Violet Love has offered up an EP titled "Destined to Fail," and it arrives less like a prediction and more like a pre-existing condition, a medical chart for a soul that’s been diagnosed with itself. The DIY recording quality doesn’t feel lo-fi for aesthetics; it feels necessary, like these songs could only have been born in a sealed-off room where the air was getting...

When the Ukrainian alternative pop singer Janeuary launches into her latest single "Undress My Heart", you immediately feel an involuntary need to check if your own emotional deadbolts are securely fastened. Unzipping a jacket or dropping a shirt to the floor is purely mechanical. It is the easy, predictable choreography of human attraction. Peeling back the ego to let another human actually gaze upon...