This single. This single. Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter and producer Omar has dropped "Better Be Lucky," and, well, I'm wrestling with a sonic octopus here. It's electric pop, sure, but it feels like pop that’s been put through a taffy puller of conflicting emotions. Did I just think about taffy? Why? Moving on. https://open.spotify.com/album/4qPGja59tO2IVMi2V2J79p?si=k7evvjeMSzKSkyfPV0m9AA The central theme – that brain-scrambling push-pull of a toxic relationship fueled by...

Listening to the opening of Michellar’s "Truth Over Lies" is like being dropped mid-sentence into a conversation you desperately need to hear. This track, which features Frankie El, doesn't ease you in; it puts you on the "shaky ground" it sings about, a state of profound vertigo that reminds me of the low, anxious hum an old CRT television used to make just before...