Music

Americans may not be able to travel the world because of the pandemic, but thousands of foreign radio stations are easily accessible online to bring the world to you.For Dorothy Parvaz, a radio editor in Washington, D.C., foreign radio was her first introduction to the world beyond Tehran, where she lived until 12. “Listening to radio signals coming in from other countries was just like seeing the world in a way we couldn’t on TV, ” she said. “If I wanted to find music, I went to the apartment downstairs, where one of the kids always got a good signal somehow. We heard Pink Floyd for the first time together.”Here, some ways to tune into the world on your computer or phone. In some cases these are broadcast stations that also make their programming available on the web. Others are internet-only stations. Based in Amsterdam, Radio.garden offers the world: Type “Nigeria” into the search bar, for instance, and 20 stations pop up, including one focused on human rights. You can listen in English to programs from Canada, Britain, Ireland or Australia. The home page, titled “Live”, allows users to explore the world’s radio stations in real time, by simply rotating the globe on the site and clicking a spot. (Radio.garden; or via a free app for iOS and Android).ThreeD radio, a 41-year-old station in Adelaide, Australia, includes aboriginal music in its regular playlists. “Their music is exceptionally soulful, and often talks about the struggles that the Aboriginals have faced,” said William Taylor, a career development manager at VelvetJobs an outplacement company. His favorite musicians: Ziggy, Thelma Plum, Zaine Francis and Steady (threedradio.com). For fans of Indian music, Hits of Bollywood was founded to serve the Indian diaspora. It plays Hindi songs, gazalas, classical songs, qawwalis and much more (onlineradios.in/hits-of-bollywood). NTS Radio, with studios in Los Angeles, Shanghai and Manchester, England, offers wildly eclectic selections — Japanese psychedelia from 1968 to 1975, a performance by the experimental rap group Clipping, and new World music albums, among other things (nts.live; also available via a free app for iOS and Android). Nostalgie, a French station, plays hits from the 1960s through 1990s, from classic French musicians like Edith Piaf, Johnny Hallyday and Renaud to Seal, Queen and Duran Duran (nostalgie.fr).From Egypt, Nile FM, primarily plays Top 40 programming, “but between 7 and 8 a.m. (1 to 2 a.m. Eastern) they have a great classic rock hour,” said Ethan Haynes, an author and part-time teacher of students with learning disabilities currently living in Cairo. “The weekends have a syndicated techno/house program while their DJs enjoy their days off.” Nile broadcasts in English, but it is a “good way to hear the Middle Eastern perspective on American politics or to hear Middle Eastern news that might not be featured in American media,” he said (nilefm.com, or through an app for iOS and Android). The government-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation offers a wide array of shows, from Writers & Company, an award-winning program hosted by the journalist Eleanor Wachtel focused on books and authors, to Cross Country Check-Up, a 51-year-old weekly national open-line radio program, broadcast live simultaneously through six time zones across the country every Sunday afternoon on CBC Radio One. It attracts more than a half million listeners, according to the CBC, with 5,000 to 10,000 people trying to call in and join the discussion (cbc.ca/radio; or via a free app for iOS, cbc.listen).RFI Monde (Radio France International, World) offers world news and cultural programs exploring literary, poetic and musical aspects of different cultures, especially with an emphasis on Francophone West African countries, in English (rfi.fr/en; or via a free app for iOS/Android). Listening to radio from Latin America in Spanish offers cultural insight and a chance to hone your Spanish-language skills. Adel Hattem, the founder of D Music Marketing, an artists’ management firm in Miami, grew up in Mexico City and is a huge fan of Aire Libre, a station there she calls “very artsy, all over the map” (airelibre.fm or via a free app for iOS/Android). In Bogotá, Colombia, RadioNica offers an equally eclectic mix (radionica.rocks/en-vivo/radionica). It is a national station focused on indie and electronic music with seven million listeners in the country. She also recommends IBERO 90.9, a station in Mexico City that’s a favorite of college students and indie music lovers, with an audience of 600,000 daily (ibero909.fm; or via a free app for iOS/Android through radio.net). More

Following Kanye West, 50 Cent and Ice Cube before him, the rapper faced criticism on social media after posting a seeming endorsement of the president. More

Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Busta Rhymes featuring Kendrick Lamar, ‘Look Over Your Shoulder’[embedded content]To invite Kendrick Lamar to record a guest verse is to risk being outshone on your own track — just ask Drake, Big Sean or just about every other rapper he’s shared a beat with. Busta Rhymes certainly holds his own on “Look Over Your Shoulder,” a nostalgic love letter to hip-hop from his long awaited album “ELE 2,” and drops a handful of memorable lines (“When I leave, even my shadow got a sound to it.”) But there’s a moment of sublime weightlessness as Lamar kicks his flow from second to third gear, instantly reminding us how singular his talent is, and how much his voice has been missed. Here’s hoping the follow-up to “DAMN.” is arriving soon. LINDSAY ZOLADZEmpress Of featuring Amber Mark, ‘You’ve Got to Feel’“You’ve Got to Feel” starts out as self-help: “You’ve got to feel to let it heal,” it declares. But as the track keeps cleverly juggling its layers of rhythm guitar, bass and beat, Empress Of — the songwriter and electronic producer Lorely Rodriguez — lets her guest, Amber Mark, pivot the song into a denunciation of capitalism and privilege, a system bigger than anyone’s private troubles. JON PARELESTierra Whack, ‘Dora’“Open the door, tell them that you ready to explore,” Philly’s hip-hop surrealist Tierra Whack beckons at the beginning of her new song, “Dora” — and from there you’re transported directly into her Technicolor brain. “Dora” is a playful ode to the material world (“I like nice things/Buy me nice things”) that sidesteps cliché at every turn, simply because you never know where Whack’s rhymes are going to land: “Yes of course, I’m in Dior/I think I just might buy me a horse.” The conceptual artist Alex Da Corte has created a perfect visual accompaniment, combining humorous literalism with childlike zaniness — think Lil Wayne’s “6 Foot 7 Foot” video if it were set in Pee-wee’s Playhouse. It’s a Whack World; we’re all just visiting. ZOLADZKeke Palmer, ‘Actually Vote’This get-out-the-vote song, produced and co-written by Billie Eilish’s brother and collaborator Finneas, will be short-lived, irrelevant after Election Day, Nov. 3. But it deftly microtargets a specific demographic — the Democratic youth vote — with gospel piano chords and catchy, cheerful, pointed advice: “Young people are the biggest voting bloc/You can only make a change if you check that damn box.” It’s a goad to skip social media and fill out ballots. PARELESSebastián Otero, ‘Juyendo’In his pre-election single “Juyendo,” the Puerto Rican rapper and singer Sebastián Otero calls for attacking entrenched corruption with a machete. Produced by Otero and Eduardo Cabra (from Calle 13), it’s an eventful three minutes that encompass singing, rapping, echoes of Santeria drumming, trap percussion, salsa horns and synthesizers that buzz like an approaching swarm of hornets. PARELESRoutine, ‘Cady Road’The newly formed duo Routine is a collaboration between Annie Truscott, the bassist of the jangly Washington band Chastity Belt, and Melina Duterte, the multi-instrumentalist who records as Jay Som. “Cady Road,” the first single from their upcoming debut EP “And Other Things,” moves at the tempo of a casual afternoon stroll, full of lush, chiming guitars. With Duterte helming the production, Truscott sings lead: Her voice is dreamy and low, slightly reminiscent of Helium-era Mary Timony. “Relax, it’s fine/Just give it time,” she sings, reassuringly. It’s indie-rock comfort food. ZOLADZGillian Welch, ‘There’s a First Time for Everything’“There’s a First Time for Everything” is a classic country waltz, with just a handful of chords, from an archival set of songs from the early 2000s — “Boots No. 2: The Lost Songs, Vol. 3” — that Gillian Welch will release on Nov. 13. The arrangement is minimal, tandem vocals over guitar and slide guitar. But in under three-and-half minutes, the storytelling moves from love at first sight to cheating to breakup with an economy to rival Hank Williams. PARELESGianna Lauren, ‘Closed Chapter’The Canadian songwriter Gianna Lauren’s feathery vocal inflections and gradual but eventually unstoppable buildup — from terse guitar pattern to full electric band with horns — clearly glance back to Feist. But she constructs her own enigma in “Closed Chapter,” from an album due Nov. 6. “Why look in the mirror?” she asks. “I know who I am.” PARELESXenia Rubinos, ‘Who Shot Ya?’On her wildly creative 2016 album “Black Terry Cat,” the New York musician Xenia Rubinos interwove everyday banalities (“looking for my glasses in the lost and found”) with razor-sharp political provocations (“Brown walks your baby/Brown walks your dog/Brown raised America in place of its mom”), resulting in a rich, idiosyncratically personal take on modern American life. On “Who Shot Ya?,” a new one-off single, Rubinos brings the spirit of protest to the forefront and raises her voice against an interconnected web of social injustices. In the video’s most striking moment, she is locked inside a cage meant to evoke the immigrant children separated from their parents at the border; elsewhere, she pointedly interpolates the melody of “I Shot the Sheriff” to ask, “Who shot the sheriff when they killed Breonna in her sleep? And they still out free.” ZOLADZMary Halvorson’s Code Girl, ‘Lemon Trees’The guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson has been letting her ambition run wild with her quintet Code Girl, treating it as fertile ground for her ambitions as a songwriter, poet and bandleader. So why not ask one of her idols, the 75-year-old fusion icon Robert Wyatt, to join on a few tracks for its new album? On the opening tune, “Lemon Trees,” he sings Halvorson’s evocative but mysterious verse, inspired by the writer Lawrence Osborne, with a mix of wisdom and innocence. Around him, the band plays a carefully spooled arrangement that never comes undone, even when the trumpeter Adam O’Farrill and the drummer Tomas Fujiwara light off on an open-ended improvised duet. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOCraig Taborn’s Junk Magic, ‘The Science of Why Devils Smell Like Sulfur’It can be difficult to figure out just how you’re supposed to handle the beat on “The Science of Why Devils Smell Like Sulfur,” from the pianist Craig Taborn’s new album with Junk Magic, his remarkable side project. But as twisted and aberrant as the ecosystem of sounds on this album is, that doesn’t mean you can’t move to it. In fact, this music — influenced by Aphex Twin, Autechre and Squarepusher, but spinning off in Taborn’s own directions — feels almost overwhelmingly physical. He sought to build what he calls sound chambers, moving the listener in and out of them, giving you something more to experience than just melody, harmony and rhythm. RUSSONELLOMouse on Mars, ‘The Latent Space’The beat is nearly relentless but never predictable in “The Latest Space,” an early preview of an album due in February, “AAI (Anarchic Artificial Intelligence),” from the long-running Berlin electronic duo Mouse on Mars. They deploy A.I. software alongside hand drums and chopped-up vocal syllables for a track that arrives like an express train, dances awhile to a quick six-beat pattern, pauses, then resumes — barreling ahead but refusing to stay in any meter for long, like a system constantly re-encrypting. PARELES More

Alarm Will Sound used multiple videoconferencing tools to master the ambiguities of Tyshawn Sorey’s “Autoschediasms.” More