Browsing Category

YouTube

Humanity Holds the Line in the Cinematic Pop Rock Salvation of Julian Veliss’ ‘Ahead of You’

Posted on 9 July 2026

We are a little late to the party with Julian Veliss’ viral single and music video, Ahead of You, but the hype is still, unsurprisingly, in full swing. The Slovenian-German singer-songwriter has created the contemporary equivalent to Hallelujah; a secularly sermonic single that breaks the silence in the void of isolation and loneliness so many people have slipped into.

Signs of endemic disillusionment are everywhere you turn, making seminal singles such as Ahead of You more than melancholy-validating feel-good releases. They become rare opportunities to find catharsis in pain and power in the belief that you, just by virtue of being human, deserve to feel optimism and hope.

It is a stunningly rendered single, led by Veliss’ voice that could lead a choir, broadside on Broadway and effortlessly fill a stadium. His early appearances on Slovenia’s Got Talent and Deutschland sucht den Superstar make complete sense when you hear the vocal authority he brings here, yet the performance carries tenderness alongside its scale. When fortitude-fuelled vocals are accompanied by little more than acoustic guitar, the release already feels complete. When the arrangement rises into cinematic, orchestrally scored pop rock, it becomes aural salvation. With international radio airplay already behind it, Ahead of You proves Julian Veliss can raise others through formidable talent.

Ahead of You is now available to stream on all major platforms. For the full enrapturing experience, stream the official music video on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Spiritual Ambience became Cosmic Transcendence in POSITIVE ENERGIES’ Latest Meditation Music Masterwork

Posted on 21 April 2026

POSITIVE ENERGIES opened a sonic doorway to the oneness of the universe with the cosmic transcendence of their latest seminal meditation music piece, which sprawls across galaxies within the span of 11 minutes.

Accompanied by a visualiser on YouTube, which continues to garner attention after racking up 20k streams, the composition is bathed in a celestial glow; the iridescence envelops the reverberations of the sustained notes that have a way of defying their own quiescence and radiating through your core. It’s a stunning piece of spiritual ambience and as expansive as the galactic ground covered in the spacy arrangement; it is enough to never leave you under the illusion that space is empty again.

There is a sublime sense of suspension in the composition, with the minimalist notes extending the meditative state and drawing the mind further into contemplation. POSITIVE ENERGIES has a unique way of channelling a meditative sense of immersion through a spiritually direct lens, inviting stillness, concentration, and deep internal release.

Created by composer and arranger Behrang Ghodrati, POSITIVE ENERGIES draws from a substantial background in film, theatre, animation, and instrumental composition. Through this healing music project, Ghodrati has built a growing sanctuary for meditation, sleep, yoga, and emotional balance.

Meditation music by POSITIVE ENERGIES is now available to stream on YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Defiant Darius reigned as a hip-hop supreme with his dirty southern swagger in ‘Came Down’ 

Posted on 17 April 2026

Few rappers do more than Defiant Darius when reinventing old-school hip-hop for the modern era. There isn’t a vibe check his seminal single, Came Down, accompanied by a viral official music video, couldn’t pass; you’ll feel your rhythmic pulses soften into submission to the cinematic production, which cuts old-school soul samples around one of the most versatile vocal performances contemporary hip-hop has to offer.

Baton Rouge-born and Houston-raised, Darius comes from a lineage shaped by storytellers such as Tupac Shakur, Nasir Jones, Jermaine Cole, and Nipsey Hussle, and that grounding shows in the way he lets lived experience sit at the centre of the track without ever losing the composure of the delivery.

He has mastered the art of the seamless switch-up while never letting his grooves lose their grip. There’s just something about his laidback luxe aura that instantly envelops you into his world, rather than forcing you to stand back and observe the grind that got him here. You feel it in the cool, collected cadence, which dominates while creating a slick juxtaposition with the fervidly temperate production.

Following the momentum of his EPs 2 Defiant, Southern Hustler, and Mo City Soldier, and with stages across the States and even Japan behind him, Came Down lands as another reminder that Defiant Darius has the range and presence to beome a hip-hop icon in his own unshakable right.

Came Down is now available on all major streaming platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Dominyka Mauliute Stirred the Spirit of Resistance Through Her Psychedelic Slice of Indie Pop Activism, ‘Changes’

Posted on 10 February 2026

In Dominyka Mauliute’s Changes, contemporary activism is enmeshed within the fervour and psychedelia of the 60s, pulling two eras of uprising into the same emotional current. She shows how resistance still carries necessity, how the threat of futility shadows progress when it creeps into collective consciousness. Her delivery moves with that drifting, spectral quality found in the work of Angel Olsen and Mazzy Star, yet the way she haunts her own soundscapes comes entirely through her instinct. Nothing feels detached or theoretical; the conviction sits right there in the arrangement as if it has been breathed into the structure.

As the single progresses, the edges twist into the hazier textures of 70s psych rock. Those elements weave themselves into the release with a natural sense of momentum, carrying motifs of history forward to become a quiet antidote to apathy. Her jazz guitar background infuses warmth into the track without ever tipping it into ornamentation. Instead, the notes lift the sense of purpose already running beneath the lines, letting the political thread stay rooted in emotion rather than spectacle. The whole piece feels like a reminder that resistance gathers power when it holds both clarity and vulnerability at once.

Outside this release, Dominyka’s path adds to the gravity behind her sound. The Lithuanian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and jazz guitarist has already established a presence through viral performances, national stages, and a growing catalogue shaped through her own production. Studying philosophy feeds into her introspective tilt, illuminating the way she approaches themes of agency, identity, and internal conflict. Her move towards dreamier indie textures was a natural progression, giving her soulful guitar lines and ethereal vocal tone a landscape where they can settle and stretch.

Changes is now available on all major streaming platforms. For the full experience, watch the official music video on YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

 Inbar Solomon Sextet fused rabbit-hole timbres into front-row escapism in ‘Right on Q ‘

Posted on 15 December 2025

There is a list of accolades that could easily become taller than the Empire State Building trailing behind saxist and composer Inbar Solomon and his Inbar Solomon Sextet as they cement their status as some of NYC’s most prestigious jazz mesmerists. In the live performance of Right on Q at Arnold Hall, his reverence for the expressive art form becomes transfixingly alive. Each instrumental voice is effortlessly synergised with the next, pouring the arrangement so it moves like one fluid motion, each note an extension of the brass-tinged glamour of the genre.

It is a time warp, stripping back the decades and dressing the room in swanky opulence. The way the alto and tenor resist harmony yet still circle around the trombone lets you tumble down the rabbit hole of one of the most scintillating timbre kaleidoscopes you are likely to hear; no bar feels exclusive enough to exclude the Sextet. This piece serves as a reminder of what pure class sounds like.

Originally from Tel Aviv and now rooted in New York, Solomon honed his language at The New School before taking that bebop foundation onto stages from Bern to Jerusalem, and the Brooklyn haunts that shape the city’s current jazz lifeblood. As a bandleader, he writes for interaction and storytelling as much as for chops, which is why Right on Q lands like an invitation into his world of melody-forward, audience-connected improvisation.

The sextet format gives him room to let each player speak while still keeping the lines lucid, so heads who crave intricate horn writing alongside old-school swing energy will find a proper gem here. Right on Q is the kind of performance that makes you want to swap scrolling for a front-row seat.

The Live Performance of Right on Q is now available on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Rocki Ozai brought hypnotic depth and diaphanous soul to the full-bodied surrender of her art-house alt-indie release,  Smoke

Posted on 18 November 2025

Rocki Ozai channelled hypnotically demure art-house cinema into her latest single and music video, Smoke. The NYC-based trailblazer takes a torch to anything resembling convention, and in the wake of that blaze, she offered a full-bodied manifestation of genre fluidity laced with soulful spirituality. “Single” feels like a reductive term for what this release achieves. The richness, restraint, and resolve it delivers proves Ozai’s sound is less about adherence to style and more about grounding emotion in slow-burning sonics.

As her vocals flirt with the aesthetics of indie dream pop and RnB, the instrumentals lay the framework for something far more vital than mood. Smoke is less about ambience and more about immersion. The organic warmth that bleeds through the basslines and guitar stings works in tandem with swathes of spatial reverb and diaphanously grounding syncopated percussion. There’s no disconnect, no excess, just tone mastery and a meditatively tempered tempo that pulls you into surrender.

The video elevates the track without overshadowing it, a feat few manage. Every visual element deepens the atmosphere already etched into the production. It is a full cinematic extension of the emotional control and sensual detachment that courses through Smoke. If Rocki Ozai were to release an album in this vein, it would be a disarming act of emotional regulation through sonic alchemy. Her ability to tune into the emotional states most can’t articulate is rare. In an age of empty performance, she’s offering real resonance.

Smoke is now available on all major streaming platforms. For the full experience, stream the video on YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

A Child’s Prayer opened the floodgates of Remilekun’s soul-stirring contemporary Christian and Gospel songcraft

Posted on 29 October 2025

If there’s any artist on our radar who we hope permeates as many souls and psyches as possible, it’s Remilekun. The latest single from the gospel choir leader, A Child’s Prayer, exemplifies why. From the first vocal note, which follows the mellow, melodious keyboard-driven instrumental prelude, a flood of emotion hits as you become witness to Remilekun’s superlative ability to channel compassion and her unwavering strength found in faith through her harmonies. In A Child’s Prayer, that faith resounds as it’s shared in upliftingly caressive key.

In the single’s peak of stridency, it’s impossible not to be moved, not only by the sheer affecting radiance of the release, but through the sanctuary of synergy within the performance captured in the live recording of the single; the resonance registers at a sub-atomic, metaphysical level; while her choir feed a steady current of assurance, Remilekun delivers the fortitude that has allowed her to become one of the most noteworthy singer-songwriters in contemporary Christian and gospel today.

The single becomes all the more profound when you learn that A Child’s Prayer was the first song written by Remilekun. Before her confidence as an artist fully bloomed, the ability to stir the soul and honour dreams through music was already burning quietly within her. Her decision to finally share it with the world speaks to the depth of her calling.

A Child’s Prayer is now available on all major streaming platforms. For the full experience, watch the official music video on YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Plaedoha flirts with future pasts in the euphoric escapism of the synth score, Opening Sky

Posted on 25 October 2025

Plaedoha slathered their standout instrumental single Opening Sky in retrofuturist euphoria, inducing a heady dose of nostalgia through twilight-beckoning synths that strobe and stab their way into your rhythmic pulses and pleasure senses.

There are swathes of scintillation writhing within the mellifluous production, but Plaedoha never lets the sci-fi aesthetics overpower the mix. The synths don’t serve as a novelty throwback; they’re tools of immersion, pulling you into a starlit atmosphere where the past and the future hold hands across an 80s-lit dreamscape. The production is drenched in cinematic serenity, yet a steady current of momentum flows beneath, giving the piece a sense of purpose without needing to shout about it. It never tries too hard to dazzle, it simply envelops.

Opening Sky plays out like an invitation to drift beyond what your senses can grasp. There’s restraint in the sparkle, control in the cosmic alchemy, and enough mood architecture to trigger personal projection. The track lays out the blueprint for escape, then disappears into its own synthesised sunset.

Based in the world of electronic composition and analogue ingenuity, Plaedoha’s aesthetic touches on sci-fi without slipping into caricature. It’s as much about tone and mood as it is about melody and structure. Opening Sky is the ultimate spectral portal for anyone who has ever chased the ecstasy of soundwaves that shimmer like chrome.

Opening Sky is now available on all major streaming platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Mia Laren crowns the dancefloor with defiant soul in ‘Are You Ready (for My Crazy)’

Posted on 22 October 2025

In under a week, Mia Laren has already racked up over 14,000 streams on her new music video for Are You Ready (for My Crazy), which has enough momentum and earworm anatomy to become one of the biggest viral pop hits of 2025. The single flips the script on the tired mantra of “if you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best” by soulfully digging into how the scars we carry neither determine nor diminish our worth and power. They’re simply there, etched into our story, leaving us raw as we embrace vulnerability every time we drop our armour.

With a spiritual aura wrapped around primal beats, transcending from Mia Laren’s luxuriant harmonies and kinetically liberating choruses, Are You Ready lands as one of the most affectingly empowering pop anthems you could reach for when questioning what you bring to relationships. Mia Laren may play the role of the seductress with ease, but behind her femme fatale, siren-esque presence on the airwaves, she is a profound artist who has more than earned her place at the top of the charts.

Born in Baltimore and now based in San Diego, Mia Laren is a singer, songwriter, producer and dancer who threads pop, dance-pop, Latin and reggaeton influences through music that consistently explores self-discovery and empowerment. Her background in public health informs the deeper purpose behind her art, using music and movement as tools for social impact. With Are You Ready (for My Crazy), she proves that strength was never lost, only hidden beneath heartbreak, trauma and survival.

Are You Ready (for My Crazy) is now available on all major streaming platforms; for the full experience, watch the official video on YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Kwanz Poured Lo-Fi Longing into Dream-Soaked Indie Rock in Where the Sun Sets

Posted on 4 October 2025

Where the Sun Sets, the latest single from Kwanz, echoes what Elliott Smith’s music would have been if he had sunk his sound into a pool of saturation and wandered towards a more ethereal Violent Femmes aesthetic. The tender melodic currents caress with the same fragility, yet they drift through a haze that carries far more weight than nostalgia alone. There’s something dream-soaked and carefree about this seminal release; it conjures the sensation of lying back in fading sunlight, watching time slip by in slow, honeyed frames.

The modern take on 90s lo-fi, seemingly pulled straight from a worn tape deck, allows memory and immediacy to converge. That slight warp in the fidelity doesn’t obscure the resonance; it heightens it, pulling the listener into a drift of pure euphonic longing. Where the Sun Sets unfolds like an indie-rock lullaby that doesn’t plead for attention but instead demands complete immersion. It’s a track that carries you elsewhere, inviting your aspirations to dissolve and transcend with the timbres in its cultivated tones.

Fresh from the hiatus of Yaard Sale, where he served as frontman, Kwanz has stripped his artistry back to its most personal influences. His new EP captures the essence of change, mirroring the warmth and melancholy of shifting seasons while offering music he describes as for “real yearners only.” That yearning cuts through Where the Sun Sets, transforming it into more than a seasonal vignette; it’s a reminder of how longing, when channelled with authenticity, can make lo-fi sound like lifeblood.

Where the Sun Sets is now available on all major streaming platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast