Audren, the French multidisciplinary artist and self-described “good witch,” has released her new funk-pop single, "Smile, People Smile." The track arrives as the fifth preview from her upcoming full-length album, "Think Freedom." Instead of letting us stew in the mess of a disrupted world, she delivers a bright, highly syncopated remedy meant to shake off our passive waiting. https://open.spotify.com/album/1hLUUln8LHiAnIGBYdy9rM?si=utgL1M6VQpK4KxkFWDs7iw Audren rejects standard commercial formulas here, opting...

Listening to Libby Ember’s single “Alibi” is a study in strange emotional temperatures. The sound is a down-tempo, sun-dusted blanket of soft guitars and gentle synth pads, the kind of arrangement you’d put on to feel safe. But the feeling it leaves behind is a deep, architectural cold, the kind you find in the shadowed corners of an old stone church long after the...