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Mar 05, 2026 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Nicholas Cantu

Tomorrow, Chicago-based alt pop singer/songwriter Evann McIntosh is set to share their sophomore album, Fantasy Fuel. After releasing their debut record, MOJO, in 2019, McIntosh relocated to Chicago, a move that shifted both their circle of collaborators and their sound. They began to lean into a latent talent for jazz grooves and rich rhythmic shifts while retaining the slow-burning soul glimmer that colored MOJO and their 2021 EP, Character Development. They wrote the record between Chicago and Los Angeles, with production from Abe Rounds (Joni Mitchell, Blake Mills) and collaborators including Meshell Ndegeocello and Madison Cunningham.

That change of scenery and collaborators proved to be essential to the record’s direction. “I thought for a long time that Fantasy Fuel was about finding richness in your inner world,” Evann shares. “But I stepped outside of myself to make it. It came from leaving what was familiar and working in rooms that pushed me. To me, Fantasy Fuel is the motivating force. It is the dream, the higher self, the urge to get moving.”

McIntosh returned last year with a pair of early singles from the album, “Blue Movie Magic” and “Free Ride,” before sharing the tracks “Mull It Over” and “Fantasy Fuel” in the early months of the year. Today, they’re sharing an early listen to one of the highlights from the album, “Better,” featuring Meshell Ndegeocello, premiering with Under the Radar.

“Better” is a free-wheeling soul slow-burn, coupled with all of the warmth and ease of a sun-dappled summer afternoon. McIntosh and their collaborators introduce the track with plaintive acoustic strums, but the sparse instrumentation steadily sprawls outwards with woozy guitar lines and lithe percussion, gradually filling the mix with a host of easygoing grooves and shifting melodies. “I was moving through Stevie Wonder albums,” Evann shares of the track. “That’s why there’s those mean key changes.”

Meshell Ndegeocello’s warm basslines, hints of keys, Rhodes, and pedal steel all dance in the track’s margins, with a free-wheeling jazz sax solo eventually taking center stage. As the full band joins in, the track shows off a deep well of jazzy melodies and effortless chemistry running beneath McIntosh’s spritely vocal tones and pleading lyrics. They struggle to connect with a partner, but come away insisting that brighter days are ahead: “There’s got to be some way that we can get / Better, better, better / People they get better all the time / And we’d make it okay if we could / Talk it out together / Baby we could really take the time.”

Check out the song and video below. Fantasy Fuel is out everywhere on March 6th.