In "Resurrection," Beta Libre's defiant new single from her forthcoming sophomore album, becomes mythology. Through pulsing Moog synthesisers and razor-sharp poetry, the Italian electronic artist turns monthly bleeding into a holy cycle of death and rebirth, which is similar to Christian stories about the resurrection but more feminine. This is feminism as sound magic and the body as religion. Beta Libre, the Tuscan singer, composer, and...

There's a curious jolt in hearing a title like "Us Against The World" from an act called The Cockney Cowboy. The name itself is a glorious contradiction, a pairing of gritty East London reality with the wide-open romance of Nashville. You half expect a joke, but what Justin Vella delivers is a dead-serious, straight-shooting country ballad that smells less of hay bales and more...