The moment the jaunty guitar kicks in on John Smyths’ new single, "Now I'm Wiser", you feel a familiar, comfortable warmth. It’s the sound of a good chair in a bar where the floor is sticky with spilled truths. And then the story starts, a classic yarn of a hard-living past yielding to a peaceful present. Smyths, a Dutch ex-metalhead singing country out of...

On her “Feel” song, the single, Ilona has proven to be an even more powerful act portraying both empowerment and the exceptionally feminine side. This is the story of our heroine, Ilona. She comes from a rural town in Minnesota and has Ukrainian and Russian ancestry. It is her mother's recommendation to move to "the big city of" Los Angeles that has made her journey...