Nobody wants a neighbour who scripts their smile. Monique Maion puts that pressure at the centre of “Karen”, a Portuguese-language single. The Brazilian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist takes the familiar Karen persona, shaped by political debate and social media, and shrinks it back to the size of a real conflict: one person trying to dictate another person’s manners. It is a smart dismissal with baião at...

Simeon Kirkegaard's album "*" arrived, and it’s been rattling around my head like loose change in an empty pocket ever since. This Nordic musician dives headfirst into the murky, churning waters of lost love and the obsessive echo it leaves behind across ten distinct yet interwoven tracks. It maps out a landscape not just of longing, but of the peculiar haunting that follows a...