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The Long Way to CRYING STARS: Alex Shkudun on a Year of Poems, Piano and Three Languages

A Ukrainian Songwriter Looks Down on Fallen Empires, Floods and Towers From the Night Sky

Before CRYING STARS existed, Alex Shkudun had to decide who its hero was and where the story would stand. He chose to stand nowhere on the ground at all, and handed the point of view to the stars, silent witnesses to war, fear and broken promises. The cinematic pop ballad came out on 3 April 2026, and it grows from piano-driven verses into a full orchestral chorus.

Alex Shkudun’s CRYING STARS sits in the playlist below with the pop and singer-songwriter records this desk returns to. His coverage so far is gathered on his artist profile. The single 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, then stay with the story of how it was made.

The Long Way to CRYING STARS: Alex Shkudun on a Year of Poems, Piano and Three Languages

A Notebook of Poems, a Year of Experiments and How Alex Shkudun Arrived at CRYING STARS

Shkudun is a Kyiv-born Ukrainian songwriter now based in Spain, and his own website reads like a long notebook. He has written there that he loved writing poems and stories from childhood. Some of those texts sat in notebooks for years. What changed, by his account, was the arrival of AI music tools about a year before the summer of 2026. For the first time, he could hear his own lyrics as finished songs.

He is careful about where the line sits. The tools can offer a melody, an arrangement or a voice, he writes. However, they cannot decide what the song is for, or what a listener should feel after the last chord. So before any of that, he works out the hero of the song, their conflict, their past and their state of mind. Sometimes a single line comes first. At other times it is the closing scene of a video he has not made yet.

Alex Shkudun released CRYING STARS in the middle of a steady run of singles. Trust Destiny came out in March, No Time in May, and KYIV AFTER MIDNIGHT in June. This one is the most direct about its purpose. Shkudun describes it as a humanitarian plea rather than a political argument. It is written from above, instead of from one country, one conflict or one generation.

Piano Verses, Atmospheric Synths and an Orchestral Climax

The arrangement follows the argument. The verses are led by piano, with atmospheric synths gathering behind them, and orchestral swells then carry the song into a large chorus. Across four minutes and forty-three seconds, it moves from quiet reflection toward a final climax. In effect, it is the musical version of a camera pulling back from one street to the whole map.

The imagery is old on purpose. Fallen empires, ancient monuments, floods and towers stand in for every period that thought it had learned something. Meanwhile, the stars watch children learn fear before they should ever have to, and that detail gives the song its weight. On 10 May 2026 he also added an official video on YouTube, credited as written, created and produced by Shkudun and brought to life with AI.

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

The Long Way to CRYING STARS: Alex Shkudun on a Year of Poems, Piano and Three Languages

What CRYING STARS Asks About Progress and Why Its Answer Is a Plea for Children

The question at the centre of the song is a simple one. If people keep repeating the same patterns, does progress mean anything at all? Seen from the stars, the usual sides disappear, so the song cannot pick a winner. Instead, it lands on the one thing everybody below can agree on: the violence has to stop before another generation of children pays for it.

That move has a long history in pop. John Lennon wrote Imagine in 1971 and asked listeners to picture a world without borders between nations, over a plain piano part. CRYING STARS borrows that wide frame and turns it toward history rather than utopia. Sting offers a second reference point. His 1987 song Fragile is a quiet lament about how little violence achieves, and he also sang it in Spanish and Portuguese for the 1988 EP Nada como el sol.

One Song in Three Languages

That last detail matters here, because Shkudun works the same way. In July 2026 Alex Shkudun released CRYING STARS again, in Ukrainian on 4 July and in Russian on 31 July. He has written that a language version is never a literal translation. Each language has its own rhythm, word length and stress, so lines, rhymes and even some images have to change before the song sounds natural. As a result, the plea reaches three audiences in their own words.

Who CRYING STARS by Alex Shkudun Is For

This is a song for listeners of cinematic pop and big emotional ballads who want the lyric to carry a real question. It suits anyone drawn to socially conscious music about history, war and children, and it does so without asking them to take a side. It will also interest listeners who are curious about how songwriters use AI tools while keeping the words, the concept and the creative direction in their own hands.

From the NewMusic.News Curator Team: “What stays with us is the vantage point. Most songs about conflict are written from inside one side of it. CRYING STARS is written from a distance where the sides stop mattering, which is why its request to protect children sounds like common sense rather than a slogan.”

Where to Hear CRYING STARS and Follow Alex Shkudun

Stream CRYING STARS on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube Music, or start with the official video above.

Follow Alex Shkudun across platforms:

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By Esther Winslow / October 8, 2026

Article Featured Music News Pop

Brett Miller on Self-Doubt, One Second of Hope and the Making of Heaven

A South Florida Songwriter’s 2021 Single Turns Self-Doubt Into a Hopeful Acoustic Pop Refrain

On January 15, 2021, Brett Miller released Heaven, with its official video live on YouTube from midnight Eastern time. The acoustic singer-songwriter single opens on a plain admission, a man asking why he is scared to show his cards. From there, it spends just under four minutes talking him out of his own way. Five years on, Miller has returned to it as the track to lead with. Its question, what a life without regrets would take, still reads clearly.

Brett Miller’s Heaven sits in the playlist below with the singer-songwriter pop this desk keeps returning to. The full run of coverage sits on the Brett Miller profile. The single 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 once, then keep reading for the story behind the song.

Brett Miller on Self-Doubt, One Second of Hope and the Making of Heaven

Brett Miller Released Heaven in January 2021, the Year He Left New York for His Home State of Florida

By the time Heaven came out, Miller had spent four years releasing his own music. He started in 2017 with the Something Beautiful EP. A year later, while living and performing around New York City, he opened for Social House. He also opened for Zara Larsson at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. His official biography then marks 2021 as the year he left New York for his home state of Florida. So Heaven sits right at the turn between the city years and the Florida ones.

The single also arrived finished. Chaz Mazzota filmed and edited the official video, which went out on release day. The description beneath it carried the complete lyric for anyone who wanted to follow along. Less than two weeks later, Miller’s own brettmillerlive account added a chord chart for the song to Ultimate Guitar. The chart sets a capo on the first fret and keeps to standard tuning. Its verses rest on three familiar shapes: G, E minor over B, and Cadd9.

Fans of Jason Mraz will know those shapes. Guitarists usually play his I’m Yours with the same G, D, E minor and C forms. They just put the capo higher up the neck. In other words, the chart invites you to play the song as well as hear it.

The Pre-Chorus Where Heaven Turns Self-Doubt Into an Instruction to Get Out of His Own Way

The song builds itself around a short moment. The chorus asks for a single second of imagination. That second is long enough to picture a life with no regrets, full of magic and free of tragedy. Miller is honest about the resistance waiting on the other side. The world, he sings, will try to shut him down. But he only loses if he lets it. Heaven in this song is therefore a decision rather than a destination.

The Verses Brett Miller Wrote So the Chorus of Heaven Could Land

What makes that chorus land is the honesty of the verses around it. The first verse describes years of talking to himself. Those years have turned him into someone else, a stranger playing a part. Next, the pre-chorus admits his head is getting hazy. He does not know which way to go. Then the song makes the turn that drives it: he needs to get out of his own way, right now. He cannot keep lying to himself either. The second verse goes further still and describes a mind in disguise as a hero. That is the kind of inner voice that sounds helpful while it keeps you exactly where you are.

By the bridge, the language has narrowed to almost nothing. Only one way, he repeats, only one way to go. After two verses of second-guessing, that repetition sounds like a man finally agreeing with himself. The harmony shows the same restraint. The verses circle three shapes, while the chorus lifts from Cadd9 to G to D. It also hangs briefly on a Dsus4 under the line about a life with no regrets, and then it resolves.

The song has kept a life on stage, too. In December 2024, a YouTube clip showed Miller playing it acoustically at The Garden Room in Nashville. It is a sign that Heaven kept its place in his live sets long after release.

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

Brett Miller on Self-Doubt, One Second of Hope and the Making of Heaven

What Heaven Answers for Listeners Who Love Acoustic Singer-Songwriter Pop With a Hopeful Streak

The question Heaven asks is one most listeners recognise: how do you stop standing in your own way? Its answer is practical rather than mystical. First, you picture the life you want for one second. Then you accept that the world will push back. Finally, you refuse to be the one who gives up first. Miller frames that answer in the blend he has made his own. It joins acoustic singer-songwriter intimacy with contemporary pop sensibilities. As a result, the song carries the weight of a confession and stays easy to sing along to.

The same conviction runs through how Miller talks about his work. In a 2024 interview with Shoutout Miami, he called playing it safe the bigger risk. In a 2022 conversation with CanvasRebel, he explained how he built a full-time life in music. That life rests on performing, songwriting and the original releases he has put out since 2017.

Who Heaven by Brett Miller Is For

This is a song for listeners who like acoustic pop that says hopeful things plainly. Anyone drawn to Andy Grammer will recognise the intent. His Keep Your Head Up turned a pep talk into a pop chorus about a decade before Heaven. It also suits guitar players looking for an intermediate song with a real lyric to sing. The chart sits at that level and needs nothing more than a capo.

From the NewMusic.News Curator Team: “What we keep returning to is where Miller places the title. The verses never describe Heaven. It arrives only as the last word of each chorus, after the pre-chorus admits he cannot keep lying to himself. So the reward always follows the confession. That order is a small songwriting decision, and it is why the hopeful ending feels earned.”

Where to Stream Heaven by Brett Miller and Follow the South Florida Singer-Songwriter

Start with the official video above, with the full lyric open in its description. Then let the single sit in your rotation for a few days. Heaven is also on Apple Music, and the release has its own page on Spotify.

Follow Brett Miller across platforms:

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Article Featured Music News Pop

Rachel Chinouriri Built Her Second Album Around One Night Out

Rachel Chinouriri in a 2026 press photograph for I Think I Spoke Too Soon.

The realisation came in Los Angeles. Spending time there with Lucy Dacus, Rachel Chinouriri started “having these realisations about drinking and partying and all these things”, she said, and the song she wrote out of it, “Broken Chair”, sits near the middle of her second album. I Think I Spoke Too Soon arrives on October 16 through Atlas Artists/Parlophone/Warner Records, and it is told “through the lens of a single, big night out”, according to the album announcement reported by The Music Universe.

That one night stands in for some of the most pivotal years of the London-born singer and songwriter’s life. She has spent the summer and autumn previewing it: three singles are out, she has performed on SNL UK, and in December she joins Gracie Abrams for a run of arena shows in the United States. Here is what is known about the record before release day.

One Night Out, Many Versions of Herself

The album picks up where Chinouriri’s 2024 debut, What a Devastating Turn of Events, left off. The announcement describes it as “a vivid and surrealist glimpse behind the curtain” of pivotal years in her life, a story “that can loop (or maybe even spiral) endlessly” and details “the kind of night that shifts your whole world on its axis and reveals new truths about yourself.”

The theme underneath it is forgiveness. “My core thing is you can change who you are at any moment and you can forgive yourself at any moment,” Chinouriri said when she announced the record, as quoted by Rolling Stone. “And I think forgiving yourself is the first step in becoming a better person.”

That marks a shift from the first album. Towards the end of 2024, she told Rolling Stone she wanted to take a different approach from the emotional excavation of her debut. “Or maybe I’m creating a new world where I write from a happy place and teach myself to write from a place of healing versus a place of trauma,” she said. The new title suggests she tried both, and that the night out is where they meet.

Three Singles From the Night Out

The lead single, “One Song Away From Crying”, arrived with the announcement at the end of July. The Music Universe described it as “a grooving, iridescent, synth-pop number beamed directly from the dancefloor in a moment of insecurity”, a glossy song set in a club and built around the line “She’s never looked better and she’s never felt worse.” Chinouriri explained it as “about the precipice of a night out where you know you need to leave and have to make a decision,” adding: “It’s a deeper decision because it’s less about the night itself but more about a reflection of a deeper internal conflict with your self value that you haven’t looked at yet.” Dora Paphides directed the video, in which she escapes a party she does not want to be at into a dreamlike world.

“Make Believe” followed, and in late September came “Broken Chair”, the third preview. According to DIY, it is a sparkling electronic track whose buoyancy hides more troubling themes, as Chinouriri examines her unravelling relationship with alcohol and intoxication. She wrote it in Los Angeles while spending time with Lucy Dacus, who, she said, “almost reassured me that I am more than enough just being who I am and what I want to be.”

Taken together, the singles sketch the night the album describes, from the moment you know you should go home to the realisations that arrive once the music stops.

The Tracklist

The album runs to 12 songs, as published by DIY:

“One Song Away From Crying”
“Pretty Girls”
“Baby Steps”
“Favourite Desperation”
“I’m a Star”
“AAAHHH!!!”
“Broken Chair”
“Shiver”
“Make Believe”
“Parasite”
“The Good Fight”
“Crash This Car”

The running order follows the concept. It opens on the single about wanting to leave the party, puts “Broken Chair” near the middle and closes on “Crash This Car”.

Who She Made It With

I Think I Spoke Too Soon was written and recorded across London, Hereford and Los Angeles. Rachel Chinouriri worked with longtime collaborators APOB, Mary Weitz, Glen Roberts and Daniel Hylton-Nuamah, and with new ones, including Lucy Dacus and Eli Teplin, according to The Music Universe. The announcement calls it “a marked evolution of her unique alt indie pop sound into expanded creative realms.”

The Dacus connection is the most visible new thread. She is the person Chinouriri credits with helping her through the realisations behind “Broken Chair”, and the collaboration says a good deal about the kind of record this is meant to be: lighter in sound than its subject, but honest about what sits underneath.

From What a Devastating Turn of Events to Now

The debut set a high bar. What a Devastating Turn of Events earned two BRIT nominations, Clash noted, and established a songwriter willing to dig into family, relationships and her sense of belonging. Her 2025 EP Little House, which featured “Can We Talk About Isaac”, kept the momentum going, Rolling Stone reported.

Those records were built on frankness, and she has framed that as a strength rather than a burden. “We’re all slightly broken or traumatized by something,” she said, as quoted by Rolling Stone. “We all accept that, and it’s OK to be emotional.” At the end of 2024 she described the world of the debut as one she could return to: “This is a world that I’ve now made, which I can step into when I need to and grab the stories that I need.” The second album is where she decided to build a new one.

Since then she has supported Florence + The Machine and Wolf Alice, played Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival and appeared on SNL UK, DIY reported. She was the only British artist invited to join the Daisy Chain Fields bill, according to The Music Universe, a detail that shows how far her audience now reaches beyond the UK.

Arena Dates With Gracie Abrams and the Shows Ahead

The next step is an arena run. Chinouriri supports Gracie Abrams on The Look at My Life Tour for a seven-show arena run in December, according to The Music Universe:

December 2 and 3: Ball Arena, Denver.
December 6 and 7: Oakland Arena, Oakland.
December 9 and 10: Desert Diamond Arena, Glendale, Arizona.
December 14: Kia Forum, Inglewood.

The new songs have already been road-tested. Between late August and mid-September she played intimate headline shows to preview the record, at El Rey in Los Angeles, the Bowery Ballroom in New York, The Academy in Dublin, 26 Leake Street in London, Botanique in Brussels, Trabendo in Paris, Tolhuistuin in Amsterdam and Säälchen in Berlin, according to The Music Universe.

Next, she plays a run of UK in-store shows around the album’s release, Clash reported. Her own headline dates continue into the new year with Sydney’s Enmore Theatre on February 16 and Melbourne’s 170 Russell on February 17.

Formats and What to Listen For

The album is available on standard vinyl and CD, with an exclusive blue eco-record from independent retailers and HMV, an exclusive pink eco-record through Amazon, and a silver and blue “inkplosion” eco-record deluxe vinyl plus three exclusive-sleeve CDs from her webstore.

How a record is assembled often says as much as what ends up on it; newmusic.news recently looked at how Johnny Marr road-tested The Age of Everything before recording it. For a first listen on October 16, three things are worth following:

The arc of the night. The tracklist is built as a single evening; listening in order is the point.
The Lucy Dacus sessions. “Broken Chair” shows how a collaborator can steady a songwriter working through something difficult.
The shift in tone. Compare the new songs with the debut to hear whether she has found the “place of healing” she described in 2024.

Second albums often carry the weight of a celebrated debut. Rachel Chinouriri has chosen to meet it with a concept rather than a repeat, and with a message she has stated plainly: you can change who you are, and forgive yourself, at any moment.

By Will Lisil / October 8, 2026

Article Featured Folk Music News Pop Rock

The Long Way to Yours Faithfully, OneNamedPeter’s Album Signed off Like a Letter

A Sussex Songwriter Gathers a Year of Singles Into an Album Framed as a Letter

The Yours Faithfully album opens with a 94-second song called Dear Me. That one decision tells you how to read everything after it. OneNamedPeter, the Sussex-based UK singer-songwriter, built his new record like a letter. It runs from a greeting at the top to the formal sign-off in its title. It came out on September 25, 2026, after a year in which five of its songs arrived first as singles.

OneNamedPeter’s Dear Me, the greeting that opens Yours Faithfully, is in the playlist below. His full run of coverage sits on his artist profile. The album reached this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Give it a spin, then read on for how the rest of the letter comes together.

The Long Way to Yours Faithfully, OneNamedPeter’s Album Signed off Like a Letter

Five Singles Across 2026 Led Up to the Yours Faithfully Album and Its Letter-Shaped Running Order

The album was a long time arriving, one song at a time. Strange-Eyed Constellations came out on New Year’s Day. United Nations followed in February, and The Loneliest Boy in Tokyo in April. Then When the Sky Is Blue landed at the end of August. It was also issued in a separate Celestial Version. Finally, Click appeared two weeks before the album itself. In addition, three of those songs got their own music videos on his YouTube channel.

Most artists would let a run like that stand as a string of separate releases. OneNamedPeter decided to gather the five into a single record, alongside six songs that had not been out as singles. Then he gave the whole thing a frame. Dear Me is the salutation. Love Is, under three minutes long, is the closing line. The title is the sign-off you would write under both. His own website now greets visitors as though they were the person the letter is addressed to.

That frame matters because it turns a year of drip-fed singles into something that reads in order. Heard one at a time, The Loneliest Boy in Tokyo and Click were simply new songs. Heard between Dear Me and Love Is, however, they become paragraphs in the same piece of correspondence.

Eleven Songs in 35 Minutes Carry OneNamedPeter’s Alt-Folk and Alt Rock Pop Further After Passing for Human

Yours Faithfully runs to eleven songs and 35 minutes, and it is self-released, with OneNamedPeter holding the rights to the recordings. The shortest track is the opening greeting. The longest is The Loneliest Boy in Tokyo at 4 minutes 25 seconds. It was also the third of the five singles. Meanwhile, the record moves between alt-folk, alt-country and alt rock pop, and Apple Music files it under pop and singer-songwriter.

The song titles sketch an album that travels a long way from its starting point. There is a lonely boy in Tokyo, the United Nations and a Night In the City. There are Strange-Eyed Constellations, a Renegade Angel and even a Tardis. Finally, the closing Love Is brings it back home. For a record shaped like a letter, that sense of distance between writer and reader fits.

It also follows quickly on its predecessor. Obscure Sound reviewed Passing for Human in December 2025. It described a solo-made album born from a renewed burst of inspiration after a three-year pause. That review heard reflective folk, rock energy and a dreamy synth layer. The songs dealt with alienation, love and wanting to escape a small town. Yours Faithfully arrived less than a year later, which suggests the burst has not run out yet.

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

The Long Way to Yours Faithfully, OneNamedPeter’s Album Signed off Like a Letter

Who Yours Faithfully Is For

This is for album listeners who like British singer-songwriter pop that moves between acoustic folk and rock. It also suits anyone who enjoys a record with a frame around it. When Obscure Sound reviewed Passing for Human, it reached for two names, and both work as reference points here. XTC made sharply written English pop with jangling guitars. For example, records such as Skylarking (1986) showed how far a pop album could go when sequenced as one piece. Momus, the long-running project of Nick Currie, built a catalogue of literate, wry songs that moved from acoustic folk into synth-pop. That overlaps with the folk-to-synth range Obscure Sound heard on Passing for Human.

Where Yours Faithfully Sits in His Catalogue

OneNamedPeter has been releasing albums steadily since 2020. The run goes from Esc and Atlas that year through Stupidly Happy, Hurts, Pan and Passing for Human. Each one gets its own page on his website, with songs, videos and lyrics. As a result, the catalogue is easy to explore from the start. Yours Faithfully is the newest entry, and it is shaped as a single message from beginning to end.

From the NewMusic.News curator team:

“Plenty of albums are collections of singles that never quite admit it. This one admits it gracefully. By opening on a short greeting and closing on a short reply, OneNamedPeter gives a year of separate releases a reason to sit together. The running order does the work a concept album usually needs a narrator for.”

Where to Stream the Yours Faithfully Album and Follow OneNamedPeter, a Sussex Songwriter

The Spotify player at the top of this article streams all eleven songs of Yours Faithfully. The album is also on Apple Music. In addition, the video for The Loneliest Boy in Tokyo is on his YouTube channel.

Follow OneNamedPeter on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, and Deezer. He also posts on Instagram, Facebook, and X. His official site has a page for every album, with lyrics and videos.

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The Long Way to CRYING STARS: Alex Shkudun on a Year of Poems, Piano and Three Languages

Esther Winslow

October 8, 2026

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By Esther Winslow / October 7, 2026

Article Featured Music News Pop Rock

Inside Into The Night: How Seadog Built a Haunted Dream Pop Single in Brighton

The Brighton Duo Return with a Third Single Since Internal Noise, Produced by Michelle Hindriks

The new Seadog single was finished in two rooms on the south coast. Michelle Hindriks, of the Brighton band Ciel, produced and mixed Into The Night at 17B Studios in Brighton. Engineer Paul Pascoe then mastered it at Church Road Studios in Hove. Released on 28 August 2026, it finds Seadog making dream pop about isolation and anxiety, built around the ghosts we carry long after the lights go out. It is the latest step in a quiet, steady run.

Seadog are in the playlist below with Into The Night, among the art pop and singer-songwriter picks, and the duo’s full run of coverage sits on the Seadog profile. 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. Start it playing and keep reading for the story behind it.

Inside Into The Night: How Seadog Built a Haunted Dream Pop Single in Brighton

The Run of Dream Pop Singles That Brought Seadog From Internal Noise to Into The Night

Seadog is the Brighton project of Mark Benton and Tom Chadd, and their records have always taken their time. Their debut album, Cabin Fever Blues, arrived in 2018. The engineer Phill Brown, whose credits include Talk Talk, Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones, added production. The second, Internal Noise, began in the stillness of the 2020 lockdown. It came to full life at Bella Union’s studio in Brighton in 2024, with Jack Wolter of Penelope Isles producing and playing drums, guitars and backing vocals. His sister and bandmate Lily Wolter added guest vocals.

Crucially, that record found listeners. Writing for Obscure Sound in May 2024, Mike Mineo described an eclectic, melodic set. In his account it ran from the twangy rock haze of Old Joe to the synth-forward experiments of Analysis Paralysis, and the Wolters’ harmonies lifted Tied To A Mast. The album also earned airtime on BBC 6 Music and Amazing Radio. Its opening track, Tidal Wave, was selected for Tom Robinson’s BBC Introducing Mixtape on 6 Music and featured on Lauren Laverne’s 6 Music Recommends show.

How Michelle Hindriks Shaped the New Run at 17B Studios

Since then, the band have chosen singles over a quick third album. At War (With Everything) arrived in August 2025 and was previewed on John Kennedy’s X-Posure show on Radio X. Against The Grain followed in March 2026, and Into The Night is the third release since Internal Noise.

Above all, the biggest change is the room. For this run, the band have been working with Michelle Hindriks at her own 17B Studios. She produced and mixed At War (With Everything) there before taking on Into The Night. For the mastering, meanwhile, the band returned to Paul Pascoe, who also mastered Internal Noise, at Church Road Studios in Hove.

That continuity matters for a song like this one. A track built on creeping unease depends on small production choices. For example, how much space sits around the voice, how far the synths are allowed to drift and how close the guitars sit to the front of the mix. Working with the same producer across a run of singles gives those choices a consistent hand.

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

Inside Into The Night: How Seadog Built a Haunted Dream Pop Single in Brighton

What Into The Night Answers About Isolation, Anxiety and the Ghosts That Stay After Dark

The subject is clear from the band’s own description: isolation, anxiety and a sense of creeping unease, the kind that stays after the lights go out. It is also a thread that runs back through their catalogue. When Obscure Sound reviewed Tidal Wave, the line it picked out was “Anxiety sets in”. Into The Night takes that idea and lets it fill a whole song.

The band describe their music as songs that drift between lullaby and anthem, and that tension suits the material. A lullaby is meant to settle a restless mind, so a song about night-time anxiety turns the idea around. In that sense, the single answers a simple question about where Seadog go after Internal Noise: further inward, with the same patience.

Their peers have also noticed the run. Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins and Bella Union put it this way: “Seadog have been quietly working their way into our hearts through a consistent run of tracks released over the last few years.”

Where to Hear the Seadog Dream Pop Single and Follow the Band Online

The band’s own reference points help place the sound. They name Grandaddy, The Flaming Lips, The Beta Band, Stereolab, Broadcast and Elliott Smith, and the combination makes sense. Grandaddy’s mix of synths and guitars sits close to Seadog’s. Broadcast’s haunted, reverb-heavy pop, by contrast, gives a sense of the mood Into The Night is reaching for. Earlier in the run, the French site Iggy Magazine picked up the 2022 single Here Nor There and praised its melodies and production.

The single is for listeners who appreciate the textures and dynamic range of alt rock pop, alternative rock and art rock. It also suits anyone who likes their dream pop with a shadow running through it. The band’s next show is at The Prince Albert in Brighton on 10 November.

From the NewMusic.News curator team: “Play Into The Night straight after Tidal Wave. The anxiety the band named on that earlier single becomes the whole subject here, and hearing the two together shows how far the Hindriks sessions have taken the sound.”

Follow Seadog on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp and SoundCloud. For videos and news, the band are on the YouTube channel, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X, with more on the official site.

Return Trip on Film Scenes, Spanish Roots and the Making of ReScore

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By Esther Winslow / October 3, 2026

Article Electronic Featured Music News Pop

Inside On y va: How Hub30 Built a Feel-Good Song From Reggae, House and a Bordeaux Lake

A Solo French Songwriter Wrote a Song About Moving Forward Together, and Made It Alone

Hub30 writes beside a coastal lake near Bordeaux, and the light on that water is where On y va begins. Released on 31 October 2025, the French single sets a reggae groove and a quiet house pulse under a pop melody. Its title, French for let’s go, is an invitation the whole song keeps repeating.

Hub30 is in the playlist below with On y va, a feel-good French single built on reggae and house, and his artist profile lists the rest of his coverage. The song reached this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, the programme that verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Press play first, then read on for the lake behind it.

Inside On y va: How Hub30 Built a Feel-Good Song From Reggae, House and a Bordeaux Lake

Hub30 Writes Beside a Sea Lake Near Bordeaux, and Its Changing Light Runs Through On y va

The scene is worth holding on to. Qobuz picked Hub30 as one of ten French chanson artists to follow in 2026. In that piece, it placed him by a sea lake near Bordeaux, drawing on the changing light and the softness of the water. Beside it, the magazine wrote, he makes utopian songs in which he dreams of people uniting and of air that is easier to breathe.

The magazine even compared the project to Henri Matisse’s Open Window, Collioure, a painting that carries strong feeling through pure colour. The comparison suits the record, since On y va also works with a few clear colours: a pop melody, a reggae groove and a house pulse.

A Solitary Songwriter From Bordeaux Builds French Pop Around the Idea of a Crowd Moving Together

Hub30 is the project of Hubert Trentesaux, and he works alone. Extravafrench, the French music site, reviewed the single in December 2025. It called him a solitary figure from Bordeaux with a universal dream. It also heard his synths as if they had been rinsed by the Atlantic wind. In its words, he makes pop the way you open a window: to let the salt air in.

That is the contradiction at the heart of the record, and it is a good one. One person, writing by the water, makes a song whose whole subject is a crowd moving in the same direction. His own description of the track says it plainly: a mellow groove and a chorus that brings people together.

The French roots matter too. According to Qobuz, Hub30’s music starts in French songwriting and then takes regular detours into house and reggae. Even so, it never loses its feel for a simple, catchy melody. In fact, the magazine pointed to the offbeat On y va as proof of that balance.

Meanwhile, the lake was in the songs long before the press noticed it. Près du lac came out in December 2023, and Living by the Lake followed in February 2024.

Inside On y va: How Hub30 Built a Feel-Good Song From Reggae, House and a Bordeaux Lake

On y va Answers a Tired, Anxious World With a Mellow Groove and a Chorus Built to Gather People

The release itself is short and bright. On y va runs two minutes and fifty-two seconds, moving between pop softness, a reggae groove and a house pulse. Extravafrench heard the reggae touches as a nod to Bob Marley, a figure of peace and bright defiance. Then, it wrote, a discreet house beat turns the song into a place to gather, somewhere people dance to survive, or to love better.

The lyric stays direct on purpose. Extravafrench praised the catchy melodies and plain words. It also argued that this kind of clarity takes real precision rather than less effort. Beyond that, it heard the shadow of the Beatles, and of John Lennon above all, in the way the song reaches for utopia without sounding naive. That is the line Lennon walked on Imagine in 1971.

What the song answers is the mood around it. Extravafrench described On y va as a soft but determined call to catch your breath in a world saturated with anxiety. Seen that way, the title is less a slogan than an instruction: stop waiting, start walking, and do it together.

From the NewMusic.News Curator Team: “What we admire is how little the song asks of you. Two minutes and fifty-two seconds, one simple phrase, and a rhythm that does the persuading. Hub30 trusts the groove to make the case, and it does.”

Hub30 Followed On y va With Tu Déchires, and Where to Hear the French Single Now

The single also sits inside an unusually steady run of work. Hub30 has released 29 singles on Spotify since April 2023, starting with Les oiseaux migrateurs. After On y va came Tu déchires in January 2026, then Dunes in Motion, Au clair de la dune and To Do List.

The songs around it share its outlook. For example, Call Me Daddy, released in September 2025, captures the impatience and tenderness of a father-to-be. Similarly, his own site pitches Tu déchires as a song to wake up your inner strength and drive. So for listeners who like their French pop warm, unhurried and touched by reggae, On y va is the right place to start.

Stream On y va in the Spotify player above, or on Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music and YouTube. His 2024 song Living by the Lake is on YouTube Music, and his own Spotify playlist, Saison 1 : Hub30, gathers more of his songs.

Follow Hub30 on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, SoundCloud, YouTube channel, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, X, Facebook and the official site.

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By Esther Winslow / October 3, 2026

Article Featured Hip-Hop Music News Pop

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

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

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.

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By Esther Winslow / October 1, 2026

Article Featured Music News Pop Rock

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 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

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.

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By Esther Winslow / October 1, 2026

Article Featured Folk Music News Pop

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

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

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.

Return Trip on Film Scenes, Spanish Roots and the Making of ReScore

Esther Winslow

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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

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

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:

Stream SPACELY: Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer and SoundCloud
Listen: the full ECLIPSE playlist on Spotify
Watch: the YouTube channel
Follow SPACELY: Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook and Threads
Follow JP Warner: Threads, LinkedIn and his own catalogue on Apple Music
Visit: the official site

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