Listening to T-RAN and his new single "Don’t Stop the Fight" creates the sensation of finding a frantic heartbeat returning to a steady, confident rhythm after a near-miss on the highway. There is an immediate urgency here, a sonic landscape that refuses to sit politely in the background. https://open.spotify.com/track/7BAbhLJoHZYcwAMH6BvnhV?si=1d371859cf294456 The production fits the moniker of "gospel firestarter" perfectly, though perhaps not in the way you’d expect...

Violet Love has offered up an EP titled "Destined to Fail," and it arrives less like a prediction and more like a pre-existing condition, a medical chart for a soul that’s been diagnosed with itself. The DIY recording quality doesn’t feel lo-fi for aesthetics; it feels necessary, like these songs could only have been born in a sealed-off room where the air was getting...