Casey McQuillen’s single “Better” arrives not with a bang, but with the quiet, decisive click of a well-made lock securing a door. It’s pop music, certainly, groomed and gleaming, yet beneath the surface bubbles a fierce kind of self-possession that’s less about demanding attention and more about curating who gets past the velvet rope of your own contentment. Coming from someone known for empowerment...

Marina Maximilian Blumin, better known by her stage name Marina Maximilian, is a performer from Israel who specialises in singing, songwriting and acting. She competed in the fifth season of the reality music competition programme Kokhav Nolad and finished in second place overall. https://soundcloud.com/marinamaximilian/lord-save-me-acoustic At the age of fifteen, Blumin performed in Hanoch Levin's play Requiem at the Cameri Theater. Two years later, at the age of...