Sam Ostler’s new single, “Lights,” then. It unfolds less like a sudden, intrusive glare and more like the slow, determined burn of a really good stage light finally finding its mark after a prolonged blackout. It’s pop, yes, vibrant and undeniably contemporary as advertised – clean lines, clear intentions. Yet, there’s a certain satisfying heft beneath the melodic uplift, a feeling that these notes...

Margate-based “Hyper-Country” artist Jack Goldstein navigates systemic erasure on his staggering new single, "Falling Off The Earth." Sifting through the wreckage of the 1980s American farming crisis and recalling trips to his sister’s farm, Goldstein constructs a narrative around the brutal collapse of traditional rural livelihoods. It traces a devastating line from physical displacement to a sprawling, cosmic detachment, leaving its subjects abandoned to...