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Shearwater, 'Aqaba'

Few singers have a voice that can melt the universe quite like Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg. On the band's latest track from The Great Awakening (out June 10), his transfixing falsetto drifts over a gently pulsing piano and a bed of airy synths that seem to rise and fade. The effect is transporting, as though you're taking flight like the birds Meiberg adores. "Aqaba," in fact, includes a gorgeous interlude of field recordings he made while researching his book, A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey. Meiberg calls the track a love song about the "terrifying feeling that you're being cracked like an egg." Heartache never sounded more beautiful.

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Robin Hilton is a producer and co-host of the popular NPR Music show All Songs Considered.
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