MBE June 14: Tonina, Filipino pride, and Phoenix’s latest

Tonina is an artist who grew up listening to funk, jazz, and rock and speaking English and Italian. But it was her love for Selena that inspired her to teach herself Spanish. On her new album “Senti,” and particularly on the sweet track “Asking For A Friend,” you can hear her smokey tone move through beautiful melodies in all three languages backed by her trusty upright bass named Chauncey.

And from Manilla to Mar Vista, we celebrate the musical magic emanating from the Filipino community. Free The Robot, the project of Filipino-American producer and DJ Chris Alfaro, fuses jazz, hip hop, and psychedelic sounds on “Welcome to Los Angeles,” off of his latest album “Kaduwa.” Filipina singer Celeste Lagaspi spices up Roberta Flack’s 1975 classic “Feel Like Makin’ Love” with her Tagalog cover “Pagibig Na Lubus‐lubos.” And we take a listen to “It Matters Until It Doesn’t” from an artist by the name of Ruru, originally from Manilla and currently based in Ontario, crafting candid jangle pop on her 2022 full length “Glorious Miscellanea.”

Plus, French indie-pop band Phoenix release “Alpha Zulu,” their first single in two years!