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…

Meas & Riddie are stepping into the scene with the youthful energy that refuses to stand still. The two brothers are carving out their own approach to electronic music, mixing the familiar punch of old-school 909 sounds with newer synth textures to create something rooted in club culture and ready…

Lyons Lane arrives on You’ll Talk About It! sounding like a band that has one foot planted in the smoky bars of another era and the other kicking down the door of modern alternative rock. The Detroit five-piece pulls rockabilly, doo-wop and mid-century Americana into a rougher contemporary frame, creating…

Ektā, meaning “oneness” in Sanskrit, arrives as more than a New Age and Ambient album—it is a meditation on connection. Created by Cafe De Anatolia alongside Antaeus, Madame Gandhi, Amani Sol, and an international ensemble of musicians, the album brings together traditions from the Balkans, Mediterranean, Middle East, India, and…

Agneu belongs firmly in the latter camp, a lifelong musician and photographer, approaches songwriting much like he approaches a photograph, observing, circling a subject, adjusting the focus and waiting until the details reveal a story. Air and Twigs, his album of eight songs drawn from lived experience, is the result…

“Divine Intervention,” the latest single from South London’s elusive 2nd Magpie Project, turns a past love into a slow-burning, shoegazing funeral march, where memory, grief and devotion seem to occupy the same space. It is an expansive and deeply wounded piece of alternative music, built for the hours when the…

There is something fitting about a song called “Free” beginning without words. For Dutch alternative outfit The Meir, the track first arrived as a musical idea between Lars Zebregs, Bo Bodewitz and Raf Jansen, before eventually finding the lyrics that gave its atmosphere a sense of direction. The result is…

With Scenes from a Well Worn Path (Side Two), Banbury singer-songwriter Music by Jeremy continues a sprawling 24-track musical journey through pain, grief, joy and fear, but there is nothing particularly weary about the way these songs confront life. If anything, the record feels energized by curiosity that keeps poking…

Prison Of Modesty is an album that’s been waiting decades to get out. Martin Kuiper’s rock debut is an unusually long-brewed project, with songs written as far back as 1998 and others taking shape in fragments over the years. Released after Kuiper began his recording career at 49, the album…

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,…