The algorithm gets a stare-down on Arabella Lucia’s ‘Unpretty’. Her alt-rock take on TLC’s 1999 classic comes with crashing drums, thumping bass, burning guitar work and a vocal edge that turns self-doubt into a live wire. The subject remains painfully recognisable: beauty standards, internalised judgement and pressure to resemble somebody else’s preferred image. For anyone who has watched a filter make a familiar face feel insufficient,...

Farbod Biglari’s new single, "Waltz for Baran (The Rain Waltz)," arrived like a polite invitation to a forgotten ballroom, where the chandeliers are lit but the guests are all pleasingly melancholic figments of memory. It doesn't swagger; it glides, a full orchestral sway that clearly tips its hat to the spirit of composers like Stelvio Cipriani, not by mimicry, but by sharing a certain...