If you’ve ever tried to catch a seagull mid-flight with a butterfly net, you’ll understand the elusive joy that Funky Blackman's "The Beach" EP serves up. Not that there are any feathered friends involved, directly. But the feeling? Yeah, it’s there, a fleeting, beautiful awkwardness. https://open.spotify.com/album/5Sk7pagwbS02FPhsKKAzOb?si=QYWmoCruQv2lw3xMISpLJQ This isn’t some synthesized shoreline; forget the stock wave sounds. This is a memory, maybe yours, maybe his, re-assembled. He’s...

The last straw arrives quietly: I know who this person is, and I am done negotiating. Ally Cribb catches that switch in “Stand Back,” a country-pop single that puts self-respect ahead of another round of apologies. The 2025 four-minute record speaks to anyone who has confused patience with permission. Its title hits like a raised palm, immediate and impossible to misunderstand. Cribb is a Toronto-born singer-songwriter...