The algorithm gets a stare-down on Arabella Lucia’s ‘Unpretty’. Her alt-rock take on TLC’s 1999 classic comes with crashing drums, thumping bass, burning guitar work and a vocal edge that turns self-doubt into a live wire. The subject remains painfully recognisable: beauty standards, internalised judgement and pressure to resemble somebody else’s preferred image. For anyone who has watched a filter make a familiar face feel insufficient,...

Listening to Lucas Pasley’s new single, “Laissez-Faire Love,” is less like pressing play and more like easing into a worn-in armchair that has held the shape of a thousand thoughtful conversations. The title itself sounds like an economic policy for the heart, and frankly, it’s a brilliant one: a declaration of free-market emotional enterprise where partners are sovereign states, not colonies. https://open.spotify.com/track/1F6nq024Iy350xPVRxffIA?si=bYffZUblSyyCWPvf8dSBzA Pasley doesn’t sing about...