Julia Kate, a 20-year-old sojourner in the land of melodies (a.k.a. a songwriting student at Berklee), just dropped "fake friends," and my initial reaction was… did a sentient Instagram filter write this? Not in a bad way. More in a "wait, is this the matrix?" way. https://open.spotify.com/album/5x6CaYde9gncmDI5KpIKkQ?si=2gYl_dQ4SFm3vAVffdX5Vg The song’s theme slaps you in the face, gently. It explores how, in our curated, perpetually-online existence, actual connection...

Tomasz Kowalczyk and Benita Rose have delivered something beautifully startling with their collaborative album, "Benita Rose Plays Tomasz Kowalczyk". It takes a staggering amount of vulnerability to hand the literal blueprint of your psyche to another human being. Yet, here we have Kowalczyk, a prolific Polish composer, trusting the world-renowned American concert pianist Rose to excavate his mind and translate his wordless, heavily emotional...