Japanese Breakfast has been pretty quiet in solo since the release of Soft Sounds from Another Planet. Of course, she released a pretty cool EP with her new band, Bumper, and a couple of tracks via W Hotels‘ W Records imprint, but four years without dropping an album is not a common thing in the streaming era. Anyway… Michelle Zauner has now returned and it seems that it’s almost a brand new person. Moving on from her explorations of melancholy and grief, she’s announced her third album, Jubilee, and the lead single “Be Sweet” sounds like a celebration of life. Driven by hope and aiming at happiness, she sings “I wanna believe in you/I wanna believe in somеthing” over funky, Carly Rae Jepsen-esque arrangements.

This joyful new sound also coincides with her self-development as a songwriter. “I’ve never wanted to rest on any laurels,” she stated. “I wanted to push it as far as it could go, inviting more people in and pushing myself as a composer, a producer, an arranger”. She’s also been working on her visual skills as she self-directed the accompanying video to “Be Sweet”, in which co-stars Mannequin Pussy’s Marisa Dabice.

Every week, Free scours through hundreds of SoundCloud tracks to find the best new gems by artists that are flying under the radar.

Each week our Brussels-based fellow overwhelms you with a variety of songs that make your head go nuts. Here are a few of his favorites:

RIN – Broke:

This American-Japanese, Brussels-based electronic artist RIN knows how to merge experiment with catchiness and high pitched stringlike tunes. If someone knows she’s performing in Brussels or elsewhere, please let me know!

Baba Stiltz – Can’t Help It:

From Swedish and Stockholm-based artists I always expect to hear indie/electro pop. Sorry for my prejudices to them who are not, including Baba Stiltz. Stiltz could easily chose to be a (boring but) well-paid straighforward house producer, as you can hear in the intro of “Can’t Help It”. Though the building tense gives away he can do a lot more and is going to something great. Cuz “Can’t Help” is an amazing dance pop song with emotional touch added by Stiltz’ soft Erlend Øye-ish voice.

Nick Nicely – The Otherside 2:

Described (in 2012 already) as “the greatest popstar that never was”, Nick Nicely is still around doing his thing and doing it well. “The Otherside 2” is the B-side of Nick’s brand new single “Ghostdream”, the follow-up of “The Otherside” (2004) and just the perfect exotic breeze in this weather.

Another week of fresh tracks by breaking artists around the world — brought to you by FREE. Check the full playlist below!

Check on Free‘s playlist every Thursday on HighClouds and follow our curator on Soundcloud.