Mackenzie Leighton is the friend you call up when you finally book that flight to Europe. She’ll take you down dark, cobblestoned alleyways to smoke-filled underground jazz clubs and give you that authentic Parisian experience not found in Lonely Planet guidebooks. You start to think that maybe after a week of observing the breezy elegance around you—and splurging on a bottle of expensive perfume—you’ll have acquired that coveted French elegance by osmosis. Leighton is here to tell you that’s not how it works. You can take her word for it, too. The California-born singer-songwriter moved to Paris after graduating from NYU and is still chasing that infamous je ne sais quois that Parisian women claim as their birthright. “Paris Girls” is a swinging jazz-pop number with a waltz feel in the verses. Leighton’s navigation of agile melodies makes her sound like a smoother Nellie McKay for a modern young audience. Unapologetic electric guitar remains prominent throughout the song, transporting you to the front row of that smokey Paris jazz club ‘round midnight. Until it’s safe to travel again, this track should hold you over.

“I was gifted a book by somebody who loved me / About a man who got even with God,” sings David Keenan, and then the story begins to unravel. In “Unholy Ghosts,” a standout track from his latest album, A Beginner’s Guide to Bravery, we follow Keenan through meetings with a one-eyed tramp and a drunkard playing a wooden piano, his turns of phrase and run-on sentences treating the listener to vivid imagery developing patiently. “I wrote this song on a train from Amsterdam to Cologne, finished it as the train ceased to move, brought it in me to a Chapel in Cologne, sang it for the first time, left the Chapel with a liberated German bible under my arm as a souvenir,” he wrote in a Facebook post, demonstrating that his daily life is as fanciful and his daily speech as poetic as his songwriting. A comparison to Glen Hansard is almost too easy, but not unfair to either party, both fitting the mold of buskers with ideas too big for their streetcorners. The arrangement of “Unholy Ghosts” is booming, nearly to the point of spilling over, but beneath it all we hear David Keenan for who he is: an ambitious musician shouting his heart out.

It must be daunting to be related to the composer of some of the world’s most memorable melodies. If intimidated, Ethan Gruska,grandson of famed film composer John Williams, doesn’t show it. Already making a name for himself as a producer, “Enough for Now” is a welcome insight into his identity as a songwriter, while showing off his obvious production talents. Little instrumental nuggets, like that unmistakable trill of a violin, remind us that Gruska co-produced Phoebe Bridgers’ earthquake debut, Stranger in the Alps. Whereas that album’s strongest moments lie in its sonic subtlety, Gruska, in an in-studio video, compliments the track’s renowned producer, Tchad Blake, on his ability to make songs “aggressively come through the speakers.” The relentless drum patch, either digital or an intentional imitation, harkens back to The Postal Service, whose debut album’s title, Give Up, shares a sarcastic resignation with Gruska’s lyrics. “Maybe I’ll try / Maybe I’ll die trying,” he sings, enlisting the help of Bridgers herself. Tapping into the same nostalgia as Bleachers or Stranger Things, Gruska sees this solo effort as a success, telling Stereogum, “It has that irreverence I wanted, despite its sweetness.”

Anaïs Mitchell has an uncanny ability to bring new life to old stories. Fresh off of a Best Musical win at the Tonys for Hadestown, a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, she wasted no time before embarking on her next project. Bonny Light Horseman, a collaboration with Eric D. Johnson (known for his work in Fruit Bats and formerly The Shins) and Josh Kaufman (known for his work in countless critical indie darlings like The National and The Hold Steady), uses traditional folk songs as a jumping-off point for lush ballads that could find a home on an album by any one of the group’s innumerable associated acts. Their latest, “The Roving,” is a well-executed entry into the modern tradition of indie-folk, but elements of it stem from centuries ago. Of their process, Johnson joked, “These 500-year-old lyrics are so deeply applicable. ‘The Roving’ could be the plot of an ‘80s teen movie… How incredible is it that as humans we still just want to love and have sex and feel sad and fight?” The group’s debut album, due out January 24th, began and was mostly completed at the 37d03d event hosted by Justin Vernon, Aaron Dessner and friends. They, along with even more members of the April Base extended family, appear on Bonny Light Horseman’s collection of “semi-trad folk jams,” modernized with Mitchell’s signature touch - “We added a singalong chorus so everyone could bond about this.”

In "Anywhere," a track off her late-summer debut Sensitive Soul, London native Hope Tala explores growth with a sweet vulnerability and timbre as unique as her sound. Hope's music is real and open, provoking thought and relating to familiar circumstances. Confessional lyrics, "I haven't felt this way since high school / I'm sorry, I know you feel lied to / I can't explain it but I tried to give you the words / You said through my hands when I fly with the birds," display both an admirable self-awareness and a poetic handling of emotion in a song about a relationship coming to an end. With jazzy ad-libs, her clear vocals float over other lyrics detailing the ways a relationship feels alive in the face of one that no longer does. Her distinct fusion of R&B beats and bossa nova instrumentation, self-coined as R&Bossa by the artist herself, makes "Anywhere" as delightful to listen to as a day on a beach in Rio.

Tennis' music is a jaunt that glides effortlessly from past to present. It's a vintage pop-soul project with feet firmly planted in the present. That's what makes the duo's newest single, "Need Your Love" so infectious and romantic: it's a beautiful balance between their nuanced rock sound and the doo-wop vibe that's intrinsic and unique to them as a band. Their aesthetic for this song is '70s soul, with frontwoman Alaina Moore sporting her signature blonde fro and bell-bottom corduroys. Passionate, gripping and indelibly retro, Tennis delivers another single that reminds us of old-time beauty. "Need Your Love" is one of two tracks dropped in the last three months in preparation for their upcoming album Swimmer, which is set to release in February.