Julia Kate, a 20-year-old sojourner in the land of melodies (a.k.a. a songwriting student at Berklee), just dropped "fake friends," and my initial reaction was… did a sentient Instagram filter write this? Not in a bad way. More in a "wait, is this the matrix?" way. https://open.spotify.com/album/5x6CaYde9gncmDI5KpIKkQ?si=2gYl_dQ4SFm3vAVffdX5Vg The song’s theme slaps you in the face, gently. It explores how, in our curated, perpetually-online existence, actual connection...

Listening to The Trusted’s new single, “Levitate,” is to willingly submit to a glorious, well-produced panic attack. From its opening moments, where frontman Tom Cunningham confesses to feeling like something to be discarded in the street, the track establishes a brutal vulnerability before yanking you into the dizzying orbit of another human being. It’s the sound of being so completely poleaxed by infatuation that...