Esther Winslow

Esther Winslow writes the features desk at NewMusic.News, covering the artists behind the releases through long-form profiles and interviews. Their work favours the story of how a record came together over where it landed on a chart.

Inside Délires d’une Mélomane: How KA BERRA Built a Rap About Masks

The Paris-Based Artist Set Trap Hi-Hats Inside an Orchestral Arrangement for Her Second Single

Piano notes and light strings open Délires d’une Mélomane. Then the trap hi-hats snap in, and KA BERRA starts to rap about the masks people wear. The single came out on 6 June 2025, her second release. It sets a French rap confession inside an orchestral arrangement, and that contrast is the whole design.

KA BERRA’s music sits in the playlist below, next to this desk’s hip-hop and conscious rap picks, and each feature on the artist to date is kept on the KA BERRA profile. Délires d’une Mélomane came to NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Play it once, then read on for the story behind the masks.


Inside Délires d'une Mélomane: How KA BERRA Built a Rap About Masks
Inside Délires d’une Mélomane: How KA BERRA Built a Rap About Masks

Why Délires d’une Mélomane Still Matters as KA BERRA Works Towards a Debut EP and a Book

A single from June 2025 could easily have faded by now. This one kept growing instead. In the months that followed, KA BERRA surrounded it with new work. Each piece added a layer to the same idea. First came Persona, a short video posted two weeks before the release. Its title borrows Carl Jung’s word for the face a person shows the world. Then, in September 2025, the official video arrived. Her third single, 25 Ans, followed in February 2026 with a pop, folk and rock sound.

The bigger reason to return to the song now is where it leads. In the notes under the official video, she calls it the visible part of a larger project. That project points towards her very first EP. Her official website places the EP inside a bigger plan called Projet de Renaissance. It is a planned pair of works. One half is a book, Comment fait-on pour se rendre à l’évidence ? The other is the EP, J’écris je rêve je chante, donc je suis. Her website still lists both as forthcoming. So for now, Délires d’une Mélomane is the clearest way into the ideas they will carry.

From a Childhood Dream of Medicine to French Indie Pop, KA BERRA Found Her Way to Rap

The ideas themselves go back much further. KA BERRA taught herself, and her biography says her biggest childhood dream was to become a doctor. That plan did not work out the way she pictured it. Instead, writing and music became an outlet for anger and hurt. Later they became a form of therapy. Today she describes her art as a way to be a doctor through words, music and stories. When the single first came out, Plastic Magazine summed up the same story by calling her pen her scalpel.

Her debut single, Paris, arrived in February 2025. It was French indie pop, an open letter to the capital and to anyone who lets themselves dream. Délires d’une Mélomane was the turn that came next. It kept her ear for melody but added rap, trap drums and an orchestra. That shift showed how far her range could stretch. Her biography also calls her a singer-songwriter, a writer and a director, and she lives in Paris.

Inside Délires d'une Mélomane: How KA BERRA Built a Rap About Masks
Inside Délires d’une Mélomane: How KA BERRA Built a Rap About Masks

Piano, Strings and Rattling Hi-Hats Carry the Song From a Confession to an Incisive Chorus

The production comes from Ael a la prod, according to the credits under the official video. Nathan Cocherie handled the arrangement and the mix. Their arrangement starts small and builds with care. Plastic Magazine picked out the piano and the light string lines at the start. Then the snap of rattling hi-hats arrives as her voice comes in. HipHopEargasm filed the song under French rap and described swarming strings and cracking percussion. Even so, it noticed that the mix leaves room for every line.

Her delivery is the other half of the design. She moves between sung melodic lines and a sharper rapped flow. As a result, the song never settles into one register for long. Her own website calls the chorus striking and incisive. PowHer Sound, a blog that covers women in music, used the same word for it. Meanwhile, Zillions Magazine heard strings in the background and a delivery that was sharp and heartfelt at once. The single also drew notice from Music Taste and Groove Africa.

The Masks, the Inner Child and the Délires d’une Mélomane Video

The subject is pretending. Her website describes faking it as an art in itself: the art of hiding your vulnerability and putting on armour. The song follows that idea through a personal story that anyone can recognise. In the video notes, she asks what people really hide behind their masks. Is it fragility, inner struggles or their true nature? She also asks whether a mask used as a shield can leave someone a stranger to themselves.

The official video, directed by SLOWN with Selim Chebbi as director of photography, adds a second character to that story. Its credits list Tifenn Keza Georget as the inner child. That is the part of a person that still dares to go without a mask, to dream and to create. Seventeen extras fill out the scenes, and KA BERRA thanks each of them by name.

What Délires d’une Mélomane Answers, and Where to Follow KA BERRA Next

The answer is the most hopeful part of the song. KA BERRA does not ask anyone to tear their masks off. In the video notes, she suggests the opposite: handle the façade on your own terms and let a mask become a guide. Worn that way, a mask can help you explore and become the person you want to be. For a track about armour, that is an optimistic place to land. It also explains why the orchestra sounds grand rather than bleak.

She dedicated the song to everyone who lives music as an emotion, a madness or a refuge. The dedication also reaches the music lovers, the homebodies, the loners and the people who go out to party. That list explains the title, which translates loosely as the ravings of a music lover.

Where It Sits Beside Stromae and Diam’s, and Who It Suits

Listeners who follow French-language rap have two clear reference points. Stromae has built a career on moving between singing and rapping in French. Stromae’s 2022 album Multitude drew on styles and instruments from many cultures. KA BERRA’s shifts between melody and flow over an orchestra come from a similar instinct. Diam’s is the other touchstone. Records such as Dans ma bulle in 2006 showed how much weight first-person writing could carry in French rap. That frankness is the tradition Délires d’une Mélomane writes from.

It suits listeners who like their rap with melody and a story. It also suits anyone who has kept up a brave face for too long. The song works as the door into her catalogue, too. Start here and go back to Paris for her indie pop side. Then play 25 Ans to hear where she went next.

From the Curator Team: “Délires d’une Mélomane could have buried its voice under the orchestra. Instead, the strings and piano leave space around every line. A song about hiding still sounds open, and the chorus hits harder because of it.”

Stream Délires d’une Mélomane on Spotify and Apple Music. You can also find KA BERRA on Deezer and SoundCloud. The official video is on YouTube, and the rest of her clips are on her YouTube channel.

Follow her on Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Facebook. News about the EP, the book and the rest of her work is on her official website.


Oops I Got Sad Is Little Champion’s Upbeat Answer to Ghosting

Dustin Goldklang Set a Low Moment to Bright Guitars on a Home-Recorded Indie Pop Single

Dustin Goldklang recorded Oops I Got Sad in a makeshift studio above a garage in Asheville, North Carolina. He gave a low moment a bright, bouncing arrangement. The song came out as a single on 2 December 2022, and it is the work of Little Champion, Goldklang’s one-person indie pop project. Its subject is ghosting, and the particular sadness it leaves behind.

Little Champion’s song is in the playlist below, alongside the rest of this desk’s rock and alternative selections, while the act’s full coverage history sits on the Little Champion profile. Oops I Got Sad reached NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Give it a first listen, then read on for how the song came together.


Oops I Got Sad Is Little Champion's Upbeat Answer to Ghosting
Oops I Got Sad Is Little Champion’s Upbeat Answer to Ghosting

Oops I Got Sad Grew Out of Ghosting and Little Champion’s Decision to Make It Sound Bright

Most people know the moment behind the song. A conversation that seemed to be going somewhere simply stops, and there is no argument to replay, only silence. When the single came out, Goldklang told Popfad that he “wrote this song about being sad after getting ghosted”. The title turns that feeling into a shrug and a confession at the same time.

That mix of sad and funny is the project’s signature. In fact, the biography on the official website describes songwriting that is fluid yet structured, thoughtful yet goofy, and sad yet funny. It is a fair description of a track that sounds cheerful while admitting it is not.

From Folk-Punk House Shows to a Garage Studio, Goldklang Built Little Champion in 2021

The road to the song was not a straight one. Goldklang spent his late teens and early twenties on the DIY folk-punk house-show circuit, playing as Dustin and the Furniture. After that, he stepped away from music for several years. Along the way, as Plastic Magazine reported, he spent more than a decade as a professional poker player.

Then, in 2021, with time at home during the pandemic, he picked up the guitar again and formed Little Champion. The first release came in April 2022, a two-track single called 2 Songs that paired Snow Day and Holiday.

Oops I Got Sad followed in December. Over the next few weeks, the reviews read it as a sign of the project growing. For example, Mesmerized heard a witty take on ghosting, a bedroom pop ethos and crystal-clear vocals. Meanwhile, The Other Side Reviews added the track to its rock playlist on Deezer.

Oops I Got Sad Is Little Champion's Upbeat Answer to Ghosting
Oops I Got Sad Is Little Champion’s Upbeat Answer to Ghosting

Softly Distorted Guitars and a Plain-Spoken Lyric Carry the Sadness Without Letting It Sink

The arrangement is where the song answers its own moment. Plastic Magazine heard an upbeat, light sound full of gentle rhythm, softly distorted guitars and vibrant vocal leads. Crucially, that brightness sits against a lyric about feeling low. Illustrate Magazine singled out the guitar tone, clean with only a little gain, and a bridge where the guitar moves into its lower notes. The track runs to just over three minutes, and the mood never sinks with the subject.

Goldklang wrote, performed, recorded and produced it himself, so the home-studio approach is part of the appeal. The song later became part of the debut album Curiosity, released in March 2023. Goldklang has described that record as containing at least one explicit question in every song. A second album, Peaks Island and Other Places, followed in May 2025 with songs about place and loss.

So who is it for? Listeners who came to home-recorded pop through Clairo will recognise the approach, since her early bedroom recordings made a small, personal sound feel direct. Fans of Bleachers get the other half: bright, driving guitar pop that carries a heavier feeling underneath. Both appear on the list of influences Plastic Magazine reported for the project.

From the Curator Team: “Oops I Got Sad is a small song that knows exactly what it is doing. The guitars stay clean and bright, the melody keeps moving, and the lyric admits the sadness without asking for pity. That balance is why it still sounds fresh on a first listen today.”

Where to Hear Oops I Got Sad and Follow Little Champion From San Francisco

Little Champion now works out of San Francisco. Stream Oops I Got Sad on Spotify, and follow the full catalogue on Apple Music, Bandcamp and SoundCloud. Music videos, including the one for the 2024 single Drive, sit on the YouTube channel.

Keep up with Goldklang on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X. The Linktree collects shows, merch and the latest album in one place.


The Long Way to Forever: Gio 22/6, Rado Ricky and Five Years of Soft R&B Production

A Producer’s Monthly Run of 2026 Singles Brings Rado Ricky Back for a Second Collaboration

Forever, the May 2026 single from Gio 22/6, lasts two minutes and 14 seconds. He built it on hi-hats running at about 130 beats per minute, with the snare landing at half that pace. For the collaboration he brought in Rado Ricky, who had already appeared on his October 2025 single Sins. It came out on 7 May 2026, one stop in a run of new Gio 22/6 singles that has arrived almost every month this year.

Gio 22/6’s Forever, with Rado Ricky, sits in the playlist below among our R&B, neo soul and soul picks, and Gio 22/6’s artist profile collects the wider coverage. The single reached this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Press play on that half-time snare first, then keep reading for the run of singles around it.


The Long Way to Forever: Gio 22/6, Rado Ricky and Five Years of Soft R&B Production
The Long Way to Forever: Gio 22/6, Rado Ricky and Five Years of Soft R&B Production

Gio 22/6 Spent Five Years Refining Soft R&B Beats Before a Monthly Run of 2026 Singles

Gio 22/6 is a producer first. He makes R&B and hip-hop beats built on soft, dreamy sounds. By his own account, he has spent more than five years refining that style. On Instagram he sums himself up in one line, as a producer here to save you. The same phrase appears in his own biography.

The singing and rapping usually come from other people. Since 2023 he has released English-language songs with international artists, frequently working with rappers and singers from the United States. His debut mixtape, 21, arrived in 2024. He has described it as a personal project that helped him look back on his childhood and teenage years while defining his sound.

The album Mirrors followed in June 2025. It runs ten tracks, including three short skits: Mirrors, Let me be me and The past. The guest list included BIGBABYGUCCI, 4TYDAN, Surf, Luxxisdead, ayglø, LOVE6 and Roam, and Had enough alone carried three of them. His releases carry the Mariahilf Records name.

The Monthly Run

Then the pace changed. In 2026 the singles started arriving roughly once a month. Bad Habit with Ty Lab came in March and New Life with Ty Lab in April, followed by Forever with Rado Ricky in May. After that came Risky with Kale Joseph, Lyfe Harris and Ty Lab in June, and Lifestyle with Ty Lab and sindr in July. Then Late night drive with Rado Ricky and Ty Lab arrived in August, and Overthinking with Ty Lab in September. In other words, a small circle of collaborators keeps returning. Ty Lab appears on six of the seven singles, and Forever is the only one without Ty Lab. The run also has a destination. When Risky came out, Gio 22/6 announced it as the first single from an EP due between September and October, and he later called Overthinking the last single before it.

The post he wrote for Forever explains the moment behind it. About half a year had passed since he and Rado Ricky made Sins, and the response to that song was the reason they returned for another. He also described the weeks around the release as a point where he realised he liked his life as it was, yet still wanted to change it, and for the first time out of inspiration rather than fear.

On Forever, Gio 22/6 Pairs Rado Ricky With a 130 BPM Hi-Hat Pattern and a Half-Time Snare

Measured from its Spotify preview, Forever sets its hi-hats at about 130 beats per minute while the snare falls at half that speed. As a result, the track feels relaxed even though the top of the beat keeps moving. That split is a common way to make an R&B beat breathe. It also suits the soft, dreamy production Gio 22/6 is known for. At two minutes and 14 seconds, the song says what it has to say and stops.

Rado Ricky arrives with a catalogue of solo songs, among them Lonely In LA, Hollywood Baby and Cumbia In A Defender. The partnership did not end with Forever either. Rado Ricky returned in August for Late night drive, this time alongside Ty Lab.

The Long Way to Forever: Gio 22/6, Rado Ricky and Five Years of Soft R&B Production
The Long Way to Forever: Gio 22/6, Rado Ricky and Five Years of Soft R&B Production

What Forever Answers About Keeping a Producer’s Sound When the Voice Changes Every Single

So what does Forever answer? In Gio 22/6’s own framing, the song is about being brave enough to face your demons to get what you truly want. The beat makes the same argument in its own way: the hi-hats push forward while the snare refuses to hurry, and the tension between them never quite resolves.

There is a second answer too, to the question every producer-led project faces: how do you sound like yourself when someone else is at the microphone? His answer is consistency underneath the voice. The drums, the soft textures and the short runtime stay recognisable from single to single. Meanwhile, the collaborators rotate within a small, trusted circle, which keeps the record fresh without losing the producer.

For Listeners Who Follow Kaytranada and Metro Boomin

That model has famous precedents. Kaytranada, the Haitian-Canadian producer, built his debut album 99.9% in 2016 around guests such as Anderson .Paak, Syd and Craig David. Even so, the record still sounded like him. Similarly, Metro Boomin put his own name on the cover of his debut solo album, Not All Heroes Wear Capes, in 2018. The voices changed from track to track, but the production held it together. Gio 22/6 works on a smaller scale and in a softer register. Even so, listeners who follow either producer will recognise the approach.

From the NewMusic.News Curator Team: “Forever is a short song with a patient beat. Gio 22/6 lets the hi-hats hurry while the snare takes its time, and that tension is what gives the whole record room to breathe.”

Where to Hear Gio 22/6, Rado Ricky and Forever

Stream Forever on Spotify and follow Gio 22/6 on Spotify, where the rest of his 2026 singles sit alongside Mirrors and 21. The follow-up with Rado Ricky, Late night drive, is on Spotify as well. Follow Gio 22/6 on Instagram for new beats and releases.


Inside Ain’t I the Fool: How Jack Hoban Built a Blues Confession Around Bernard Purdie’s Drums

A Jersey Shore Songwriter Hands the Drums on His Blues Confession to Bernard Purdie

For one song on his 2021 album Blue Beach, Jack Hoban gave the drum stool to Bernard “Pretty” Purdie. Purdie is the session drummer who gave his name to the Purdie shuffle. That song is Ain’t I the Fool by Jack Hoban, track five of twelve, released on 31 May 2021. It is a blues about owning your mistakes, recorded with a drummer who has spent six decades making other people’s songs move.

Jack Hoban’s Ain’t I the Fool sits in the playlist below with our R&B, neo soul and soul picks, and Jack Hoban’s artist profile holds the rest of the coverage. The single reached this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Give it a listen first, then read on for how Bernard Purdie ended up on the drums.


Inside Ain't I the Fool: How Jack Hoban Built a Blues Confession Around Bernard Purdie's Drums
Inside Ain’t I the Fool: How Jack Hoban Built a Blues Confession Around Bernard Purdie’s Drums

Jack Hoban Recorded Blue Beach Through the Pandemic, With Bernard Purdie on Ain’t I the Fool

Blue Beach is Hoban’s second album of songs about, and inspired by, the sea. The first, BellaMar, came out in April 2020, and he returned to the same shoreline a year later. In his own notes on the album, he wrote that people call this kind of music yacht rock these days. Then he added, drily, that he does not own a yacht.

Many of the songs were written and recorded during the pandemic. He described the record as carrying both the happy and the sad feelings of that time. Life and music, in his telling, rise and fall like waves. That mood matters for Ain’t I the Fool. It is a song about looking back at your own mistakes with a straight face and a loose groove.

The album came out on Memorial Day, 31 May 2021. Hoban produced it with Steve Jankowski. Jankowski also engineered and mixed it at Jankland Recording Studio, and he played trumpet and trombone. Meanwhile, Randy Ledet played keyboards and Buddy Savino played bass, with Deb Lyons and Katie Stemkovsky on background vocals. Finally, Scott Hull mastered it at Masterdisk.

Bernard Purdie Plays Track Five of Blue Beach for a Jersey Shore Songwriter He Already Knew

The drums on Blue Beach were shared out song by song. Ilya Stemkovsky played on five tracks and Bobby Boyd on five more. Purdie played on exactly one, and it is Ain’t I the Fool.

His name carries a lot of history. He was Aretha Franklin’s musical director for five years from 1970. He also played the shuffle on Steely Dan’s Home at Last and Babylon Sisters. By most counts he has played on more than 4,000 recordings, and in 2013 the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame inducted him.

A Friendship Already on Record

Besides, Purdie was not a stranger to Hoban’s music by 2021. He produced Jersey Blue, Hoban’s jazz and blues album released in May 2020, with songs written by Hoban and Gene McCormick. In turn, Hoban wrote the songs, played guitar and co-produced Testify, a Purdie album. John Korba arranged it, and it was recorded at Lakehouse in Asbury Park and at Jankland. The two have played live together as well. In July 2021, Hoban’s YouTube channel posted clips of Purdie with Rogues on the Run at The Falcon. So when Purdie sat down to play on Ain’t I the Fool, he was playing for a songwriter he already knew well.

Watch the video and check the artist’s YouTube channel for more.

Inside Ain't I the Fool: How Jack Hoban Built a Blues Confession Around Bernard Purdie's Drums
Inside Ain’t I the Fool: How Jack Hoban Built a Blues Confession Around Bernard Purdie’s Drums

On Ain’t I the Fool, Jack Hoban Answers Heartache With Blue-Eyed Soul Swagger, Not Self-Pity

Hoban’s own songwriting has always leaned towards the blues. Alongside his solo records he plays with his band, Rogues on the Run, a jazz and blues outfit from the Jersey Shore. The band has played local venues and festivals and opened for BB King, and their retrospective album covers 1996 to 2015. Today he is based between New Jersey and Hawaii, and he writes everything from ballads to jazz-flavoured adult contemporary songs.

Ain’t I the Fool sits where those two lives meet: AOR polish, blue-eyed soul phrasing and a blues subject. Zillions Magazine heard a song that treats the blues as a badge of honour rather than a reason to sulk. In its reading, the lyric looks back at missed chances in love and chooses honesty about mistakes over self-pity. The same review singled out Hoban’s guitar as intense but smooth, and his voice as smoky and self-assured. It also named Purdie’s drumming as the thing that keeps the whole song moving.

In the end, that is the answer the song gives. It admits the foolishness in the title, laughs at it a little, and keeps the groove going anyway.

For Listeners Who Know Steely Dan and Hall & Oates

The comparisons almost suggest themselves, because Purdie has played for both. Steely Dan built their late-1970s albums on session players of exactly his calibre. His shuffle on Home at Last is part of why Aja still sounds so easy to live with. Hall & Oates used him on Abandoned Luncheonette in 1973, and the Philadelphia duo’s mix of rock, soul and rhythm and blues made them one of blue-eyed soul’s best-known names. Listeners who love either will find the same instincts in Ain’t I the Fool. The songwriting comes first, the drummer never overplays, and the vocal has a smile in it.

From the NewMusic.News Curator Team: “Ain’t I the Fool gives Bernard Purdie five and a half minutes and a song that knows how to laugh at itself. Jack Hoban wrote a confession and recorded it like a celebration, and that is the right call for a blues this honest.”

Where to Hear Jack Hoban and Ain’t I the Fool

Stream Jack Hoban on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp and SoundCloud, and find Blue Beach on Deezer. His videos, including the Blue Beach uploads and the live clips with Purdie, sit on his YouTube channel. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook and X, and read about the rest of his catalogue on his official site.


Giuseppe Cucè on Three Years of Singles and the Making of 21 Grammi

The Catania Songwriter Returned After a Decade and Built His Third Album Single by Single

In 2022, ten years after his last album, Giuseppe Cucè took the first step towards 21 grammi. He did it with a single rather than a record. Di estate non si muore and La mia dea came out that year. Five more songs followed over the next three. On 20 June 2025, all of them found a home on the album, a concept record about the weight people carry.

Giuseppe Cucè’s opener È tutto così vero is waiting in the playlist below. Everything this network has published on him is gathered on his artist profile. 21 grammi reached NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Press play on it, then read on for the long road behind the album.


Giuseppe Cucè on Three Years of Singles and the Making of 21 Grammi
Giuseppe Cucè on Three Years of Singles and the Making of 21 Grammi

Before 21 Grammi, Giuseppe Cucè Spent a Decade Between Records

That return makes more sense once you know where he started. Cucè grew up in Catania, a city he has described as shaped by the shadow of Mount Etna. He told M.E.I. News that he began writing songs as a teenager. Over time, it stopped being a choice and became a necessity. His early career ran through local stages and collaborations with musicians from his own city. Then came the first studio recordings.

His discography lists La ballata di un fiore (2008), La mela e il serpente (2009) and Attraversando Saturno (2012). Spotify still carries Cuore, a song from 2009, so the earlier voice is easy to find. M.E.I. News introduced 21 grammi as the record that followed two albums and numerous singles, which makes it his third.

Along the way, he also took the songs into smaller rooms. His official biography singles out a performance at the Le Petit Saint-Martin Theatre in Paris. He has also spoken about a University Radio Tour across Italy with only guitar and voice. Meanwhile, he works outside music too, creating perfumes through a project called Scenografie Olfattive, and he paints. None of that sits far from the album, which treats feeling as something you could almost weigh in your hands.

Why 21 Grammi Was Built From Singles Released Between 2022 and 2025

The concept is right there in the title. The record borrows the old idea that the human soul weighs 21 grams. It turns that into nine songs about love, desire, memory, separation and rebirth. What makes the album unusual is how long its parts had already lived in public. His discography page lists seven of the nine tracks as singles between 2022 and 2025. The opener, È tutto così vero, arrived on Spotify three weeks before the album. Una notte infinita is the one song with no earlier release listed.

That history changes how the record sits. Dimmi cosa vuoi and Fragile equilibrio had two years to settle before they were sequenced together. By contrast, Cuore d’inverno, released through TRP Vibes, joined them as the most recent piece. Heard in order, the songs read less like a collection of singles and more like chapters written out of order. That suits a concept album about memory.

Musically, the album keeps to the sound Cucè has described as analogue, orchestral and cinematic. It is Mediterranean songwriting built on real instruments, strings and piano rather than electronic production. The voice and the lyrics stay at the centre. Nine songs pass in roughly half an hour, so the concept never has to stretch to fill the space.

The response has also travelled. The album has drawn coverage across Europe, the United States and Latin America. In Germany, both Berlin On Air and NewIndieRadar wrote about 21 grammi, each placing it in indie folk.

Watch the video and check the artist’s YouTube channel for more.

Giuseppe Cucè on Three Years of Singles and the Making of 21 Grammi
Giuseppe Cucè on Three Years of Singles and the Making of 21 Grammi

After 21 Grammi, a Spanish Version With Pandi and a New Single in 2026

Since June 2025, the path has pointed outward. In October 2025, Cucè released El mundo es verdadero, a Spanish-language version of È tutto così vero. Pandi, the alias of Alessandro Spagna, adapted the lyrics. The Mexican outlet IndieAM described it as Latin pop in which son, guajira, rumba and danzón meet. It was produced by Riccardo Samperi and Pat Legato and released on TRP VIBES. For a songwriter whose work has always leaned south, it is a telling decision.

Then, on 3 July 2026, came Estasi e veleno, his newest single. It already sits at the top of his most-played songs on Spotify. Taken together, the two releases suggest a clear direction. The album’s world is being carried into another language and extended with new songs, not left behind.

For listeners, the useful reference points sit on both sides of the Atlantic. Caetano Veloso comes first, and not only as a comparison. Cucè has named him among his influences and as an artist he would love to work with. Veloso’s albums have also long paired poetic lyrics with orchestral arrangements. Jorge Drexler is the second. His literate lyrics and acoustic arrangements suit anyone drawn to the organic side of 21 grammi.

Stream Giuseppe Cucè 21 Grammi and Follow What Comes Next

From the NewMusic.News Curator Team: “Most albums are written towards a release date. 21 grammi was assembled from songs that had already lived in public, some of them for three years. That is why the concept holds together: almost every track had to earn its place twice.”

The full album plays in the Spotify player above, and it also streams on Apple Music, Deezer and Tidal. Start with È tutto così vero on Spotify. Then follow Giuseppe Cucè on Spotify, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, X, Facebook, his YouTube channel and his official site.


OneNamedPeter on Belonging, Small Towns and the Making of Passing for Human

A Lewes Songwriter Built Ten Folk, Rock and Synth-Pop Songs Alone After a Three-Year Pause

OneNamedPeter wrote, played, recorded and produced Passing for Human on his own, after three years without a new album. The ten songs that came out of that decision circle one stubborn question: what it takes to feel at home in the world.

OneNamedPeter’s title track is in the playlist below, filed alongside our singer-songwriter picks, and the full coverage history sits on OneNamedPeter’s artist profile. Passing for Human reached this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Hear it once through, then read on.


OneNamedPeter on Belonging, Small Towns and the Making of Passing for Human
OneNamedPeter on Belonging, Small Towns and the Making of Passing for Human

OneNamedPeter, Passing for Human and a One-Person Studio in Lewes

The setting matters here. OneNamedPeter is a British singer and songwriter based in Lewes, in East Sussex. He works as a genuinely one-person operation. As Mystic Sons put it, he writes, plays, records, produces, films and designs everything himself.

That approach has already carried him through a sizeable catalogue. His own website lists seven albums to date, including Atlas, Esc, Hurts and Pan, alongside a steady run of singles. Pan in particular drew a wide spread of reviews from independent music sites in Britain and beyond.

The pause after Pan lasted about three years. When he returned, it was with what Obscure Sound called a revived rush of inspiration, and the result was Passing for Human. The record first appeared on 21 November 2025, when the early reviews landed. It then arrived on Spotify and Apple Music on 24 April 2026. Five months on, OneNamedPeter’s Passing for Human is the natural place to start with his work.

Ten Songs That Move From Hushed Acoustic Guitar to Full-Band Rock

The album runs just over 36 minutes across ten tracks, and its range is the first thing you notice. Go Down to the River opens on acoustic strumming and an inward-looking vocal, then turns electric. Obscure Sound heard the dynamics of XTC in that shift. The Ghost of You follows with finger-picked guitar and a melancholy vocal about a love that never quite leaves.

The title track changes the palette again. There, synth-laden dreaminess sits under tasteful guitar lines, and the song takes a close look at the strange sensation of feeling out of step with everyone else. Flying works as a sister song to the opener, built on jangling guitars and a longing to escape small-town life. Hometown is the longest piece at five minutes and 20 seconds, while While You Sleep closes the record gently. Mystic Sons heard it as a lullaby that feels like a vow.

Other writers picked up the same balance. Dancing About Architecture praised the dexterous finger-picking and the less-is-more arrangements, and Songweb called the whole record a quiet earthquake of an album. The genre tags reflect that spread: alt-folk, alt-country and alt-rock pop, sometimes within a single song. Because one person made every part, the shifts never feel like a committee pulling in different directions. The same voice carries the quiet songs and the loud ones.

OneNamedPeter on Belonging, Small Towns and the Making of Passing for Human
OneNamedPeter on Belonging, Small Towns and the Making of Passing for Human

What Passing for Human by OneNamedPeter Answers About Belonging and Small Towns

So what does the record answer? Mostly, it answers the question in its own title. Across the album, the recurring subjects are alienation, love and the pull of leaving a small place. The title track then pulls them together into a meditation on belonging and identity. The songs suggest that most people are improvising their way through being human, and that admitting it is a kind of relief.

That is also why the influences reviewers have heard make sense. XTC built a career on English songwriting that could turn from pastoral to electric within a verse, and Go Down to the River follows that route. Meanwhile, Momus spent decades making literate, soft-edged synth-pop, and the synth-lit title track sits close to that tradition. Neither comparison is about copying. Instead, both point to a British line of songwriters who treat the awkwardness of ordinary life as their main subject.

Who Passing for Human Is For

It suits listeners who move easily between folk, country and rock and do not need a record to stay in one lane. It also suits people in the UK and further afield who like albums made by hand, where the fingerprints show. Above all, it will reach anyone who has ever felt out of place in their own hometown, since that feeling runs through the whole collection.

Start with the title track, then go back to Go Down to the River and let the album play in order. Heard that way, the move from the opener’s acoustic start to the quiet close of While You Sleep feels like one long conversation. There is more on the way, too: his next album, Yours Faithfully, is due on 25 September.

From the Curator Team: “What stays with us is how Passing for Human keeps one voice across very different rooms. The hushed acoustic songs and the full-band ones sound like the same person talking, which is exactly what you would hope for from a record one songwriter wrote, played and produced alone.”

Stream OneNamedPeter Passing for Human and Follow Him Across Platforms

Stream OneNamedPeter on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, SoundCloud and Bandcamp. Watch his videos on YouTube, and keep up with him on Instagram, Facebook and X. All seven albums have their own pages on his official site.


SPACELY and the Making of Here, JP Warner’s Sci-Fi Single About Staying in the Moment

A Chicago Producer’s Cinematic Alt-Pop Project Turns Mental Health Into an Original Sci-Fi Saga

When JP Warner started writing as SPACELY, he made one decision that shaped everything after it. He would tell his own story through a character. That character is Captain Joseph Spacely, stranded with his crew on an uninhabited moon and facing their inner demons. Released on April 3, 2024, the SPACELY single Here then takes that idea somewhere direct, because it is alternative pop about staying fully present.

SPACELY and JP Warner have Here in the playlist below, so it is the first stop for anyone meeting the project today, and the rest of the coverage sits on his artist profile. Here came through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Play it first, then read on for why it matters now.


SPACELY and the Making of Here, JP Warner's Sci-Fi Single About Staying in the Moment
SPACELY and the Making of Here, JP Warner’s Sci-Fi Single About Staying in the Moment

Why the SPACELY Single Here Matters Now, as the Sci-Fi Saga Heads Toward Its Next Chapter

The timing is worth explaining. ECLIPSE, the album that holds Here, arrived a chapter at a time through 2024. Crash was billed as Chapter 3 that May. After that, Reforge followed as Chapter 9 of 11 by December, and the full record finally landed in 2025. Now SPACELY’s official page promises that the captain and crew will return in 2026. So the story sits between chapters, which makes this a natural moment to return to the song that states its purpose most plainly.

Here sits fourth on the finished album, after the overture, Destiny and a short interlude titled with a numeric code, 012.012.082. In total the album runs to 22 tracks and 43 minutes, and those coded interludes recur between the songs. Heard in that sequence, Here lands early, almost like the thesis of the whole record.

The SPACELY single also arrived with a head start. In the weeks after its April 2024 release, Here drew write-ups from Hailtunes, Mesmerized, Beach House Mag and Muse Chronicle. Brazil’s IndieOclock covered it too. In fact, most of them picked up on the same pairing of a large sound and a very personal subject.

The Chicago Producer Behind SPACELY and the Captain Joseph Spacely Story

The person behind it has spent years on the other side of the glass. JP Warner is a Chicago-based producer, artist and storyteller with more than a decade in the studio. First, he co-founded the DJ duo MiNDTRiX, and only then moved into pop production. His collaborators include TE/MO, Excision and Jorge Rivera-Herrans, the creator of EPIC: The Musical.

Alongside SPACELY, he also runs a jazz catalogue under his own name and NIGHTSWIM, a melodic house project. SPACELY is the one he describes as his vessel for processing what he has learned about managing his mental health and finding inner peace.

Musically, Here is built from layered synths and punchy percussion. On top, the vocal climbs from firm verses into a wide, soaring chorus. Muse Chronicle traced the influences to Hans Zimmer, Blink-182 and Porter Robinson. Meanwhile, Mesmerized heard the finished single as grand, sweeping alt-pop when it arrived.

The theme is simple, and deliberately so. Muse Chronicle described Here as a song about being fully immersed in the present moment. Similarly, Beach House Mag noted how deeply Warner’s own experience with mental health runs through the lyrics. Writing through a character is also what makes that honesty possible. SPACELY told Mesmerized that writing as Captain Joseph Spacely makes it easier to be vulnerable. In addition, the same interview credited sci-fi films as the fuel for building the world around the songs.

SPACELY and the Making of Here, JP Warner's Sci-Fi Single About Staying in the Moment
SPACELY and the Making of Here, JP Warner’s Sci-Fi Single About Staying in the Moment

What Here Offers Fans of K-Pop, Game Soundtracks and Film Scores

SPACELY’s music is pitched at a crossover crowd: fans of K-pop, Riot Games soundtracks, film scores and electronic music. The SPACELY single suits that listener well, because its hook is pop-sized while its scale borrows from the screen.

The clearest reference point is Porter Robinson, whose album Nurture turned a hard stretch of self-doubt into bright, big-hearted electronic pop. Hans Zimmer explains the other half of the sound, with its patient builds and the sense of a scene opening up. Blink-182 may look like the outlier. Still, that band’s gift for a plain-spoken chorus is exactly what keeps Here grounded.

So what does Here answer? For listeners who like their pop with a story attached, it is an easy way into a larger world. Meanwhile, for anyone facing their own version of the captain’s moon, it is a three-and-a-half-minute reminder to come back to where they are.

The NewMusic.News curator team: “Here works because JP Warner keeps the message small while the production goes big. The chorus opens out like a film cue, yet the idea at its centre is a single instruction to stay present, and that contrast is what gives the song its pull.”

Stream the SPACELY Single Here and Follow the Project Across Platforms

Start with the SPACELY single at the top of the page. After that, carry on through ECLIPSE, where Here sits among the chapters of the captain’s story.

Keep up with SPACELY and JP Warner here:


Veludo Tropical on Human-Led Bolero and the Making of No Me Digas Adiós

A Campinas Project Revives the Vintage Bolero Farewell and Says Openly How It Was Made

Every Veludo Tropical song starts as a scene: a half-lit bar, a forgotten letter, a city under rain. No Me Digas Adiós, out since 20 August 2026, opens on a farewell. In this Veludo Tropical bolero, a mature female voice carries that goodbye over a vintage arrangement. The project behind it, based in Campinas, Brazil, is also unusually direct about how it built the song.

Veludo Tropical’s farewell bolero sits in the playlist below, among the jazz and modern composition this desk keeps returning to, and the project’s full run of coverage lives on the Veludo Tropical profile. No Me Digas Adiós reached NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Press play, stay with the whole goodbye, then carry on reading.


Veludo Tropical on Human-Led Bolero and the Making of No Me Digas Adiós
Veludo Tropical on Human-Led Bolero and the Making of No Me Digas Adiós

Veludo Tropical Arrives as Bolero Becomes World Heritage and Streaming Asks How Songs Are Made

Two changes in the years before this single shape how it arrives. First, in December 2023, UNESCO added bolero to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Cuba and Mexico nominated the form together, and their nomination described it as identity, emotion and poetry turned into song. The committee also noted that composers are still writing new boleros, in a living dialogue with the tradition.

The second change came from the streaming side. In September 2025, Spotify said it would back a new DDEX industry standard for showing, in a song’s credits, where AI played a part. Its argument, moreover, was that listeners deserve a more nuanced picture than a simple yes or no.

Veludo Tropical therefore sits exactly where those two stories meet. It writes new boleros, and it also says plainly that generative tools are part of its process.

The Method Behind Every Veludo Tropical Song

The project describes its method in some detail. Each track begins with a human creative direction: a scene, a feeling, a story and an artistic intention. After that, generative and digital tools come in during production. Selection, revision, the mood each song aims for, the visual identity and the final decisions all stay in human hands. The project is also careful not to present the technology as the artist.

That openness is rarer than it should be, because plenty of machine-assisted music reaches streaming services with no word on how anyone made it. Here, by contrast, the project states its method up front, alongside a clear account of what the tools do and what they do not do.

The inspiration, however, is far older than any of the tools. Veludo Tropical draws on the classic nights of Latin America, blending bolero with smooth Latin jazz, serenade and sophisticated vintage arrangements. In fact, No Me Digas Adiós is its first release on Spotify.

Watch the video and check the artist’s YouTube channel for more.

Veludo Tropical on Human-Led Bolero and the Making of No Me Digas Adiós
Veludo Tropical on Human-Led Bolero and the Making of No Me Digas Adiós

No Me Digas Adiós Takes Nearly Five Minutes to Say One Goodbye

The title translates as “don’t tell me goodbye”, and the song gives that plea room to breathe. It runs to about four minutes and forty seconds. That is long for a single in 2026, yet right for a bolero, where a goodbye usually takes a whole song to say. Meanwhile, a mature female voice leads, and the arrangement leans on the vintage Latin colours the project names as its home ground.

The project’s YouTube channel bills the official video, embedded above, as a vintage romantic bolero. It also suits the song’s film-like staging, with one scene played out slowly.

Two reference points help place the mood, with no connection implied between the artists. For instance, Omara Portuondo, the Cuban singer long linked with the Buena Vista Social Club, has spent decades showing how much a mature voice can put into a bolero. Luis Miguel, on the other hand, took the form to a new generation in 1991 with Romance, on which he and producer Armando Manzanero reworked classic boleros. As a result, No Me Digas Adiós speaks to listeners who know both of those voices and still want new songs in the same spirit.

What This Veludo Tropical Bolero Answers, and Where the Project Goes Next

The question this release answers is a simple one: can a project that uses new tools still make a bolero that means something? Veludo Tropical’s reply is to keep the parts that matter in human hands, and then to tell you so. After that, the rest is the song’s job, and it takes its time doing it.

For listeners of classic bolero, smooth Latin jazz and film soundtracks, it is an easy one to add to a late-evening rotation. It should also make particular sense in Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia and Venezuela, where the project is aiming its first releases. Similarly, Spanish-speaking audiences who grew up with the form are a natural home for it.

The project has not stood still since. A second single, Perfume de Medianoche, followed on 11 September 2026. A third, Bajo la Luna de La Habana, already appears on the project’s site, where fans can pre-save it on all stores.

NewMusic.News’s curator team: “A bolero depends on patience, and No Me Digas Adiós has it: close to five minutes spent on one goodbye, with a mature voice and a vintage setting doing the work. We would also like more projects to follow its lead on disclosure, because telling listeners how you made a record costs nothing and earns trust.”

You can follow Veludo Tropical across these platforms:


Nathav Sings in English on Moon River, Nine Years After Her Danish Debut

The Copenhagen Songwriter Came Back with Four Songs of Electronic Blues and Minimalist Synth-Pop

You Still Miss Her opens the Moon River EP by Nathav on a piano figure in an uneven 5/8 pattern. Halfway through, a bank of synthesisers rises underneath it. The song first came out as a single in May 2024. It was the first new Nathav song in almost nine years, and the first she sang in English.

Nathav’s title track sits in the playlist below, among our pop and art-pop picks, and this network’s coverage is filed on Nathav’s artist profile. Moon River came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Press play on the EP, then read on for the nine years that led here.


Nathav Sings in English on Moon River, Nine Years After Her Danish Debut
Nathav Sings in English on Moon River, Nine Years After Her Danish Debut

The Long Pause Before Moon River, From a Danish Debut in 2015 to Nathav Singing in English

A Voice That Had Already Led Three Bands

Nathav is the solo name of Mathilde Lunderskov, and it joins the Danish words for night and sea. By the time she chose it, she had already spent years at the front of other line-ups. She sang lead in the Scandinavian indie-pop band Lovebites, which released three albums. After that band split, she founded the dream-pop and noir group Blake and toured Europe with it. Then, in 2010, she formed the synth-pop duo Umatic with her brother, Lukas Lunderskov, and released the album Ashes & Diamonds.

Her own biography notes that her voice and style are often compared to Kate Bush and Goldfrapp. Both comparisons point at something specific. Kate Bush made her name with a high, dramatic vocal set against piano. Her 1978 single The Man with the Child in His Eyes is one example. Similarly, Goldfrapp’s 2000 debut, Felt Mountain, put Alison Goldfrapp’s voice over electronics that borrowed from old film scores. Reviewers heard a similar pull towards old Hollywood on this EP.

Nine Years Away From the Nathav Name

Nathav began as a Danish-language project. The single Tiger came out in April 2015. The self-titled debut album followed on Target Records that August, with seven songs including Hedy Lamarr and Er Det Blod.

Then the project went quiet for a long time. According to Nordic Music Central, family matters and then the pandemic kept her out of circulation. In between, she appeared as one of the guests on Unify, a 2016 single by The Ball and The Wall. Otherwise, no new Nathav release came out until May 2024. When the songs did return, they were in English.

That is the moment Moon River belongs to. Lunderskov had three bands and a Danish album behind her. She restarted the project in a different language, with the same producer at her side. So what would a return like that sound like after so long away?

Watch the video and check the artist’s YouTube channel for more.

Nathav Sings in English on Moon River, Nine Years After Her Danish Debut
Nathav Sings in English on Moon River, Nine Years After Her Danish Debut

Four Songs of Electronic Blues on Moon River, and What the Return of Nathav Answered

The Four Songs, Track by Track

Moon River came out on 29 November 2024 on Horror Comfort, and it runs just under 15 minutes. Two of its songs arrived first as singles: You Still Miss Her in May and Boy Model in August. The producer is Noah Rosanes, who also produced the 2015 debut. The two go back a long way, since their parents sang together in the 1970s disco vocal group Flair.

The opener sets the terms. You Still Miss Her is electronic blues about standing in the shadow of a partner’s earlier love. Nordic Music Central’s David Bentley traced its piano to a 3+2 pattern in 5/8. He also noted how the synthesisers build to two separate peaks. Meanwhile, Extravafrench heard Vangelis and old James Bond soundtracks behind it.

Boy Model, heard here in its full version, moves towards downtempo electronica. It follows a young male model in New York who works through the night. The song is as much about loneliness and lost innocence as about the job.

The title track widens the frame. According to IGGY Magazine, Lunderskov wrote the lyrics of Moon River with Edie Kuhnle in the Hollywood Hills. In addition, Obscure Sound hears the song in two halves. Old-Hollywood balladry comes first, and then a warning about trusting a pretty face.

Finally, Look at Us Now closes the EP on a piano progression recorded live, as IGGY Magazine reports. It turns the famous gap on the London Underground into the image of a wound that will not close.

What Moon River Answered for Nathav

A return after nine years raises two fair questions. Would listeners still come, and would the voice carry over into a new language?

The streaming figures answer the first. On Spotify, the four Moon River songs are the four most-played recordings in the Nathav catalogue. You Still Miss Her leads with 10,111 plays, ahead of Look at Us Now on 8,561. Moon River follows on 7,467, and the full version of Boy Model on 5,785. By comparison, the most-played song from 2015, Tiger, sits on 4,793. Those figures were read on 17 September 2026.

The reviews answer the second. Obscure Sound heard a bluesy spirit in the vocal on the opener. Nordic Music Central singled out a soprano that cuts through the synthesisers at their peaks. Later, the same site put You Still Miss Her in its 2024 Songs of the Year, and its review of the next single records that choice. That coverage ran in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and German. End Sessions wrote in Spanish, for example, and Music For All in Portuguese.

The project has also kept moving since. Nathav followed the EP with Don’t Quit Your Day Job in May 2025 and Over You that December. As a result, Moon River now reads as a restart rather than a one-off.

So this is an EP for listeners who like their pop slow, dark and led by a voice. It also suits anyone curious about what nine years away did to a songwriter with three bands behind her. Start with You Still Miss Her, then let the other three songs run in order.

NewMusic.News curator team: “Moon River earns its place on our features desk because the return kept its foundations. The Danish songs of 2015 were built on piano, synthesisers and Mathilde Lunderskov’s voice. The English songs of 2024 stand on exactly the same three things.”

Listen to You Still Miss Her on Spotify. Follow Nathav on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. Her official site lists new releases and concert dates.


Inside 唇友谊: Moon Chew, a Singapore Music Producer, Makes Room for a Rapper

Moon Chew Built Her Singapore Catalogue Beside One Collaborator, and 唇友谊 Adds a Third Voice

Most of the records Moon Chew works on in Singapore are not hers. She is a music producer who also works as a mixing engineer, and for most of the last decade her job has been simple enough to state. Take other people’s songs and make them sound like themselves. On 唇友谊, out on 8 May 2026, she did something she had not done on one of her own tracks. She gave part of it to somebody else.

Moon Chew’s music is in the playlist below, and the coverage history sits on the Moon Chew profile. 唇友谊 reached this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Listen before you read the rest.


Inside 唇友谊: Moon Chew, a Singapore Music Producer, Makes Room for a Rapper
Inside 唇友谊: Moon Chew, a Singapore Music Producer, Makes Room for a Rapper

How Moon Chew Got From the Singapore Mixing Desk to the Front of the Song

The order of her career is worth knowing, because it is the reverse of the usual one.

Moon Chew has worked in music production since 2010, and she still takes client work as a mixing engineer. Her SoundBetter profile describes her plainly as a Singapore-based mixing engineer and vocalist. It lists mixing at around three hundred dollars a song and carries seventy-four reviews. She works in Logic Pro X through an Audient interface, on PreSonus monitors, into a Neumann TLM 103. During the pandemic, when nobody could share a room, she mixed virtual classical orchestra and choir projects. That job teaches you how to assemble a performance out of parts that never met.

She is also clear about what she thinks the work is for. On that same profile she puts musicality and emotion ahead of sounding technically good. Her job, as she describes it, is bringing those out of somebody else’s mix.

The Covers Came Before the Songs

The singing arrived in public later, and it arrived through other people’s material.

From 2017 she began posting covers on her YouTube channel. Two of them, 畢竟深愛過 and 紙短情長, say so in their own titles. That grounding still shows in what listeners reach for. Several of her most-played recordings share their titles with well-known Mandopop songs, among them 體面, 烏梅子醬 and 讓我留在你身邊. Hear65, the Singaporean music platform run by Bandwagon, lists fifteen of her releases. It files them across pop, Mandopop, alternative, acoustic and electronic.

Covers are a reasonable way for a producer to become a singer. You learn the front of the song without also having to defend the writing. If you are already the person mixing it, you can hear exactly what your own voice needs. Her own stated reference points sit in that lineage. She names LaLa Hsu, Rainie Yang and G.E.M. as the singers her work sounds like. The originals came after that, and she produced, arranged and mixed those herself.

What 唇友谊 Changes for Moon Chew in Singapore

She has made most of her originals on her own, and many of the recent ones with a single collaborator, which is the part the release itself makes visible.

Spotify credits GHAZT on 唇友谊. GHAZT also appears on at least five more of her originals: 餘光一角, 躲猫猫物语, Mobius Strip (莫比乌斯环), 换季关系 and 血吻. 换季关系 got an official music video in November 2024. Read across the catalogue, GHAZT is not a guest on a track. GHAZT is the other half of how these songs get written.

That is what makes the new name interesting. The credits name Edward Chan as the rapper and the song’s lyricist, and his Spotify artist page currently lists this one track. The collaboration is at its start, then, rather than somewhere inside an established run. A settled two-person partnership with six songs behind it has a shape, and shapes are hard to open. Handing a section to a third person means agreeing in advance to leave room you would otherwise have filled.

From the NewMusic.News curator team: “The story on 唇友谊 is not that an independent singer booked a feature. It is that a working music producer decided her own song would be better with somebody else in it. She has spent years making other people’s records sit right. That is a harder call than it sounds when you are also the one balancing the result.”

Inside 唇友谊: Moon Chew, a Singapore Music Producer, Makes Room for a Rapper
Inside 唇友谊: Moon Chew, a Singapore Music Producer, Makes Room for a Rapper

What the Track Answers

Three minutes is not long to introduce a third voice, and the track does not try to stage a summit.

What it does is test the Moon Chew and GHAZT arrangement. Can it carry a register it has not carried before? The catalogue around it leans on sung Mandopop melody, some of it acoustic, some of it electronic. A rap verse is a different rhythmic logic. It either sits inside the arrangement or it sits on top of it. Anyone who has mixed for a living knows which of those they are aiming for, and Moon Chew mixed this one with GHAZT.

The opposite decision is just as deliberate, and this desk has written about a debut built with no guests at all. Neither route is the safe one. They just fail in different directions.

Whether this is a new direction or a single experiment stays open. Her releases have arrived steadily enough that an answer should not be far off. The useful thing about following a producer who fronts her own records is simple. You hear the decision-making rather than guess at it.

Where to Hear 唇友谊 by Moon Chew

唇友谊 is on Spotify, and her back catalogue sits on her YouTube channel.

Follow Moon Chew on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.