POP

London-based Ukrainian artist U V A R O V turns the ache of unfinished feelings into atmospheric hip-hop on “Тянет назад” (“Pulls Back”). Originally from Zaporizhzhia and now building his career in the UK, the artist brings Russian-language storytelling into a contemporary sound shaped by the emotional production of Juice…

Sharon Eitan takes a strikingly direct turn with “Dario Amodei,” trading the reflective and philosophical tendencies of his songwriting for an unabashedly anthem-like pop-rock statement. An experienced composer of art music and musical theatre, Eitan has recently been exploring a different musical language, building elaborate demos before shaping their finished…

ErickOscar has spent more than three decades using the acoustic guitar as a way to process life, and Hold The Light feels like the work of a songwriter who understands that music can hold both pain and hope in the same breath. Moving through balladry, country, Americana and Spanish-language influences,…

Kyoto-born, Oslo-based experimental electronic artist SIENNÁ returns with EMA, a nine-track journey where sound becomes a way of sketching the unseen. Drawing inspiration from solitary walks through Kyoto’s Kibune valley and Ischia island, the album explores interconnectedness, spirituality and the natural world through an adventurous East-meets-West palette. The album opens…

On “Christ Shaken,” the UK-based Christian pop artist, Michael Jei, turns his born-again testimony into a lively burst of groove, funk and contemporary pop, creating an invitation to move. The track immediately gets its energy from catchy funky horns, thumping beats and sparkling percussion, while the bass-led groove gives everything…

At just 16, Moscow singer-songwriter Vladimir Buyakov is already turning everyday pressure into bright, groove-heavy pop. Всё получилось (“It All Worked Out”), his fourth original single, swaps the usual autumn gloom for disco sparkle and pop-funk swagger, built around the deceptively simple idea of letting go when life refuses to…

Jinishi turns personal adversity into something quietly searching on “Broken People, Break People,” an introspective single about the ways unresolved hurt can travel from one relationship into another. Drawing from an interest in sociology and psychology, the Chicago artist approaches emotional damage as a simple tragedy and more as something…

Maxwell Knowles turns personal transformation into a cinematic indie-pop odyssey on A Hero’s Journey, a 12-track sophomore album that maps a year of self-exploration onto Joseph Campbell’s famed monomyth. Following his Earmilk-praised debut Daydreaming In the Dark, Knowles returns with a record concerned with pain, uncertainty, self-discovery and, ultimately, the…

At 15, Piper Connolly already seems to understand one of pop music’s oldest tricks, which is that sometimes the messiest feelings make the catchiest songs. On she’s too much!, the Los Angeles-based alt-pop/pop-rock artist turns the chaos of growing up into six tracks packed with sharp hooks, guitars, humor, insecurity,…

Los Angeles artist AquariO makes electronic pop that refuses to put a pretty filter over emotional messiness. Working somewhere between alternative dance, futuristic pop, dark humor, and outright catharsis, the singer and songwriter turns inner turmoil into something you can actually move to. “Get Some FCKN Therapy,” released September 25,…