Demi preside over a drag competition, as dancers walk and vogue down the runway. RuPaul is shaking in his boots, and I’ll be screaming “ser perra está de moda” (“being a bad bitch is trendy”) at the club all summer. ISABELIA HERRERA
I Am, ‘Omniscient (Mycelium)’
I Am is a duo: Isaiah Collier on saxophone and Michael Shekwoaga Ode on drums. “Omniscient (Mycelium)” has a basic structure — a 4/4 beat and a mode — that gives them ample room to improvise and embellish. Collier touches down regularly on two low notes before he goes trampolining into upper-register acrobatics; the drumming grows ever more hyperactive to match him, and the track fades out before they peak. PARELES
Adrian Quesada featuring Gabriel Garzón-Montano, ‘El Paraguas’
It is difficult to recreate the magic of a balada, a song of longing popular in the 1970s that defined a generation in Latin America. The Black Pumas guitarist and producer Adrián Quesada manages to harness the genre’s power on a forthcoming album called “Boleros Psicodelicos.” “El Paraguas,” with the Colombian artist Gabriel Garzón-Montano, exemplifies the raw, full-throated vocal drama of the record; Montano unleashes a torrent of verve and anguish that glides over the woozy production. A vintage organ helps conjure a spaced-out, nostalgic haze. HERRERA
Flora Purim, ‘500 Miles High’
The Brazilian vocalist Flora Purim has never sung like a jazz crooner, nor like your average bossa nova whisperer. When she burst onto the scene in the 1970s, she had something unique: an ingenuous, gossamer voice that became immediately recognizable, and fit perfectly into the fast-opening landscape of jazz fusion. On her latest album, “If You Will,” Purim pays tribute to Chick Corea, whose Return to Forever was her first major gig; the pianist died last year. Here she presents a version of “500 Miles High,” their most famous collaboration from the Return to Forever years. She sounds remarkably undiminished at 80, as her band takes a high-energy run through the tune, driven by Endrigo Bettega’s hotfooted drumming. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO
Maria de Fátima, ‘Vocé’
Maria de Fátima, from Rio de Janeiro, spent much of her career singing backup for leading Brazilian songwriters and singers: Milton Nascimento, Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, Flora Purim. But in 1981, when she was living in Uruguay — it’s a long story — she seized her chance to record a solo album, “Bahia Com H,” rereleased today. The album mingled her Brazilian spirit with her Uruguayan backup; she sang acclaimed Brazilian songs alongside her own, among them “Vocé,” which envisions lovers united like the sun and moon. Syncopated acoustic guitars and hand percussion in an odd meter — ⅞ — carry her through a melody that hops around and keeps landing on expressive dissonances; imagine if Joni Mitchell were born in Brazil. PARELES
Miles Okazaki, ‘In Some Far Off Place’
The guitarist Miles Okazaki and his longstanding quartet, Trickster, have never sounded as unbounded as they do on their newest album, “Thisness.” Trickster’s normal signatures are its elaborately stitched, lopsided grooves and its affinity for lunging misdirection, following the lead of Okazaki’s chunky single-note playing. But that’s all submerged here in a blend of thrummed acoustic guitar, wobbly bass from Anthony Tidd, and distant sonic elements that rise and fade (you may hear voices lurking behind the instrumentals, but only faintly, and only for brief moments). At first, it recalls the aesthetic of 1970s ECM albums by Eberhard Weber, Gary Burton and Ralph Towner. By the end something closer to Trickster’s usual brand of woozy kinetics has kicked in, but the new sense of mystery hasn’t been dispelled. RUSSONELLO
Giveon, ‘Lie Again’
Giveon’s voice floats in a jealous limbo in “Lie Again,” a new take on the age-old lover’s plight of trying and failing not to think about a partner’s past. “Lie so sweet until I believe/that it’s only been me to touch you,” he implores aching smoothness. The track eases along on a vintage soul chord progression, but the production summons ghostly voices and furtive instruments, like all the facts the singer wishes he could avoid. PARELES
Skylar Grey, ‘Runaway’
Emerging from marital and legal entanglements with her first album in six years — self-titled as a declaration of sincerity — Skylar Grey whisper-croons about desperation for a second chance in “Runaway.” She’s barely accompanied as she sings, “I need a place where I can be alone”; strings cradle her as she hopes to “start the whole thing over.” The music builds patiently as she hopes for the best. PARELES
