“Lavender” hits like a velvet curtain being pulled back at the exact second everyone stops pretending. Jay Saint James does not chase a basic pop moment here. The Ayr, Scotland singer-songwriter, also known through official channels as J Saint James, walks into old Hollywood’s private corridors and comes out with a record that feels glossy, bruised, and strangely intimate. “Lavender” is an original single with a...

Seema Farswani’s single, ‘Got My Mojo Working’ featuring Dem-C, has been looping in my head, and it feels less like a track and more like a beautifully vexing predicament set to a very groovy beat. The premise is so disarmingly human, isn't it? This notion of possessing a potent personal magnetism, a kind of everyday folk magic that bends the world just so, only...