After the calls stop, the hardest part of a breakup is rarely being alone. It is the administrative problem of feeling: how does someone proceed after an old future disappears? Astian’s new single “How” holds that question there. It does not rush to fill it with a lesson, confession, or the sort of gleaming finality pop often prefers. Astian approaches the aftermath through a playful, stripped-back...

Alds Fjóla, a musician who has been polishing her talent since the age of sixteen, lives and works in the lovely village of Borgarfjörur eystra in East Iceland. She's been in the music industry for a while now, and after years of playing with different bands, she's now taking the plunge and going solo. Shadows (2020), the forthcoming first album from Alds Fjóla, brings a new...