I'm doing better! This post is much more equally split down the middle between brand new releases and past stuff I've been digging into. I listened to a lot of cool stuff in March, which meant I had to make a few painful cuts to get down to 10 tracks. Mostly, I ended up taking out songs from albums I'll inevitably talk about whenever I get around to making a quarter one review post. While you're waiting in breathless anticipation for that (anyone?), enjoy my other favorite discoveries of the month.

10. Kelis - Runnin'


Kelis' Food is one of those albums I've had saved in my Spotify forever while I keep getting distracted by shinier, newer things. It probably would have sat there a while longer if the opening track, "Breakfast," hadn't come up on shuffle and captured my attention immediately with its raspy, soulful vocals and captivating chorus. Luckily, the rest of the album lives up to its promise and then some. "Runnin'" is the track I can't get over at the moment. The melodies feel timeless, as do the vocals; both are understated but in a simmering, intense way, underpinned by cinematic strings and stately horns that tug expertly at the heartstrings. It's a song that may go down smoothly, but its emotional impact lingers an unexpectedly long time afterward.

9. Digable Planets - Examination of What


I was reluctant to listen to Digable Planets' first album because I love Blowout Comb so much and it feels like one of those really special albums that's near impossible to match. I have to say, though: Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) is pretty formidable in its own right. While it's more traditionally-structured and ultimately less revolutionary than its follow-up, at 14 tracks, it has barely any filler, which is impressive for any album yet alone a debut. "Examination of What" is the closer, and it sounds like Digable Planets' mission statement in terms of both sound and politics. The beats are chill, the vocal chemistry is off the charts, and the lyrics tackle social issues - among them, abortion rights and racial profiling - that are sadly still as relevant now as they were in the early 1990s.

8. Joni Mitchell - Coyote


My slow but steady exploration of Joni Mitchell's discography continued in March with Hejira. Initially, I found it more difficult to penetrate than her earlier works, as the songs are longer, more subtle, and less melodically diverse. Instead, Mitchell's voice, which here hits that perfect sweet spot between serene and husky, and her lyrics, which are more heavily focused on storytelling, are emphasized. Luckily, the songs start to differentiate themselves from one another with repeated listening. I loved the opener "Coyote" from the first moment I heard it, though. Mitchell's delivery is playful without sacrificing gravitas, and the earthy force of the instrumentation complements its evocative, road-tripping lyrics: "You just picked up a hitcher/A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway."

7. Natalie Prass - Sisters


I wasn't particularly impressed by Natalie Prass' debut album when seemingly everyone was raving about it three years ago, and "Short Court Style," the first single from her upcoming release, The Future and the Past, didn't do much besides pleasantly glide through my ears either. But "Sisters" has single-handedly dialed my interest level up several notches. It's another low-key, vintage-sounding, lightly groovy pop number, but something about this one just sparkles. "You got to keep your sisters close to you," Prass croons before breaking into a choir-backed, gospel-infused chorus: "I want to say it loud/For all the ones held down/We got to change the plan/Come on, nasty women." Sure, it's fairly surface-level as far as messages of solidarity go, but, in times like these, such self-empowered calls to action, in any form, are sorely needed.

6. Kelela - All the Way Down


Take Me Apart has remained one of last year's most consistently listenable albums for me, and I still haven't gotten tired of it. However, before I risked ruining it for myself, I decided it was time to investigate Kelela's other offerings. For the last couple of weeks, I've been listening almost exclusively to Cut 4 Me, but what really started me off down that road was "All the Way Down," from her 2015 EP, Hallucinogen. It's a song that didn't particularly stick out to me at first but has proven to be more than worth its weight with every additional play. It's a chilled-out song with surprising emotional heft. My two favorite parts: the effortless cool with which Kelela delivers the shoulder-shrugging one-liner, "Cared before but, baby, now I don't give a fuck," and the dark, downbeat eeriness of the subtly distorted bridge.

5. Neko Case - Hell-On


Neko Case is one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters, and I'm so glad she'll be back with her first solo album in five years on June 1st. "Hell-On" is the album's title track, a dark and atmospheric slow-burner that has more in common with brooding deep cuts like "Prison Girls" and "Dirty Knife" than past rollicking lead singles like "Man" and "People Got a Lotta Nerve." In my opinion, this bodes very well for the rest of the album, as I've always loved Case's more introspective and moody side. Here, her voice sounds as pristine as ever, even as the gorgeously evocative lyrics try to convince you otherwise: "My voice is not the liquid waves/The perfect rings 'round a heron's legs/My voice is straight garroting wire/A stolen mile of fingerprints/Peeled the quiet from the dunes/Captured and re-spooled as ruin to be used/At a different time."

4. Iceage - Pain Killer


It's been quite the wait for Iceage's follow-up to their staggering 2014 release, Plowing Into the Field of Love, but it'll finally be over on May 4th, when their fourth album, Beyondless, arrives. "Pain Killer," an utterly addictive amalgamation of post-punk and pop sensibilities, is my favorite song from it thus far. From the start, it's total cacophony, brazen horns colliding with crashing drums and driving guitars, all equally vying for the spotlight. They constantly compete, too, with the voices of Elias Bender Rønnenfelt and guest Sky Ferreira, whose harmonizing is charmingly blurry and imprecise, like they spontaneously decided to wander into the studio after a night of hard drinking and tonelessly wail their lungs out. Combined, it's all a bit of a teetering-on-the-edge-of-falling-over mess, but that's what makes it so great.

3. Cashmere Cat - Love Incredible (feat. Camila Cabello)


Cashmere Cat's 9 brings together an interesting blend of top 40 vocalists and wonky electronic experimentation to catchy and captivating ends. Although "Love Incredible" may be huge-sounding, its actual melodies are more insidious than immediate, and the aggressively-processed vocals at the end, pushed to their synthetic extreme, are initially quite jarring. However, there's enough charm in its overblown style - and Camila Cabello's quirky, auto-tuned affectations - to keep you listening until you fall in love. Mostly, I can't get over the fact that it involves both Cabello and SOPHIE, who's credited as a co-producer (and I swear to God, I will go an entire post without invoking her name, but today is not the day); they represent such opposite wavelengths of the pop spectrum that it's mind-boggling to even see their names in the same sentence.

2. Let's Eat Grandma - Falling Into Me


Either I seriously misjudged this band or they've really upped their game recently because their newly-announced June 29th sophomore album, I'm All Ears, is suddenly one of my most anticipated releases of the year. "Falling Into Me" erases any doubts I had about only enjoying "Hot Pink" as much as I do for the SOPHIE factor (there I go again). Between the dramatic synths, fairytale-nightmare vocals, darkly vivid imagery ("I pave the back street with the mist of my brain"), infectious melodies, and saxophone-soaked finale, it's unbelievable how many of my favorite musical boxes it checks off at once. If you, like me, are impatiently awaiting new Purity Ring, desperate for more synth-pop spookiness a la iamamiwhoami/ionnalee, or disappointed by the growing blandness of CHVRCHES, I could not recommend either of Let's Eat Grandma's new singles more.

1. Sevdaliza - Human Nature


As much as I talk about music like it changes my life on a daily basis, it's rare for me to have a truly visceral physical reaction to a song. But the first time I heard "Human Nature," it was 12:30 AM, I was lying in complete darkness, and I had to cover my mouth with my hands to hold back the actual screams that threatened to erupt from my throat the moment Sevdaliza wails at distorted dolphin pitch, "Our so-oo-oo-oo-ooULS have been separated." And when she asks for the last desperate time, "Have you met an angel," the final syllable stretched into what sounds like the dying breaths of a self-eulogizing android, I was literally shaking with ecstasy. If comparisons must be made, Sevdaliza sings like a space-age Sade, and this song is like if you were to take that brilliant voice-into-pan-flute effect at the end of Charli XCX's "Lucky" and invert it into its spooky underworld twin.