Well now. Here’s a feeling bottled, or rather, pressed onto a piano key. "Alone." Caitty, out of Margaret River – which, in my head, conjures images of dramatic cliffs and maybe someone losing their favourite hat to the wind, oddly fitting – gives us a stark landscape of sudden departure. https://open.spotify.com/album/05CkW9piuni9Ckoo5PLNWo?si=kom6wwPNRxWYaohA_qaWgA The piano isn't just accompaniment; it feels like the architecture of the emptiness. Chord by...

Sam Ostler’s new single, “Lights,” then. It unfolds less like a sudden, intrusive glare and more like the slow, determined burn of a really good stage light finally finding its mark after a prolonged blackout. It’s pop, yes, vibrant and undeniably contemporary as advertised – clean lines, clear intentions. Yet, there’s a certain satisfying heft beneath the melodic uplift, a feeling that these notes...