Luke Top was born in Tel Aviv, Israel to an Iraqi refugee and a Russian-born aviator. Music making was adopted at an early age, serving as the buffer between a distant home turf and a newly adopted land of milk and honey: Southern California. Balancing the collision of identity, religion, and western culture was (and is) a process that has found an artistic culmination on Luke Top’s first full-length musical album, “Friends.” Mostly self-recorded in a backyard bungalow...