With “Island Lantern Festival”, Tony Frissore manages to soundtrack a specific kind of mental vacation I didn’t realize I was overdue for taking. Ostensibly an instrumental nod to the Lunar New Year and the hopefulness of renewal, this piece operates less like a celebration and more like a gentle exhalation. https://open.spotify.com/album/3n43BcxSnavYKC0wt28GNu?si=E_50eQ_lQomyHT1RsD2Jrg It starts wet with the actual crash of ocean waves before slowly drifting inland. I...

Some songs arrive with a chorus built for the group chat. Shannon Darcy’s ‘Treasures and Gold’ comes in closer. This alternative pop rock single centres on a far less tidy feeling: caring about somebody who has repeatedly made you feel unwanted, then realising that their behaviour cannot keep writing your value for you. ‘Treasures and Gold’ shifts Darcy from the defiant heat of "Control Freak" into...