Listening to Elena C. Lockleis’s new single, “Mind - Vs. - Heart,” feels like witnessing a civil war fought entirely within a single nervous system. The sound is an intimate knot of pop architecture, the kind Julia Michaels patents in her sleep, where a confession arrives not as a ballad but as a skittish, rhythm-driven pulse. You feel the frantic heartbeat right there in...

Kelsie Kimberlin, a multi-talented musician and singer who was born in the United States but has strong ties to Ukraine, deviates significantly from the mould of the normal artist. Her work, despite the fact that it is clearly amusing, delves deeper than the surface, exploring serious social themes with multiple meanings that demonstrate her great awareness of the transforming power of music. Kelsie went on an...