Listening to Paul Louis Villani's new EP, The Other Side of Silence, feels less like pressing play and more like cracking open a locked diary found in a derelict building. It’s a messy, confrontational, and deeply private affair, where industrial-strength riffs grind against lyrics that feel surgically exposed. Villani doesn't write anthems for crowds; he seems to be recording the dissonant hum of his...

Alds Fjóla, a musician who has been polishing her talent since the age of sixteen, lives and works in the lovely village of Borgarfjörur eystra in East Iceland. She's been in the music industry for a while now, and after years of playing with different bands, she's now taking the plunge and going solo. Shadows (2020), the forthcoming first album from Alds Fjóla, brings a new...