Helena May’s new single, “Side Effects,” doesn’t just enter a room; it strides in with the kind of confident, hip-swinging swagger that makes you instinctively check your own posture. This is Brit-Funk with a capital F, built on a groove that feels less like a rhythm and more like a wry, talkative companion. It’s got that specific, indefinable warmth of an old analogue recording,...

Paris-based indie art-rock project Books Of Moods has just released their debut album, "Dreams". Guided entirely by Hugo Sailer, a self-taught singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and fiercely independent one-man studio, the record arrives as a hazy, beautiful shock to the system. Sailer wrote, performed, produced, and directed the accompanying visual universe from the ground up. I’ve spent the last few days letting these tracks sink into...