There is a specific frequency of liberation that Lucia captures in "Take It Off," hitting the ears with the decisive snap of a locked door finally springing open. While the UK artist has a fifteen-year pedigree, spanning stints with Sam Bailey and time behind the piano, this single sidesteps nostalgia for something urgent and strictly present-tense. https://open.spotify.com/track/6NX7Y3Ybp7nESeAr9jTvJm?si=189311ca1af846f1 The track rides on a deep, bouncy rhythmic pulse...

A crowded pavement can make cruelty look ordinary. DirtPhunks' "Subway Reflections" asks us to stop accepting that. The guitar-first single grew from a sight FH Baloo could not shake. As an Oslo student, he saw an older wheelchair user playing harmonica for money outside a downtown subway station near the old University. Passers-by mocked him. Instead of treating that scene as passing colour, the single asks...