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There is a grief that comes not in the immediate aftermath of loss but in the slow months and years that follow, when the person you have lost begins to change in your memory: softening at the edges, becoming less specific, less themselves and more the version of themselves that survives in the stories you tell and the images you return to. The living, difficult, particular human being gradually becomes something you can only hold at one remove, in language and recollection rather than in the room. They become, to use Melody Briar’s precise and quietly devastating word, intangible. ‘The Intangible Man’, the new single from Briar’s forthcoming debut album Green Aventurine, is a song about that specific transformation: the unsettling process of preserving someone whose existence once felt immeasurably alive and now exists only in the shifting, unreliable medium of memory. It is not a song about the moment of loss but about what happens after, when the sharpness of grief gradually gives way to something more complex and in some ways harder to name. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, YouTube Briar is a classically trained musician, her foundation built through years studying piano, voice and classical repertoire, and ‘The Intangible Man’ carries that training in the best possible way: not as display but as structure, the compositional sensitivity informing every decision about how the arrangement develops and where the emotional weight lands. The song moves between moments of quiet intimacy and genuine expansiveness, and that movement is handled with the kind of careful, considered craft that comes from someone who understands how music works at a deep formal level and has chosen to put that understanding entirely in service of the feeling. The production, handled in full by Michael Banks, builds around Briar’s piano and vocals before introducing cellist Aaron Stokes, violinist Jimmy Drancsak and acoustic guitarist Kirk Schoenherr in layers that feel entirely organic: each instrument arriving because the song needs it, the string arrangements swelling with the kind of emotional specificity that marks genuine compositional intelligence rather than atmospheric gesture. Patricia Sullivan’s mastering gives the finished track the sonic clarity the material deserves. The comparisons to Phoebe Bridgers, Lana Del Rey, Caroline Polachek and The Cranberries that the press material draws are all earned: Briar occupies the same territory of cinematic, emotionally intelligent alternative songwriting where the production serves the lyric and the lyric serves the feeling and the whole thing coheres into something that asks more of the listener than most contemporary pop is willing to demand. But she is doing her own specific thing within that territory, shaped by the particular losses and transformations that generated Green Aventurine as a project and by a compositional voice that is genuinely her own. Green Aventurine navigates grief, love, memory, vulnerability and impermanence across its full length. If ‘The Intangible Man’ is representative of what the album contains, it is going to be one of the year’s most significant debut statements from an artist who has found, in the most difficult material imaginable, the foundation for music of lasting and genuine beauty. #MelodyBriar #IndieAlt #SingerSongwriter

Find Sakai: Instagram, TikTok, Website, Spotify “It feels so good to release the DYLMN EP. It’s a vulnerable thing, sharing something you’ve poured yourself into with the world. It’s a delicate dance.” When Marié Sakai describes the release of Sakai’s debut EP Do You Like Me Now? in those terms, she is describing the subject of the record itself, which makes the statement more resonant than most artist quotes tend to be. This is an EP about wanting to be seen and fearing what being seen costs. About seeking connection while dreading exposure. About the delicate dance, specifically, between vulnerability and performance, and what happens to your sense of self when you spend too long in the performance and forget which side you were on to begin with. The five-piece San Francisco band, Marié alongside Audie Bethea on guitar, Brendon Daugherty on bass, Caroline Carter on drums and Ryan DiCenzo on keys, formed in 2025 and recorded at Tiny Telephone in Oakland with additional overdubs at Women’s Audio Mission in San Francisco, engineered and mixed by Danielle Goldsmith and mastered by Amar Lal. These are not incidental details: the specificity of the recording environment, the deliberate choice to record at Women’s Audio Mission, speaks to a band making conscious decisions about where their music is made and what those decisions mean. The four tracks cover remarkable sonic ground. ‘Orange Tree’ is built using the Hirajoshi scale, a traditional Japanese pentatonic tuning system, and features flute, emerging from an eighth-century Japanese poem and a shamisen and koto recital Marié attended in San Francisco. The result merges literary influence with contemporary composition to explore relational impermanence in a way that feels both ancient and entirely of the present moment. ‘Out’ confronts existential anxiety and avoidance with a self-questioning loop that will be immediately recognisable to anyone who has ever chosen distraction over engagement. ‘Wanted’ captures the physicality of longing through lyrical ambiguity deliberately crafted to invite listeners to project their own experience. The title track builds toward a dynamic shift powered by a grand piano that arrived spontaneously in the studio: unplanned, unrepeatable and exactly right. Each band member’s individual description of what the EP means to them reinforces what the music itself communicates: this is collective work in the truest sense. A debut of genuine artistic intelligence and considerable emotional courage.

At just 13, Iris Danbury is already showing a clear instinct for turning everyday emotions into songs that feel immediately accessible. Her latest single, ‘About You’, takes that instinct in a warmer, more personal direction, swapping the attitude of her debut ‘I Don’t Care’ for a celebration of friendship, connection and the people who unexpectedly become important to us. (Notion) INSTAGRAM | WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TIKTOK | SPOTIFY | YOUTUBE Built around live guitars, sampled drums and a youthful pop-rock energy, ‘About You’ has plenty of movement without losing sight of its central sentiment. The track starts from a deceptively simple premise - having life figured out before someone comes along and changes the picture - but Iris delivers it with an openness that keeps the song from becoming overly sentimental. The lyrics are conversational and uncomplicated, allowing the emotion to sit naturally within the music. That is perhaps the track’s greatest strength. ‘About You’ doesn’t try to manufacture a huge emotional moment; instead, it captures the feeling of realising that someone has become part of your world almost before you noticed it happening. There is a lovely sense of discovery running through the song, particularly in the contrast between having a plan and discovering that life has other ideas. Iris continues to find her footing between pop, pop-rock and indie, with the guitars providing enough edge to prevent the track from drifting into overly polished territory. There is an enthusiasm to the performance that suits the subject matter, giving ‘About You’ the feel of a song made to be played loudly with friends rather than quietly contemplated alone. The accompanying music video adds another layer to that idea. Where the song focuses on the importance of another person, the visuals give Iris the opportunity to inhabit the track’s youthful, energetic world. It works as a natural extension of the single rather than simply a promotional add-on, reinforcing the sense of personality that runs through the release. Placed alongside ‘I Don’t Care’, the progression is particularly interesting. Her debut introduced Iris with a more rebellious, self-assured edge; ‘About You’ demonstrates that confidence can also be generous. She isn’t abandoning the attitude of her first release: she’s showing that there’s more to her songwriting than one perspective. With ‘About You’, Iris Danbury makes a convincing second statement: bright, guitar-led and emotionally straightforward, but with enough personality to suggest there is plenty more to come. It is a small song about a big part of growing up — discovering that the people you meet can completely change the plans you thought you had made. Press Photo Credit: Ant Robling