by Sydney J
Hi, I’m Sydney J, an indie-folk artist based in Manhattan, New York. I’ve been writing songs for as long as I can remember, but in 2025, my approach to songwriting began to shift. I became more interested in creating something open-ended, less like a straightforward retelling of events, and more like a space where multiple emotions and experiences could exist at once.
That shift is what led me to create my most popular song, “but so close!”.
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“There is a place in the heart that/ will never be filled / a space / and even during / the best moments / and / the greatest times.” Charles Bukowski (You get so alone at times that it just makes sense)
The universe is full of magical things and insightful signs.
However, like the sun is sometimes completely out of sight, hidden behind the thickest winter fog and grey skies, it can be hard to connect with it when going through certain moments or chapters of our lives. Magic can seem out of reach or, worse, forever gone.
How I experience the world and everyday life is a rare and precious gift I am very grateful for. It also comes with frequently struggling with finding balance and peace.
I have so much joy to share and so much darkness in me that I still wonder how can these two coexist with such intensity within the same person? And what to do with such parameters?
Continue readingby Anna Karney
After my previous album, Creatures In The Garden, I didn’t think I had another one in me. But suddenly this chorus just popped out, lyrics, chords, and melody all at once, “We will all come out together for love, love, love.” And I really needed to hear these hopeful words, because of the daily barrage of sad news. It was enough to start me off on my next album journey.
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When I wrote I REMEMBER YOU, I had been watching a friend go through a really rough time. They had been going through the kind of difficulties that challenge your identity and your ability to show up for life in a healthy way. They had pretty much shut down and tried to hide it from the world, but they were not themselves, and anyone who really knew them could see how much they were struggling.
In moments like that, you have two choices: show up and love the person where they are, and remind them who they are and that they are loved, regardless of whether they can give anything back to you, or check out and leave. I choose to show up.
Continue readingby Poli Nika
I look into his eyes and remain silent. I know my silence wounds him, but I can’t utter a single word. My throat tightens, my head spins with the darkest thoughts I’d never dare say out loud. “What would he think of me then?” These are the monsters inside me, and I’ll never let them destroy what we have. I’ll never let them out, because then…
by Ben Richel
During my childhood in Savoie, France, most of my free time was devoted to one activity: imagination. I imagine grandiose destinies but also standard and common stories: From fishermen in the Philippines to Western rockstars, from 19th-century wars to post-collapse scenarios, from my Star Wars spin-offs to projecting myself on stage later… I could imagine revolutionary flying machines, and the same day imagine the realistic routine of the today’s French middle class (I am myself in the middle, like Malcolm!)
For me, everything is interesting.
My life has been built by imagining and connecting lives. It was obvious that one day I would invent characters, partly because expressing my whole personality cannot be done by simply embodying a predefined, cliché role given by society.
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Years back, I attended my late cousin’s funeral in the core of the inner city where she lived. One could call the area run-down, poor, and even scary. It was the kind of place where taking to the street at night was risky, let alone by day. Many of the shops were closed down, and the upkeep on the surrounding buildings was minimal, to say the least.
My cousin had been renting a three-room apartment over a dingy hotel where she lived a hand-to-mouth existence due to childhood traumas. Every time I went to this city, I made a point of stopping in on her for a visit because, despite her struggle, she hadn’t lost her sense of humor and hadn’t forgotten the ways of knowing taught to us by our grandmother. She was fun and had a great sense of humor. She didn’t let too much bother her, and I enjoyed spending time with her. It was relaxing because there was no pressure to be anything else than two cousins spending time together. We would often jump into my car, as she didn’t own a vehicle, and drive out to the country for fresh air and a change of scenery.
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Hi, my name’s Jamie Hutchings; I’m a singer, songwriter, guitarist, percussionist, and sometime improviser and producer. I’m based in Sydney, Australia.
Music was a given in my family household as my dad was a woodwind session cat. He’s 83 now, but he still gigs here and there, but as kids, it was his bread and butter. So all of us inherited his musicality in some form, but still (particularly with my brother and I), we found ourselves gravitating more and more towards rawness and originality over professionalism and technique. I was looking through my mum and dad’s record collection the other night, and it’s almost exclusively Frank Sinatra records. Sinatra is amazing, but the overexposure to music in a show-biz format perhaps contributed to us going in a different direction!
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Lissa and I began performing and recording together in Los Angeles in 1980. Our first band was called ‘Live Nude Girl’ formed during the post-punk era. Angular, with arcane drum-machines, synths, guitars, and theatrical graphic visuals. I am an American-born Australian, who grew up in Sydney, went to design school in Melbourne, then after starting my career in visual communication design, relocated to the USA to freelance in design and get serious about song writing. To find collaborators, starting bands, and doing solo singer-songwriter spots around LA, while designing in the daytime.
by Richard Thomas a.k.a. Mint Biscuit
I spent three or four years as a student in school and University, playing in rock bands and organizing music events. These years were the best of my life, filled with music, love, learning, friendship, and joy. It was also a tumultuous time, with stress, illness, and injury plaguing my life. In the band “Mint,” we played loads of gigs around my University town of Durham and recorded an album, “Leaving It Late,” which marked the culmination of our collective collaboration with a flourish.
After going “off the rails” slightly for this short period, I had to force discipline back into my life. I quit the rock and roll lifestyle completely and returned to being the hard-working, sports-playing, family-oriented guy I was before. I played rugby four times a week. I completed my degree eventually and got married to my girl.
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