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...

Freddie Perry has captured a very specific brand of Saturday afternoon existentialism in his new single "WHAT EVEN IS LIFE?" It’s a track that feels like it grew naturally in his Birmingham home studio, bypassing the polished artifice of big-label pop to find something far more grounding and relatable. The song hits with a driving, bright acoustic strumming pattern the kind of rhythm that...