First thought? It doesn’t sound like someone trying too hard, which is always a relief. It’s not that self-important throb you sometimes get with ambient. It’s... like catching the first snow after a summer that stretched on way too long. Remember those hazy August days? They feel like distant echoes now, don’t they? https://open.spotify.com/album/1tWE8Gn8bh0iIj8srA29wy?si=wNlwKXSzTNeet5-M87przg This single paints with sonic snow, and the whole picture is soft...

Rebecca Helen's new single, "Patterns In The Sky," landed in my inbox, and honestly, I wasn't expecting... this. This rising star from Cape Town – indie-pop, they say – has bottled something raw, something that spills out of the speakers and pools around your feet. https://open.spotify.com/track/2kIeEcxZK3GDPsuNXH4k70?si=vPJievz0R-u2_DumdjfUsA The theme? Grief. But not the movie version, with artfully placed single tears. This is the messy, inconvenient, "why did...