Eastside Radio’s Album of the Week is ‘Alone at Last’ by Tasha on Father/Daughter Records.

On her quietly confident debut, this soulful Chicago singer-songwriter offers portraits of intimacy and songs about the need for self-love. For years, the Chicago songwriter has dreamed hard of a better world—she’s worked with the local racial justice organization Black Youth Project 100 and has been on the front lines at protests around the city. But as she returned to the guitar, an instrument her mother first taught her to play when she was 15 years old, she began exploring the ways music can be a powerful force for healing. It might not fix a deeply broken world all by itself, but it can offer comfort and respite for those who, like her, dare to imagine a thriving future.

This acknowledgement of the dark realities of a racist, sexist, homophobic world—and Tasha’s celebration of joy in spite of it—is Alone at Last’s unifying idea. On “Kind of Love,” a song about the thrill of falling for someone, Tasha sees the act itself as political, a way to find “stillness in a world on fire and bodies without hurt.” She imagines radiant utopias where black people can exist free of harm during “New Place,” singing, “Hurry, before they see that we’re leaving/Don’t worry, haven’t you noticed you haven’t been breathing?” And on the stunning “Lullaby,” Tasha reassures black girls that she understands too well “how much it hurts/To always prove your worth.” She urges them to “keep your magic to yourself.”