Max D – Bubblegum
Three Man Soul Machine – Kiki
small craft – of the mountain
Aztec Sun – Get Up
Smoke Bellow – Patient Belongings
Corm – Then I Built My Own Violin (Instrumental)
Beauty Pill – Rideshare
We Were Pirates – Better Off Without You
Diggs Duke – Is It Love feat. Vaughan Octavia
Albino Rhino – Walk In Squares
Harry Jay Smith and the Bling – Let It All Go
Fort Knox Five – Fire In My Belly (Instrumental)
Mud Rey – Follow Me Down
Dane Paris – Night Drop
Honey Pot Canoe – Lion Boy
Crooks and Crows – Sea of Cortez
Yeveto – Paper Scissors
Warm Sun – On a Western Coast
Elijah Jamal Balbed – Macrophobia
The Petticoat Tearoom – Love Isn’t Gone

Title Tracks – All Tricks (Instrumental)
Beauty Pill – Idiot Heart
Masego – Disconnected (Shorty From VA)
Diggs Duke – Crazy Like A Fox
Yeveto – Remote Unelectrified Villages
Letzkus Lanou – Ted n Lindsay
Dupont Brass – Can We Talk
Opus Akoben – Ronin
Fort Knox Five – Swinging On a Rhyme (Instrumental)
Spirit Plots – Pssst
Stephen Allen Kochersperger – Headhunter Serenade
Deathfix – Hospital
00Genesis – Inside the Brown Paper Bag
Tereu Tereu – Savage Love
Stephen Robey – Charlotte’s Song
The Petticoat Tearoom – Kundalini
ZOMES – Black Magic Band
Teen Mom – Kitchen
Patuxent Partners – Victoria Waltz
GroundScore – Here We Are

Buildings – Water In Water
Drop Electric – Church of Glass
ZOMES – Equinox
Girls Love Distortion – Psychic Raygun
Jonathan Parker – East Lorain
Fort Knox Five – Reach (Instrumental)
Marian McLaughlin – Will-o-the-wisp
The Petticoat Tearoom – Love Isn’t Gone
Iritis – Gates of Dawn
GroundScore – My Perfect Spot
Cartoon Weapons – WTLFO
Feedel Band – Girl From Ethiopia (Live At WAMU)
Bad Brains – Cowboy
Paperhaus – Cairo
Matt Chaconas – baby bear obliquity
Baby Bry Bry – Is It Anything Or Is It Everything
Protect-U – Dit Floss
Troy and Paula Haag – Lies & Cries
Speedwell – Two Conquests
Lower Dens – Stem

On the sixth track from Motta’s self-titled album, out Tuesday, an acoustic guitar and vocals are quickly joined by a string arrangement, building toward a shapely, spectacular peak.

The 32-year-old songwriter, formerly of The Petticoat Tearoom, says the song emerged from the beginnings of romance.

“What I was feeling at the time was going through a new relationship, and sort of judging the person,” he says. “Judging in the sense that you’re diving deep into somebody and unlocking things, and in turn you’re unlocking things in yourself.”

When writing, Motta felt driven by the notion of space. “Space so that the listener can create things for themselves,” says the Mount Vernon Square resident. “I think with that song, we accomplished a lot of space. And there are swells, like a parabola of mood and sound.”

Motta says his songwriting is also dictated by a compulsion to improvise. “I’m sort of notorious for having one or two rehearsals, and then embracing the improvisational quality of performance,” he says — and that wouldn’t be possible without his collaborators. “I play with incredible musicians. They know the melody and the structure, and then I’m free to go where I want to go on stage.”

Recording the entire album live at WrightWay Studios in Baltimore, none of the players Motta recruited had met before. He recorded his parts on his phone before passing them off to Joseph Martone, who collaborated with Motta on the string arrangements and plays upright bass on the record.

After transposing the string arrangement onto the initial recording, Motta distributed the track to the rest of his players — violinist Audrey Hamilton, cellist Devree Lewis, pedal steel player Dave Hadley and percussionist Michael Scerba — then “we jumped in the studio and recorded it live in, like, an hour,” says Motta. “It was quite an experience.”

To Motta, the song’s most important feature may be the fact that it leaves itself open to interpretation. “Even though this is an extremely structured song, the listener is going to arrive at their own conclusions,” he says. “That’s what I love about songs.”

Tomás Pagán Motta plays March 13 at Rock & Roll Hotel. He’s currently running a Kickstarter campaign to help fund his national tour.