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The Long Way to A Live Family Rayunion 2025: Ray’s Music Exchange at Thirty

The Cincinnati Jazz-Funk Collective’s First Live Album in Fifteen Years Brings in Younger Players

Ray’s Music Exchange could have marked thirty years with the old line-up alone. Instead, the Cincinnati jazz-funk collective shared the stage with a younger generation of the city’s improvisers. That happened on 26 November 2025, at the historic Woodward Theater. A Live Family Rayunion 2025 is the record of that night.

Ray’s Music Exchange are in the playlist below, among this desk’s jazz and modern composition picks, and the band’s coverage is gathered on the Ray’s Music Exchange artist profile. A Live Family Rayunion 2025 reached NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Put it on, then read the rest.

The Long Way to A Live Family Rayunion 2025: Ray’s Music Exchange at Thirty

Ray’s Music Exchange Turned Thirty Years of RayUnion Shows Into Its First Live Album in Fifteen Years

The decision says a great deal about how the band thinks of itself. Ray’s Music Exchange formed in 1996 out of the creative circle around the University of Cincinnati. Its early players came from the UC College-Conservatory of Music. The name nods to the music shop in The Blues Brothers. Over time, though, the band came to read the word exchange more literally. It means the flow of energy between improvisers on a stage and a crowded dance floor.

Through the late-1990s jam-band boom, the group toured the United States on and off for nearly a decade. They shared stages with their heroes and released five independent full-length CDs. Then, in 2006, they went on an indefinite hiatus.

The break did not last. In 2010 the band brought twelve former members back together for a sold-out reunion in Cincinnati. That night became the 2011 live DVD and double album A Live Rayunion. That show turned into a habit, and the RayUnion is now an annual night at the Woodward Theater. The 2025 edition has become the band’s first live album in fifteen years, released on 29 August 2026.

Six Long Jams From the Woodward Theater, With Paul Hogan Originals and an Ernie Johnson From Detroit Horn Line

The record runs to six tracks and about thirty-five minutes: Furley’s Comet, Quartalchondriac 12-Tone Jam, We Like You, Peruvius, Dancing About Architecture and U ‘N’ I. Founding keyboardist Paul Hogan wrote many of them, and the titles give a fair idea of the temperament. A jam named for quartal harmony and a twelve-tone row is a band enjoying its own seriousness.

The core is the local line-up that has carried the band for years. Brad Myers plays guitar and sings. Michael Mavridoglou plays trumpet and keyboards, and Nick Blasky plays bass; both sing too. Jason Smart is on drums, and Matthew Hawkins on percussion.

Around them, the 2025 show added saxophonist Josh Kline and trombonist Spencer Merk. It also brought in four players from Ernie Johnson From Detroit: keyboardist Jackson Steiger, trumpeter Jonathan Wiseman, trombonist Colin Thompson and saxophonist Wayne Kilgard. That band is a Cincinnati Afrobeat and funk institution, known for instrumental dance music and high-energy shows.

The recording was handled with care. Nicholas Radina recorded the night at the Woodward Theater, and Ashley Shepherd mixed and mastered it at Audiogrotto. Meanwhile, the physical edition is built for collectors. It comes as a limited run of 300 hand-numbered, hand-stamped jackets on 180-gram vinyl. Rob O’Brien’s concert photography and liner notes come with it.

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

Electric Miles, the Meters and Zappa Explain the Three Directions These Cincinnati Jams Pull In

The band sums itself up on Facebook as electric Miles plus the Meters plus Zappa. Each name fits a different part of this record. Miles Davis opened up electric fusion on records such as Bitches Brew. There, long improvisations ran over electric grooves with the horns out front. That is the frame these jams work inside.

Frank Zappa brought difficult, composed material into rock and funk settings with a straight face and a sense of humour. That is roughly the spirit of a track called Quartalchondriac 12-Tone Jam.

Finally, The Meters defined New Orleans funk through a rhythm section that sat deep in the pocket. That grounding lets a drummer and a percussionist hold a seven-minute jam together. As a result, the horns can wander without the floor dropping away.

What the RayUnion Answers About Ray’s Music Exchange, and Where to Hear the Live Album Next

A thirtieth-anniversary record has to answer whether the chemistry still holds. Brad Myers, the band’s guitarist and producer, has described the 2025 show as unusually full of energy and adventurous spirit. Myers also singled out rare moments from some very gifted younger players. In the band’s view, preserving that night was a chance to show that the Ray’s ethos is still alive. It was also a way to make something special for fans and collectors who have followed the band for decades. The hope is that it leads to more new music.

That is a considered way to mark a milestone. Rather than a retrospective, A Live Family Rayunion 2025 is a hand-over in progress. The veterans set the frame, and the younger horn players push against it. For a scene built on live exchange, it is the right way to prove the idea still works.

It suits listeners who follow the jam-band and jazz-fusion tradition. It also suits vinyl collectors who value a numbered pressing. And it suits anyone curious about how Cincinnati’s improvisers pass their music from one generation to the next.

From the NewMusic.News curator team: “Two of the six tracks run past seven minutes, and that patience is the point. A Live Family Rayunion 2025 is the work of a band that still trusts a groove to tell it where to go.”

Stream A Live Family Rayunion 2025 on Apple Music, Deezer and Tidal, or order the numbered vinyl on Bandcamp.

Follow Ray’s Music Exchange on Spotify, Apple Music, Instagram and Facebook, and sign up for news at the official site.

Inside DIRTY LUV: How Lloyd Haines Built a Late-Night R&B Record on Trust

Will Lisil

October 19, 2026

The UK-Charting Producer and Vocalist Trades Introspection for Swagger on His Explicit New Single Lloyd Haines made one decision early…

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By Esther Winslow / October 19, 2026

Article Featured Music News R&B

Inside DIRTY LUV: How Lloyd Haines Built a Late-Night R&B Record on Trust

The UK-Charting Producer and Vocalist Trades Introspection for Swagger on His Explicit New Single

Lloyd Haines made one decision early with DIRTY LUV: say the thing plainly. Everything else on the record follows from it. Out since 2 October 2026, the single is dark, after-hours alternative R&B that talks about sex without metaphor. It also arrives just as listeners had grown used to hearing him look inward.

Lloyd Haines’s music is in the playlist below, and his coverage lives on the Lloyd Haines artist profile. DIRTY LUV reached NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Put it on and keep reading.

Inside DIRTY LUV: How Lloyd Haines Built a Late-Night R&B Record on Trust

The Moment Lloyd Haines Made DIRTY LUV and Stopped Writing From an Inward-Looking Place

That timing is the story. Haines is a UK-charting artist, producer and vocalist, and his records have drawn support from BBC 1Xtra and Kiss FM. His earlier releases came out through international labels. Among them were Morph in Miami, King Street Sounds in New York and Somatic Records in London. Since then he has been building a growing independent catalogue.

His most recent writing leaned toward the vulnerable and the introspective. Those songs asked the listener to sit with doubt and reflection. DIRTY LUV, however, flips that energy completely. The recent material turned the lens on himself, while this one is about swagger, desire and escape. He delivers it with the confidence of someone who has decided there is nothing to apologise for.

Well, almost nothing. The post announcing it on Instagram opens with two words, an apology to Mum. So he knows exactly how frank this record is. It is the only apology on offer, and it sets the tone. He sees the line he is crossing, and he crosses it anyway.

It would be easy to file a song like this under shock value. That reading, though, misses what Haines is doing. The explicitness is a method rather than a goal. He uses it to get somewhere specific, and that place is far warmer than the title suggests.

A Dark, After-Hours R&B Single That Says Plainly What Most Love Songs Only Hint At

Sonically, DIRTY LUV sits in contemporary alternative R&B, the late-night strain of the genre that favours shadow over shine. Haines himself files it under alt R&B and trap soul. The mood is dark and seductive. It belongs to the hours after midnight rather than the commute, and it also carries a slight sense of danger without tipping into menace. That balance is deliberate, because the song wants to be sexy and sophisticated at once. In other words, it reads like an after-dark editorial spread rather than a tabloid headline.

The writing is raw and intentionally explicit, with an open sexual charge. It lives where romance, lust and intimacy stop being separate things. Haines approaches that point head-on, with no coded language and no wink at the listener. Instead, the frankness becomes the design of the whole song, and he commits to it all the way through.

And yet the title tells you where the heart of it sits. DIRTY LUV points at affection, not loveless sex. The song is about the uninhibited language two people share once attraction, trust and closeness are already there. It is the dirty side of love that normally stays behind closed doors. Read that way, the explicitness measures how safe the relationship is. That changes how every line lands. Two people who know each other well say these words to each other, not strangers in a crowded room.

The Frank R&B Lineage Running From Miguel and PARTYNEXTDOOR to Jeremih

Listeners raised on the frank side of R&B will recognise the lineage. Miguel spent the early part of his career pairing open desire with real devotion. On Kaleidoscope Dream in 2012, for example, lust and commitment share the same songs. DIRTY LUV works that same seam, with affection underneath the explicit language. PARTYNEXTDOOR, meanwhile, helped define the dark, minimal after-hours sound of his early OVO Sound records. That music sounds as if someone recorded it with the lights off, and this single shares its nocturnal mood. Finally, Jeremih turned the small hours into a whole aesthetic on his 2015 album Late Nights. He is another fair reference point for the setting Haines chose.

Inside DIRTY LUV: How Lloyd Haines Built a Late-Night R&B Record on Trust

What the Explicit Turn Reveals About Lloyd Haines as a Songwriter, Producer and Vocalist

The more interesting question is what DIRTY LUV says about the artist who made it. A run of confessional records can box a writer in. Audiences come to expect the inward-looking mode, so they hear anything else as a departure or, worse, a costume. Haines answers that by showing another side of himself without dropping the seriousness of the earlier work. The songwriting is still deliberate, and the voice is still his own. Only the subject has moved, from the private monologue to the bedroom. The honesty that drove the introspective songs now drives the explicit one too.

That consistency is why the record earns a hearing as the work of a songwriter and producer. It is not a novelty. Haines treats a sexual subject with the same care he gave to doubt and reflection. He also keeps the focus on the craft of the song itself. The result is a grown-up song about trust and desire. It lives in a darker corner of the genre, where he clearly feels at home.

It also widens the picture of what Lloyd Haines can do as an independent artist. He has UK chart history, national radio support and releases on labels in the US and the UK. So he could easily have repeated the formula that earned him that recognition. Instead, he has chosen to complicate his own catalogue. As a result, his earlier, more reflective songs now read differently too. They sit beside a record that shows the confident, unguarded side of the same writer.

Where to Stream Lloyd Haines DIRTY LUV and Follow the UK R&B Producer Next

Who is it for? First, listeners who keep a late-night playlist for the after-party or the taxi home at 2am. Then fans of grown, explicit R&B who prefer directness to innuendo. And finally anyone who has followed Haines through his recent introspective material. Those listeners get to hear the other side of the same artist, the one who has stopped explaining himself.

From the NewMusic.News curator team: “DIRTY LUV makes its case in two minutes and thirty-two seconds and does not linger. That economy suits a song this direct. It states what it wants, keeps the affection in view and leaves before the mood cools.”

Stream DIRTY LUV on Apple Music or save it on your preferred platform. You can also catch a short clip on TikTok and find an official music video from his catalogue on YouTube.

Follow Lloyd Haines across platforms: Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, Facebook, and HyperFollow.

The Long Way to A Live Family Rayunion 2025: Ray’s Music Exchange at Thirty

Esther Winslow

October 19, 2026

The Cincinnati Jazz-Funk Collective’s First Live Album in Fifteen Years Brings in Younger Players Ray’s Music Exchange could have marked…

Razed by Rebels Built Broken Paradigm Around One Question: What Does Standing by Your Convictions Cost?

Esther Winslow

October 18, 2026

An Austin Collective, Three Guest Singers and a Dystopian Story Told Across Nine Tracks Jason Winfield could have made Broken…

Phil Lentz Presents…: The Long Way From a College Song to a First Album

Samantha Josephine Morning Child: The Long Way to a Song in Four Scenes

Markus Nokio on Film Scoring, Spoken Word and the Making of Written in the Dust

Five Seconds Into the New Year, Michael Stipe’s Solo Debut Begins

The Long Way to ATE: Kick 5000 and a Club-Tempo Story for Lyric-First Listeners

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Inside BACK & FORTH: How Alex Shade Built a Self-Released Turn From Rap to R&B

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The Long Way to Bebopping Along: Phil Lentz Trades the Newsroom for Bebop Piano

The Long Way to In My Head: Bite To Break and a Cymbal Sale

By Will Lisil / October 19, 2026

Article Cinematic Featured Music News Rock

Razed by Rebels Built Broken Paradigm Around One Question: What Does Standing by Your Convictions Cost?

An Austin Collective, Three Guest Singers and a Dystopian Story Told Across Nine Tracks

Jason Winfield could have made Broken Paradigm as a conventional band record. Instead, the Austin creative behind Razed by Rebels built it as a collective. Guest singers and local musicians joined sessions across three Texas studios. The result, released on 15 November 2025, is a nine-track album that tells one dystopian story in about half an hour.

Razed by Rebels are in the playlist below, and the project’s full run of coverage sits on the Razed by Rebels artist profile. Broken Paradigm came to NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Press play on the album, then read on for how it was made.

Razed by Rebels Built Broken Paradigm Around One Question: What Does Standing by Your Convictions Cost?

The Moment Razed by Rebels Built Broken Paradigm Around, and the Art Rock Lineage Behind It

That decision to work as a collective shapes everything about the record. It sounds less like a set of songs and more like a film score with guitars. Above all, it is built around a single moment of choice.

At the centre of the album is a character confronting their own beliefs. The story follows what happens when someone stands by their convictions and then has to live with the fallout. Resilience, identity and internal conflict run through the whole record. However, the project frames them through sci-fi imagery rather than straight confession.

That pairing of real-world struggle with an imagined world has a long history in art rock. David Bowie built a dystopian city into Diamond Dogs in 1974, using theatrical vocals and heavy guitars to tell a story about control. Broken Paradigm takes the same theatrical, dystopian route.

Similarly, Radiohead set anxious vocals inside layers of guitar and electronics on OK Computer in 1997. Razed by Rebels work a related seam, fusing synth-driven electronic layers with brooding alternative rock.

Meanwhile, The Cure showed on Disintegration in 1989 how a melancholy voice can soar over slow, enveloping dark wave. That is the mood behind the album’s soaring, melancholic vocals. These names describe where the record sits; they are not a claim of any connection between the artists.

Broken Paradigm Turns a Studio Collective Into Nine Chapters of One Dystopian Story

Across its nine tracks, the album blends aggressive guitar riffs, pulsing industrial rhythms and soaring, melancholic vocals. Winfield conceived it as one story, and the running order reads like a plot outline. Titles such as Beware the Hunters and Hiding Within suggest pressure closing in. Later, A Way Through and Heaven’s Gate suggest a search for release.

In addition, the guest singers are central to that story. Hope Irish opens the album, and Alva Sim joins Razed by Rebels on The Nobodies. On the seventh track, Alexandra Ayoob takes the guest vocal. Each brings a different voice into a world that could easily have felt like a single narrator talking to themselves.

In other words, the collective approach is the point. Razed by Rebels operates as a creative collective rather than a fixed band, gathering engineers, musicians and artists around Winfield’s ideas. Being independent gives the project room to follow the story wherever it goes, with no label shaping the result.

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

Razed by Rebels Built Broken Paradigm Around One Question: What Does Standing by Your Convictions Cost?

What Razed by Rebels Answer With Broken Paradigm About Resilience, Identity and Holding Your Ground

Visual storytelling sits beside the music, too. The teaser above comes from the project’s YouTube channel. It reflects an approach that treats each release as both a record and a visual story.

The question at the heart of the album is a simple one with a hard answer: what does standing by your convictions cost? Still, Broken Paradigm does not pretend the answer is easy. Instead, its story moves through conflict and sacrifice before it reaches anything like resolution.

That refusal to settle for a neat ending is what gives the record its weight. It treats conviction as something with a price, and it asks the listener to sit with that price for half an hour.

Critics in Brazil and Online Have Followed the Story Told on Broken Paradigm

Listeners abroad have heard the same thing. Writing for Os Garotos de Liverpool in Brazil in March 2026, Linna Santiago read the album as a concept story. In that reading, a character confronts their own beliefs and the consequences of their choices. Testing Melodies focused on the energy instead, describing an album that pulls the listener into an alternative universe of roaring melodies and passionate vocals.

Taken together, that combination of energy and argument makes the album worth a full sitting. It rewards a listener who follows the story from the first track to the last, rather than dipping into one song.

NewMusic.News’s curator team: “Broken Paradigm gives three guest singers real space inside one writer’s story. That is why its half-hour feels like a cast at work rather than a monologue.”

For listeners who like theatrical rock and albums told as stories, Broken Paradigm is a strong place to start. Give it one uninterrupted half-hour.

Stream Broken Paradigm on Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer and SoundCloud. Then follow Razed by Rebels on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, or visit the official site.

The Long Way to A Live Family Rayunion 2025: Ray’s Music Exchange at Thirty

Esther Winslow

October 19, 2026

The Cincinnati Jazz-Funk Collective’s First Live Album in Fifteen Years Brings in Younger Players Ray’s Music Exchange could have marked…

Inside DIRTY LUV: How Lloyd Haines Built a Late-Night R&B Record on Trust

Will Lisil

October 19, 2026

The UK-Charting Producer and Vocalist Trades Introspection for Swagger on His Explicit New Single Lloyd Haines made one decision early…

Phil Lentz Presents…: The Long Way From a College Song to a First Album

Samantha Josephine Morning Child: The Long Way to a Song in Four Scenes

Markus Nokio on Film Scoring, Spoken Word and the Making of Written in the Dust

Five Seconds Into the New Year, Michael Stipe’s Solo Debut Begins

The Long Way to ATE: Kick 5000 and a Club-Tempo Story for Lyric-First Listeners

3’s Charmed ☆ on Nostalgic Pop and the Making of Match Me First

The Long Way to You_Know.: Missingno. and the Collaboration That Never Clicked

Mike McCarthy on Trance Roots and the Making of Right By You

Inside BACK & FORTH: How Alex Shade Built a Self-Released Turn From Rap to R&B

Inside RUN IT: How Sale Jay and Get Money Built a Two-and-a-Half-Minute Trap Single

The Long Way to Bebopping Along: Phil Lentz Trades the Newsroom for Bebop Piano

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By Esther Winslow / October 18, 2026

Article Featured Jazz Music News Pop

Phil Lentz Presents…: The Long Way From a College Song to a First Album

After Newsrooms and Speechwriting, a New York Jazz Pianist Records Songs Written Since His Teens

Phil Lentz wrote Where Are All the People while he was at college. The song then waited through a long career in political reporting, press work and speechwriting. It is now the only vocal track on Phil Lentz Presents…, the eleven-track jazz and pop album he released on 28 September 2022.

Phil Lentz’s music is in the playlist below, and his full coverage history sits on his artist profile. Phil Lentz Presents… came to NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Press play, then read on.

Phil Lentz Presents…: The Long Way From a College Song to a First Album

From Political Newsrooms and Two Novels to the First Album Phil Lentz Presents

Music came first for Lentz, at least in time. He started piano lessons at the age of eight. As he told MuzicNotez in a 2023 interview, he began writing music not long after. However, his working life went another way. He became an award-winning political reporter. His papers included the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Bulletin, the Newark Star-Ledger and Crain’s New York Business. In 1992 he was press secretary to Paul Tsongas during his run for president. He then ran public affairs at New York University, and later he directed speechwriting in the New York governor’s office. He also published two novels, The Corcoran Affair in 2004 and Murder at City Hall in 2013.

The piano never left. Lentz kept playing keyboards in bands and workshops across New York City. The venues included The Bitter End, The Iridium, The Cutting Room, Shrine and Silvana’s. Meanwhile, the songs kept accumulating; some were finished, and others stayed as fragments for years. Then he and the guitarist and producer Dennis Harte picked out the strongest of them. They took the songs to a band with Kevin Gaffney on drums and Wolfgang Lugomarsini on bass. Red Heller is credited on three tracks. From the first rehearsals to a finished CD on streaming services took almost a year.

What changed for Lentz was less the music than who could hear it. He said that many friends had not known he was a composer at all. He also said the album went on to find listeners around the world. His earlier careers were spent writing news copy and other people’s speeches. This was the first time his own compositions went out under his own name.

Eleven Tracks, One College Song With Lyrics and a Schumann Mistake Turned Into Soft Rock

Phil Lentz Presents… runs eleven tracks and just under half an hour. Its titles sketch the range, from Bluesy and That Far Away Look to Gospel, Icy Cool and Tap Your Toes. The writing moves between jazz, pop, folk, blues, gospel and soft rock. Where Are All the People is the college song. At four minutes and 25 seconds, it is also the longest piece on the record. By contrast, Lullaby, the closer, is credited to Lentz alone and lasts just over a minute.

Several songs carry a story about how they were made. Lentz writes by trying chord combinations at the piano until one catches his ear. Some of those ideas wait a long time. For example, Tap Your Toes began as a tune he could not finish; he put it aside and returned to it years later. Schumann’s Theme came from a mistake. He was practising the slower second section of Robert Schumann’s piano piece Soaring when he played something wrong. He liked the sound of it and built a soft rock song on it.

Harte learned music on the streets of Greenwich Village as a teenager. Later he worked as a studio engineer, session player and touring guitarist. He helped turn those tunes into finished arrangements, and Lentz has been clear that he regards the results as shared work.

Phil Lentz Presents…: The Long Way From a College Song to a First Album

What the Album Answers Four Years On, for Fans of Bruce Hornsby and Burt Bacharach

Listeners who know the songwriters Lentz names as influences will find their way in quickly. Fans of Bruce Hornsby will recognise a pianist bringing jazz harmony into songs built for a wide audience. Lentz has said he greatly admires Hornsby, and Hornsby’s 1986 hit The Way It Is put a jazz-inflected piano part at the heart of a pop single. Similarly, fans of Burt Bacharach will hear the same pull toward an unexpected chord. Lentz has said some of his songs carry Bacharach’s flavour. Bacharach’s songs for Dionne Warwick set memorable pop melodies over unusual chord changes and shifting metres.

So what does the album answer, four years after its release? Mostly a question about patience. A record of songs written across a lifetime could easily have sounded like an archive. Instead, these pieces are short, melodic and played by a band that keeps them light on their feet. It opened a three-album series. It also remains the clearest place to start, because it is where his songwriting first went on record.

NewMusic.News curator team: “The pleasure of Phil Lentz Presents… is how unhurried it is. Eight of its eleven pieces finish inside three minutes. They state the melody on keys and guitar, then leave, which suits songs shaped in New York club workshops.”

Where to Hear Phil Lentz Presents and Follow the New York Pianist

It suits jazz listeners who want the melody first. It also suits pop fans curious about instrumental music, and it rewards a second listen. Play it in the player at the top of this page. To hear what came next, his later albums are on Spotify and Bandcamp.

Follow Phil Lentz on the Spotify artist profile, Apple Music, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X. His music, books and photography all live on his official website.

The Long Way to A Live Family Rayunion 2025: Ray’s Music Exchange at Thirty

Esther Winslow

October 19, 2026

The Cincinnati Jazz-Funk Collective’s First Live Album in Fifteen Years Brings in Younger Players Ray’s Music Exchange could have marked…

Inside DIRTY LUV: How Lloyd Haines Built a Late-Night R&B Record on Trust

Will Lisil

October 19, 2026

The UK-Charting Producer and Vocalist Trades Introspection for Swagger on His Explicit New Single Lloyd Haines made one decision early…

Razed by Rebels Built Broken Paradigm Around One Question: What Does Standing by Your Convictions Cost?

Samantha Josephine Morning Child: The Long Way to a Song in Four Scenes

Markus Nokio on Film Scoring, Spoken Word and the Making of Written in the Dust

Five Seconds Into the New Year, Michael Stipe’s Solo Debut Begins

The Long Way to ATE: Kick 5000 and a Club-Tempo Story for Lyric-First Listeners

3’s Charmed ☆ on Nostalgic Pop and the Making of Match Me First

The Long Way to You_Know.: Missingno. and the Collaboration That Never Clicked

Mike McCarthy on Trance Roots and the Making of Right By You

Inside BACK & FORTH: How Alex Shade Built a Self-Released Turn From Rap to R&B

Inside RUN IT: How Sale Jay and Get Money Built a Two-and-a-Half-Minute Trap Single

The Long Way to Bebopping Along: Phil Lentz Trades the Newsroom for Bebop Piano

The Long Way to In My Head: Bite To Break and a Cymbal Sale

By Esther Winslow / October 18, 2026

Article Featured Music News Pop

Samantha Josephine Morning Child: The Long Way to a Song in Four Scenes

An Experimental Alt-Pop Single Built From Stream of Consciousness and Protective Metaphor

Samantha Josephine records in her apartment, yet Morning Child still took her a long time to finish. Released on 1 September 2026, the experimental alt-pop single is, in her own estimation, the most complicated song she has made. At nearly six minutes it is also her longest, and she played every instrument on it.

Samantha Josephine’s music sits in the playlist below, with this desk’s art-pop and singer-songwriter picks, and the coverage to date is listed on the Samantha Josephine profile. Morning Child reached NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Listen to it first, then read on.

Samantha Josephine Morning Child: The Long Way to a Song in Four Scenes

From Sixty Self-Made Songs to Morning Child, the Most Complicated Piece Samantha Josephine Has Made

Josephine estimates she has written and released around sixty songs since 2020. For most of that time, she has not been well enough to promote them. She lives with a dissociative disorder and post-traumatic stress, and she does not play live. Instead, her songs have reached people through music videos she makes herself, which is how her audience has grown.

That context matters, because it changes how to hear the record. Josephine writes in a stream-of-consciousness state. She does not plan where a song is going; she tries to get out of the way and find what is already there. As a result, she says, her lyrics can feel like interpreting a dream. Afterwards she does the rest alone, from the production to the mix and the master, and she has kept refining that process with each release.

Her catalogue already includes releases such as Hell Play, My Antechamber, How to Be in Love, Falling Troubles and the album Despair & Love. However, Morning Child sits apart from them in scale, and Josephine has said it took her a long while to get it feeling done.

Four Scenes, Protective Metaphors and the Lyrics That Keep Hard Memories at a Safe Distance

Muzic.NZ covered the single the day after it came out. It heard soft vocals, minimalist piano and wavering drums. It also described lyrical impressionism used to explore trauma, dissociation and the safety found in the natural world. The same outlet noted that her previous single, How to Be in Love, reached number five on the Radioscope Alt Airplay chart.

The song does not follow a verse and chorus. Instead, it moves through four separate scenes, close to a play, and each section feels like its own place. That structure gives the listener a way through. Rather than one repeated hook, there is a sequence of settings, and each one changes the light on what came before.

The lyrics work the same way. Josephine uses protective euphemisms to soften experiences that would otherwise be jarring and frightening to describe. The word awkward recurs as a stand-in for flashbacks and repeated abandonment. Meanwhile, the phrase water in the stare describes the unsettling feeling of derealisation. Read together, the lyrics form a map of survival. Their language keeps the listener, and the writer, at a safe distance.

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

Samantha Josephine Morning Child: The Long Way to a Song in Four Scenes

What Morning Child Answers About Sharing Hard Things When a Stage Is Not an Option

That is what Morning Child answers. It shows one way to put hard material into a song without turning it into spectacle. It also shows one way to share music when a stage is not an option. The official video, made by Josephine and posted alongside the release, carries the song to people who would otherwise hear it live.

So who is it for? Listeners who come to experimental pop for honesty rather than polish will find the most here, and so will curators building playlists of lyric-driven indie music. It also suits anyone who has wanted a song that names something difficult without spelling it out. Above all, it rewards anyone happy to sit with a track for six minutes.

Josephine names her own touchstones, and two of them make useful doors in. Fans of Daniel Johnston, whose early albums such as Hi, How Are You were recorded alone on cassette, will recognise songs made at home and released without a filter. Fans of Cat Power will hear a similar patience; Colors and the Kids, the one piano-driven song on Moon Pix, kept the voice close and gave it room, much as the sparse piano does here. Kimya Dawson, PJ Harvey and the Velvet Underground complete her list.

NewMusic.News curator team: “Six minutes is a long time to hold a listener without a chorus. Morning Child manages it by changing scene instead of repeating itself, so each section arrives like a new room in the same house.”

Where to Watch and Stream Samantha Josephine Morning Child, and Follow Her Music Videos

Watch the official video in the player above, then stream the single on Spotify, Apple Music or Bandcamp.

Follow Samantha Josephine across platforms: Spotify artist profile, Apple Music artist page, Deezer, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. Every link also lives on her Linktree.

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By Esther Winslow / October 18, 2026

Article Cinematic Classical Featured Music News

Markus Nokio on Film Scoring, Spoken Word and the Making of Written in the Dust

A Self-Taught Finnish Composer Sets a Spoken Voice Over Cinematic Writing

In early September 2026, Markus Nokio posted a short piece of music called The Giant. It was an entry for the Fall 2026 composing competition at 12 Story Academy. A month before that, Nokio had written a new score for A Grade Students, a short film by Cameron Perry. It was written for the summer round of the Indie Film Music Contest. That is the workshop Written in the Dust came out of.

Markus Nokio’s Written in the Dust is in the playlist below, and every write-up on the composer sits on the Markus Nokio profile. The single came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts. That programme verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Listen to it there first, then read on for how it was made.

Markus Nokio on Film Scoring, Spoken Word and the Making of Written in the Dust

Markus Nokio Writes to Picture, and Written in the Dust Asks What Happens Without One

Nokio is a composer who writes to picture. A scene arrives first, and then the music has to fit it. However, on the new single, released on 15 October 2026, the decision runs the other way. There is no film to score. Instead, the music carries a spoken voice, and the voice carries the story.

Nokio describes the single as a deeply personal project. It joins a background in cinematic composition to a narrative spoken-word style. The release also names a clear reference point for that style. That reference is the American musician Cassandra Jenkins. Jenkins built her 2021 album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature around passages that move between singing and speaking. So listeners who know that record will understand the territory Nokio is aiming for.

The background behind the decision is also unusual. Nokio is a self-taught pianist and composer from Finland. Two years ago, the instrumental single The Orphan drew reviews from Good Music Radar and the Brazilian blog INDIEOCLOCK. Both wrote about its emotional weight and its piano writing. Since then the releases have come steadily.

Written in the Dust Brings a Narrated Voice Into the Cinematic Writing Nokio Built on Film Contests

The single runs two minutes and 30 seconds, and Nokio released it independently. That length is worth noticing. It is close to the length of the cues Nokio writes for film contests. There, a piece has to set a mood, make its point and then step aside for the next scene.

What changes here is the role of words. In a film score, the music usually sits under dialogue or under silence, and the story belongs to the picture. On Written in the Dust, however, the spoken voice moves into the space the picture would normally fill. The music becomes the setting, and the narration becomes the scene.

That approach has a strong tradition behind it in modern classical music. Fans of Max Richter will think of The Blue Notebooks from 2004. On that album, readings sit over piano and strings, and the words give the music its shape. Nokio works on a smaller scale, in a single rather than an album. Still, the idea is related: composition as a frame for a voice.

The release also caps a busy year. In 2026 alone Nokio put out Flag Carrier (In Metal) in February, Superhero in March and Face Your Fears in May. Next came the six-track Revelations in July, Like Roses in Wind in August and All We Ever Need in September. Written in the Dust is the newest step in that run, built this time around spoken word.

Markus Nokio on Film Scoring, Spoken Word and the Making of Written in the Dust

What a Spoken Word Single Answers for a Composer Who Usually Writes Under Other People’s Scenes

Every film cue answers somebody else’s question. The director has a scene, the scene needs a feeling, and the composer supplies it. Nokio has done that work in public, again and again. For example, the contest entries include The Giant and the new score for A Grade Students.

Written in the Dust answers a different question. What does this composer want to say when nobody hands over a scene? On this release, the answer is a story told directly. Meanwhile, the music takes a supporting role, one that Nokio knows well from the other side.

Nokio presents the single as a challenge to the usual conventions of contemporary classical music. It is also a piece for listeners who want depth and story from what they hear. Those listeners are the audience the release is built for. It asks them to follow a voice, with the composition shaping the room around it.

Stream Written in the Dust and Follow Markus Nokio on Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud and Instagram

From the NewMusic.News Curator Team: “Two and a half minutes is the length of a film cue, and Written in the Dust keeps that discipline. Nokio has written the music the way a scene would need it. Then the voice takes the place of the picture.”

For listeners curious about cinematic composition with room for spoken word, Written in the Dust is a good place to start.

Press play on the Spotify player at the top of the page for the single. Then go further into the catalogue on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and SoundCloud. The contest scores sit on the composer’s YouTube channel. Follow Markus Nokio on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Threads, or find every link in one place on Linktree.

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By Esther Winslow / October 17, 2026

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The Long Way to ATE: Kick 5000 and a Club-Tempo Story for Lyric-First Listeners

A Carol City Rapper Writes for Listeners Who Want Punchlines Over a Faster Beat

Kick 5000 built ATE for a particular listener: someone who follows the words first and wants the beat to keep up. The Miami rapper set his punchlines on a Baltimore club drill beat. It is a quicker pulse than the trap he usually works over. He released the single on 28 August 2026.

Kick 5000 has ATE in the playlist below, among our hip-hop and producer rap picks. His full run of coverage sits on his artist 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. Play it, then read on.

The Long Way to ATE: Kick 5000 and a Club-Tempo Story for Lyric-First Listeners

He treated the record as an experiment, and by his own account it went right. After years of rapping over trap, he wanted to try something else. The faster beat made the session feel closer to a house hip-hop song than a rap track. In other words, the tempo was the point. He likes rapping on up-tempo beats because the pace supports his punchlines. ATE is built around that idea.

A Baltimore Club Beat Under a Miami Rapper

For anyone new to it, Baltimore club is the breakbeat-heavy dance music that grew out of Baltimore in the early 1990s. It usually runs at around 130 beats per minute. As a result, putting a Miami rapper on top of it changes what a listener notices. The words have to arrive quickly and cleanly, because the beat never waits for them.

The subject is home. ATE tells stories about life in Miami, the city behind most of his catalogue, and it runs just over three minutes. So the audience is easy to picture. First, there are listeners who enjoy lyricism, melody, beats and metaphor in roughly equal measure. He has long said he writes for them. Then there are club listeners curious about rap that keeps their tempo. Finally, there are Miami listeners who want the city told from the inside.

ATE by Kick 5000 Now Leads the Popular Tracks on His Spotify Profile, Ahead of Older Singles

The first signs of an audience showed up quickly. Kick 5000 posted ATE to his YouTube channel on 25 August, three days before the streaming release. He shared it again on Facebook once it was out. Within weeks, ATE had moved to the top of the popular tracks on his Spotify profile. It now sits ahead of remastered older singles such as Good Energy and Glessing.

Indeed, that matters for an independent artist. Spotify ranks that list by how much each song is being played lately. So a new single at the top means listeners are choosing it over songs they already knew. For a rapper with a catalogue stretching back to 2017, that is a real signal rather than a formality.

It also fits a busy year. ATE is his second single of 2026, after 2 man with Bin havin in February. It is also the one he describes as an experiment beyond trap. The release came out under his own label, Goonsville Entertainment, which keeps the decisions, and the pace, in his hands.

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

The Long Way to ATE: Kick 5000 and a Club-Tempo Story for Lyric-First Listeners

The Carol City Community Around Kick 5000, From The Goons to Goonsville Entertainment and Bin Havin

The community around the record goes back a long way. Kick 5000 came up in Carol City, in north Miami-Dade. There he joined a local rap group called The Goons, four members who pushed each other to write better bars. He now runs Goonsville Entertainment as CEO. The label credit has appeared on most of his releases since 2017. It runs from Summer Up through the Just for Kickz projects to Audi 5000 in 2020 and Miami Vice in 2021.

He also keeps a circle of collaborators close. Bin havin joins him on 2 man. Mike Smiff and Chavaz Montana appear on the 2021 remix of No Romance, and Supa Mega features on FOR 6. Meanwhile, the visual side matters to that circle too. His Instagram bio lists him as a musician, artist and film editor, and as CEO of a second venture. He has also long painted and designed custom pieces alongside the music.

The Club-Rap Line That ATE Joins

Listeners who came to club-tempo rap through Drake will hear the connection. Honestly, Nevermind, in 2022, pulled his writing onto house and Jersey club beats. Similarly, ATE makes that move from a Miami starting point. Azealia Banks is the older reference. Her 2011 single 212 showed how sharp a rap verse can sound over a house track.

In short, ATE suits late-night drives, pre-game playlists and anyone who likes their rap quick and wordy. So start with the first verse and follow the punchlines against the beat, because that pairing is the whole idea.

From the NewMusic.News Curator Team: “The cover puts Kick 5000 inside an alligator’s open jaws, framed in gold chain under a Goonsville Presents banner. For a record called ATE, that is exactly the right amount of nerve. It is why the single earned a slot in our rotation.”

Find Kick 5000 on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer and SoundCloud, watch on his YouTube channel, and follow him on Instagram, X and Facebook.

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By Will Lisil / October 13, 2026

Article Featured Music News Pop

3’s Charmed ☆ on Nostalgic Pop and the Making of Match Me First

A Sunset Basketball Court, a Glowing Scoreboard and the Return of a Pop Girl Group

On the cover of Match Me First, three figures in pink, purple and black jerseys walk away from the camera across a basketball court at sunset. Above the hoop, the scoreboard reads 3:33. That number ties the picture to the album this pop single opens, 333: The Rebirth of a Nostalgic Princess. 3’s Charmed ☆ is the girl group created by Daniel Kenneth (DK).

3’s Charmed ☆ bring Match Me First to the playlist below, among our pop, art pop and singer-songwriter picks. Every article on the group is collected on the group’s artist 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 titles. Press play, then read on.

3’s Charmed ☆ on Nostalgic Pop and the Making of Match Me First

In fact, the image sums up how this project works. DK writes, produces, mixes and masters the songs. He also leads the creative direction and the visuals, all under DK ENTERTAINMENT, the company he founded and runs as executive creative director. The trio, also known as 3C, is the face of the music. Behind it, one person makes the decisions.

Those decisions start from a clear position. The official 3’s Charmed ☆ YouTube channel sums up the aim in one plain line: pop songs should be fun again, choruses should stay in your head, and music videos should actually matter. It reads less like a slogan than a rule DK set for himself. Match Me First is the first new answer to it in more than a year.

A Catalogue That Moved Fast Through 2025

The timing explains why this release feels like a fresh start. On Apple Music, the catalogue begins with Frost & Fire: A 3C Holiday EP in December 2024. Then the project moved quickly through 2025. The single Unbreakable arrived in January and Love Me (For Real) on Valentine’s Day. A debut album, All Eyes On We, followed in April and ran to 18 tracks. After that came One Night Pull in July 2025. Match Me First arrived a little over a year later, so an album title that promises a rebirth makes sense.

Match Me First Opens the 333 Era for 3’s Charmed With a Short Pop Single Released Through Symphonic

On 25 September 2026, Match Me First came out through DK ENTERTAINMENT and Symphonic Distribution. It runs 2 minutes and 50 seconds. However, listeners had heard the song before that Friday. Its official visualiser went up on the 3’s Charmed ☆ YouTube channel on 9 June 2026, under the 333: The Rebirth of a Nostalgic Princess banner. So the September date marked the worldwide streaming release of a track that already had a picture. ElectroWow made the same point when it announced the single the day before release.

It was not the only preview. Across the first half of June, the channel posted visualisers for No Going Back, Enough Right Now and Read My Lips. Then, on 17 June, came #FreeBritney, also under the 333 banner. The credits repeat across them. Daniel Kenneth (DK) wrote, produced, mixed and mastered each of those tracks for DK ENTERTAINMENT, and DK also handled creative direction. One name against every role explains how consistent the rollout looks.

The 333 Concept and the September Rollout

The video descriptions spell out the album concept too. They frame 333 as a pop era built around nostalgia, reinvention and clarity. They also describe getting yourself back after everything that tried to rewrite you. Meanwhile, #FreeBritney adds a darker shade. Its description names the feeling of being trapped and unheard while still hoping for something better.

Against that backdrop, Match Me First became the lead single, and the September rollout stayed simple. An official teaser landed on 17 September, and short clips counted down the final week. The official audio followed on release day, with links to Spotify and Apple Music. In the week after release, short videos on the channel carried DK’s own words. They confirm that 3’s Charmed ☆ is his girl group and that he is its writer, producer and creative director.

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

What Match Me First by 3’s Charmed Answers for Listeners Who Miss Fun and Short Girl-Group Pop

The single answers the question the channel raises: where did the fun go in pop? DK’s reply is a short record with a title that works as a hook on its own. The artwork, meanwhile, reads like the opening shot of a music video. At 2:50, Match Me First invites a replay rather than a long wait.

That length has history behind it. The Spice Girls made their whole case with Wannabe in 1996, a dance-pop debut single that runs 2:54. In fact, that track proved how much a girl group can say in under three minutes. Match Me First keeps to the same running time, which suits a project that wants pop to feel quick and light again.

The album title points at a second reference. Britney Spears has long carried the nickname Princess of Pop. Her debut single, …Baby One More Time, arrived in 1998 and helped revive teen pop at the end of the decade. So an album about the rebirth of a nostalgic princess, with a song called #FreeBritney among its previews, points straight back to that era. Match Me First is the first piece of it on streaming services.

As a result, the single fits pop playlists built around 2000s girl groups. It also suits listeners with a soft spot for teen-pop choruses, and anyone curious to follow a project from its first single to its full album. Start with the June visualiser to see the world DK built for it, then play the track on its own.

From the NewMusic.News Curator Team: “Look past the scoreboard and the cover holds two more details. Palm trees and a hillside city sit behind the fence, and the middle player holds a purple ball, ready to start. A single that opens an album era should look like the moment before the game begins. That is why Match Me First earned a slot in our rotation.”

Find 3’s Charmed ☆ on Spotify and Apple Music, save Match Me First through the official release page, watch the visualisers on the YouTube channel, and follow the group on Instagram and Facebook.

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The Long Way to You_Know.: Missingno. and the Collaboration That Never Clicked

A Brooklyn-Born, Akron-Based Artist Turned Frustration with a Collaborator Into a Short Single

Missingno. wrote You_Know. as a short burst of frustration, after trying to work with someone he never quite clicked with. The dark-pop single is built on chiming synths, a deep 808 and a low, unhurried vocal. It came out in January 2023 and still holds up as a late-night listen.

Missingno. has You_Know. in the playlist below, among our hip-hop and producer rap picks. His coverage so far is gathered on his artist profile. The single came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Put it on, then keep reading.

The Long Way to You_Know.: Missingno. and the Collaboration That Never Clicked

In his own summary, the song says, “I see what you’re doing there, and I don’t like it.” It is the sound of someone spotting the red flags and pointing at them rather than looking away. That one decision, to say it out loud and keep it short, shapes everything about the record.

The artist behind it has moved around. Reviews from the release place him as Brooklyn-born and Dallas-raised, now based in Akron, Ohio. The name itself comes from a glitch in the original Pokémon games. That playful, slightly broken digital spirit runs through the music too. Good Music Radar traced his debut back to a 2015 single, The Screen. It also described an artist inspired by video games and the poetry of cryptic code.

Missingno. Released You_Know. in January 2023 With Chiming Synths, Deep Bass and Video-Game Echoes

You_Know. arrived on 16 January 2023 and runs 2 minutes and 28 seconds. It opens on enigmatic keys and a pulsing 808. Then it settles into a slow, airy groove with enough punch underneath to keep it moving.

The writers who covered it in February 2023 heard the details clearly. Good Music Radar described a low-key synth flow edged by deep bass and chiming synths. It also heard beeping synths and muffled hip-hop beat cycles under a bare baritone. Meanwhile, Sinusoidal Music picked out retro video-game samples that recall Nintendo, set against contemporary pop and R&B. KIMU called the mix a blend of hip-hop, trap, pop, R&B and experimental detail. Sinusoidal also noted that the writing and the beat flow reward repeat listens. In short, it is the kind of song you absorb a little more each time.

That spread of reference points matches how Missingno. files his own work. On one side sit alternative pop, art pop and dark-pop; on the other, hip-hop, emo rap and trip-hop. You_Know. sits right where those lines cross, with pop structure and hip-hop weight. He followed it in April 2023 with Energy, another tight single of about two and a half minutes. In other words, the short form is a choice rather than an accident.

The Long Way to You_Know.: Missingno. and the Collaboration That Never Clicked

What You_Know. by Missingno. Answers for Anyone Ready to Call Out Red Flags and Cut Ties

The song answers a feeling most people know. According to KIMU, the grievances are specific. The song targets someone who was unsupportive when it mattered. That person wanted to share in wins they had not earned, and started acting brand new. KIMU reported that Missingno. sums it up as a cutting-off song, and the track plays like one, brief and decided.

That is why the length works. There is no long build and no extended outro. Instead, the complaint is stated clearly, over a beat that never raises its voice. For anyone sitting with the same frustration, it is a short permission slip to stop ignoring the warning signs.

Listeners who return to Kid Cudi will recognise the mood. Man on the Moon: The End of Day, in 2009, set brooding introspection over spacious synth production. Similarly, You_Know. works in that same late-night space. Juice WRLD is the other touchstone. His 2018 single Lucid Dreams turned frustration with someone who hurt him into a sung hip-hop hook. Missingno. takes that directness and keeps it quieter.

It suits dark-pop and alt-hip-hop playlists and late drives. It also suits anyone who needs a song for the moment they finally say no. So start it at night, with headphones, so the synth details come through.

From the NewMusic.News Curator Team: “A handprint on brown paper is all the cover needs. The song keeps the same economy: one grievance and no wasted bars. That restraint is why You_Know. earned a slot in our rotation.”

Find Missingno. on Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud and Bandcamp, watch on his YouTube channel, and follow on Instagram, TikTok, X and Facebook, or visit the official website.

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By Esther Winslow / October 13, 2026

Article Electronic Featured Music News

Mike McCarthy on Trance Roots and the Making of Right By You

The Montreal Producer’s Vocal Single with Viktoria Sunshine Opened Find Your Harmony Before Release

Two days before Right By You reached streaming services, Andrew Rayel opened episode 508 of Find Your Harmony with it. The track belongs to Mike McCarthy, a Montreal producer and DJ, and it features the vocalist Viktoria Sunshine. It came out on 28 August 2026 on nomads music. That early spin on a trance show says a good deal about where the record comes from.

Mike McCarthy’s Right By You, with Viktoria Sunshine on vocals, is in the playlist below next to this desk’s electronic and ambient picks, and earlier coverage of McCarthy sits on the Mike McCarthy artist profile. The single came to NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Press play first, then keep reading for the timing behind it.

Mike McCarthy on Trance Roots and the Making of Right By You

Why Right By You Arrives at a Busy Moment in Mike McCarthy’s Run of 2026 Releases

The timing makes more sense once the release calendar is laid out. Mike McCarthy has spent 2026 putting out music at a steady clip and across a wide spread of labels. Too Much to Hold, with the singer Olya Gram, came out on Soho Music in May. The Skybound EP followed in June on VANDIT Alternative, the label run by Paul van Dyk’s company. Then Soft Radiance arrived on Elliptical Sun Melodies on 21 August, just a week before Right By You. A month later, Silent Ascend appeared on Magic Island Records, again with Olya Gram.

Right By You is also the latest chapter in a longer relationship with one label. Mike McCarthy released Humanity’s Treasure on nomads music in 2024. He remixed the label’s own Nomads single that November and returned with Reverb of the Past in September 2025. So the new single lands with a label that already knows the producer’s sound. It also lands at a point when that sound is reaching more rooms than ever.

That reach is the real story of the moment. The catalogue now spans Coldharbour, Enormous Chills, Freegrant Music, Elliptical Sun and VANDIT Alternative. The releases move between progressive house, melodic house and trance. Andrew Rayel’s decision to open a two-hour show with Right By You fits that picture. Find Your Harmony is a trance programme. The record earned its first slot there before most listeners could stream it.

The Release Builds a Progressive House Track Around Viktoria Sunshine’s Vocal

Right By You runs for four minutes and thirteen seconds. It is melodic and vocal-driven, with warm melodic layers and an uplifting progressive production underneath Viktoria Sunshine’s performance. The structure reflects the way Mike McCarthy usually works. The atmosphere and feeling of melodic house sit over a backbone that comes from progressive house and trance.

The order of the work matters here. Rather than adding a voice to a finished instrumental, Mike McCarthy built the production around the vocal. In his own words: “Viktoria brought exactly the emotional character I was looking for. The vocal gave me the foundation to build the production around rather than treating the voice as simply another element in the arrangement.”

Mike McCarthy on Trance Roots and the Making of Right By You

What a Trance-Rooted Producer Answers With a Vocal Track Made for More Than the Club

The question behind Right By You is one many melodic electronic producers face. Can a track built for the dance floor also hold a listener at home? Mike McCarthy’s answer is to put melody and songwriting first while keeping the structure a DJ needs. The vocal gives the record a way in for people who would never call themselves progressive house fans. Meanwhile, the production still works in a set.

That balance places the single in a long tradition. Paul van Dyk spent years pairing trance melody with guest singers, on records such as Time of Our Lives with Vega 4. Mike McCarthy now releases on the VANDIT Alternative imprint linked to Paul van Dyk’s company. Above & Beyond ran vocal trance and deeper progressive house side by side through Anjunabeats and Anjunadeep. Right By You works on a smaller scale than either, yet it draws on the same instinct to let a vocal carry an electronic record.

Who Right By You Is For, From Vocal Trance Fans to Melodic House Playlists

The natural audience is wide. Listeners who follow melodic house and progressive house will hear the production first. Fans of vocal trance and vocal progressive will hear the song. Listeners who keep emotional electronic music on their playlists, from melodic techno to uplifting house, will find a track that sits comfortably between both camps.

NewMusic.News’s curator team: “Right By You shows why the order of the work matters. Because Mike McCarthy built the track around Viktoria Sunshine’s vocal, the drop feels like part of the song instead of a break from it, which is rare in progressive house.”

Stream Right By You on Spotify. Then follow Mike McCarthy on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Beatport, Deezer, Tidal, YouTube, SoundCloud, Instagram, Facebook and X. The official site has the full story.

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