I was recently discussing with a couple of friends of mine how the intention and conviction behind any musical piece can be felt by the listener, and the level of authenticity really does come through. The brain can discern if someone is just feigning a sad delivery of a line in a movie or a vocal line in a song. In this EP, especially the title track, the grief and love Emily expresses come through strongly in every note and every creative decision, from the atmospheric layers to the chords and harmony. From a songwriting perspective, the pauses between the vocal lines give the lines the weight they deserve. As Miles Davis said, silence is more important than sound, and Emily is taking that to heart here, whether it was a conscious decision or not.

“Clarity” opens the EP on a brighter note – an upbeat alternative pop track about that particular feeling of encountering someone and knowing immediately that it means something. It’s the more accessible of the two, built around a driving arrangement and a chorus that genuinely lifts. The title track “Another World” is where the EP earns its weight. Written after the passing of the love of her life, it takes everything “Clarity” sets up and reframes it in light of loss. The production leans into cinematic electronic-pop textures, pulsing and atmospheric, and the contrast between the two tracks makes the emotional payoff land harder than either would alone.

Emily Daccarett’s “Another World” is a truly heartfelt expression that uses familiar sound textures production-wise but still manages to sound fresh because it has an emotional core to it. I feel like Emily’s writing and execution of her vision for these songs is really special and I hope she continues to create songs in the same manner because it’s working.

The opening is deceptively gentle. A gliding slide guitar and steady acoustic rhythm create a sense of ease, like stepping back into a familiar summer memory. There’s warmth here, but it’s not indulgent. It feels curated, almost fragile, like something that could slip away at any moment. As the arrangement unfolds, that softness begins to shift, not through dramatic changes, but through subtle emotional erosion.

Ivory Snow’s voice carries this tension beautifully. There’s a striking consistency in the vocal tone between verses, as if past and present are being sung from the same emotional space. Yet beneath that steadiness, something unsettled grows. When the chorus arrives, it doesn’t explode, it sinks. What we hear is not a breaking point, but a quiet surrender to the weight of time.

The lyrics move with a kind of understated precision. Childhood fragments, corner shops, and late-night television are placed against images of adult stagnation: office routines, sleeplessness, unfulfilled ambition. The repetition of “dug around / pulling me down / right about now” lands like a looped thought, intrusive and persistent, mirroring the mental cycles that keep us in place.

Then comes the shift. The bridge doesn’t offer comfort; it offers clarity. “There are boneyards full of people who thought they’d make it out” is delivered without dramatics, which makes it hit even harder. It reframes the entire song, not as a nostalgic reflection, but as a confrontation. Time is not waiting. It never was.

The music video deepens this emotional landscape. Rooted in real locations tied to Snow’s upbringing, it moves between memory and motion with striking intentionality. Water becomes a central motif: fluid, reflective, and freeing; contrasted with the rigidity of adult routine. The dual ending is particularly effective: one version suspends the protagonist in a moment of stillness, floating in the past, while the other propels them forward, lifted by the energy of a live crowd. Neither cancels the other. They coexist, just like the song’s central tension.

What SUNGAZE achieve here is a kind of emotional restraint that feels rare. They don’t dramatize the struggle, they sit with it, allowing its weight to unfold naturally. Drawing from shoegaze textures and Midwest emo sensibilities, I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights feels expansive yet intimate, polished yet deeply human.

By the time the song fades, SUNGAZE leave us not with resolution, but with awareness. I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights doesn’t promise that things will change, but it reminds us, with quiet urgency, that they must..

From the very first song on the album, “Man on a Wire” Mr. Grossman demonstrates his ingenious usage of harmony to create dreamy soundscapes – the colour palettes shift like a gradient from dark to light, all while the textures provide this distinct airy feel that makes it seem like we’re flying but not soaring, flying gently through gentle pink clouds. The listing on Apple Music categorizes this album as pop, but as we move to the second song, it becomes clear that this album is anything but pop. “Isn’t It Romantic” is like an avant garde fusion between trip-hop and vocal jazz of the 60s.

“Put a Scarf” feels like a marriage between 90s soul music and a Chick Corea song. The lyrics are very striking and very much are about pouring one’s heart out about personal insecurities, and the soulful vocal deliveries really help the delivery of such lyrics, and the harmony stays conventional for most of the song’s runtime to support this heartfelt outpour of emotion. But it evolves as the song goes on and gets spicier and more intense as the song builds to its climax.

⇒ Check our interview with Mr. Grossman here.

“Spice Tree” is appropriately full of spice with weird, slightly detuned synth lines and unconventional chord changes. “Blow Me Away” is instantly recognizable as a song inspired by the 90s trip-hop movement with its choice of textures and the way the vocals are mixed, and obviously the rhythmic devices at play. While “Fingertips” offers more of a Brazilian pop vibe with its harmonic choices, like a bossa nova with a more modern straight-ahead rhythm section. As you can see the album shifts genres almost every song like a chameleon that adapts its colors to the song’s narrative.

After a Fashion is the kind of record that rewards repeat listens precisely because it refuses to stay in one place. Grossman has been putting out material since 2022, and the range has always been there, but this album feels like the fullest expression of it yet – ten songs that cover serious ground without ever feeling scattered. For anyone with an appetite for music that doesn’t fit neatly into a single box like so many of our own emotions, this one is worth your time.

“The Great Escape” leans fully into Bertora’s signature style of instrumental storytelling. Layered synth textures gently unfold, subtle guitar lines drift in and out, and the production feels meticulously shaped to guide the listener on a slow, intentional journey. Rather than following traditional song structures, the piece develops piece by piece, creating a cinematic, immersive atmosphere that grows deeper the longer one stays with it. The title came first and clearly shaped every element that followed, resulting in a quiet yet profound sense of escape — not loud or over-the-top, but reflective and enveloping.

Harry Bertora comments: “The Great Escape is about creating a space where listeners can step away from reality for a moment and get lost in the emotion of sound alone.”

With a career spanning decades and influences rooted in expressive guitar work and evolving synth exploration, Bertora continues to refine his craft. He proves once again that sometimes less really is more, and that a single well-placed note can carry just as much weight as a wall of sound. “The Great Escape” is not chasing trends or quick hits — it offers something more lasting: a space to pause, reflect, and simply exist within the music.

As noted by Osafo Daniel in Rotate Magazine: “If you’ve ever needed a moment to just tune out the noise of everyday life, Harry Bertora’s ‘The Great Escape’ feels like it was made exactly for that… It’s offering something more lasting, a space to pause, reflect, and just exist within the music for a while.”

• Your professional life as a chip designer has run parallel to decades of musical creation, from choral singing—including a performance with Pavarotti—to composing across disparate styles. How has this dual existence informed your ability to move fluidly between genres without feeling constrained by any single tradition?

There’s that whole popular myth about a connection between math and music, but I don’t think that’s what defines me. I grew up with a house full of classical, pop, and jazz, which my parents enjoyed equally, and I was also a clever boy with science. Then there came prog rock and jazz fusion – ELP, Yes, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever – and it was for me like, “Aha! You can mix all these together and it works!” In high school I started building my own synth from scratch. So my creative impulses span all that space.

• After a Fashion deliberately draws from influences spanning Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gaye, and Toro y Moi, yet coalesces into a cohesive whole. What guided your approach to weaving these disparate references into a unified statement that feels both contemporary and timeless?

Well, thank you for the ups! It was a matter of patience – or maybe impatience. During the second half of 2025 I had a few songs like Put a Scarf and Could Happen in the can, but I waited for other ideas to coalesce to flesh out a full album. I could have done a full dreampop album if I went long enough, but I embraced the mix of idioms that I was working with at the time.

• The album’s thematic core examines the “scary edges of romance” amid a fearful present. In what ways did global events and personal reflection shape the lyrical undercurrents across tracks such as “Man on a Wire” and “Blow Me Away”?

The key idea came from Ella’s Isn’t It Romantic, which I heard in my head not simply as a lovey-dovey ballad, but as being full of doubt, shadows, and strange voices. So I change the setting to use mysterious tone clusters and disjointed percussion and bass. Aside from that, the awfulness blaring from the news recently seeped into my mind and personal relationships big time. Thus “Go Out Tonight” takes what could have been a joyful Motown dance tune and say, hey, yeah, go clubbing, but make sure you know where the exit doors are. My family was actually recently trapped in a theater while police cleared a street action outside! Every song has some element of uncertainty, confusion, or wildly overblown emotions. Man on a Wire is mostly a peppy 80’s style recitation of famous books and movies starting with “Man” or “Woman” but then minor chords and tone clusters appear, and the lyrics turn into discord between a couple. Blow Me Away is about letting someone else dictate my emotions, taking advantage of my lost state.

• As both sole producer and primary instrumentalist—augmented only by select guest vocalists—how did the self-contained recording process allow you to realize the album’s intricate layering of MIDI elements, synth textures, and organic instrumentation in a way that earlier collaborative projects could not?

Again, thanks for noticing! I mostly start with my own beats, guitars, bass, and keyboards, but I also made use of some new plugins I discovered and some drum loops that were more authentic than I could generate. I really try to emulate great producers who can pull off complexity on a track without turning it into mush. But I know my limitations, so that’s where the collaboration comes in – like when I needed kick-ass vocalists for a couple songs.

• Songs like “Could Happen (2025 version)” and “Little Queen (Crown Pleaser version)” suggest a revisiting or refinement of prior material. What prompted these specific reimaginings, and how do they illustrate the album’s broader meditation on style as both approximation and literal expression?

“Could Happen” is one of my Cocteau Twins tribute songs. It’s definitely less dark than the other tracks, but it’s about recovering from a dark place lovers got into. The funk track, Little Queen (no relation to Heart’s!) is super upbeat, but it’s also about the danger of a relationship where there’s a huge power disparity.

• The title After a Fashion carries dual meanings of approximation and personal style. How does this concept encapsulate your refusal to be confined by labels, and in what manner does the record serve as a deliberate statement of artistic freedom at this stage of your career?

The third meaning is the acknowledgement that I’m basically a dilettante! I am just a suburban industry outsider borrowing a lot from original musical idioms. Being self-funded and self-produced means I can just put out what interests me and hope it resonates.

• Collaborations with local artists such as Paul Paternoster, Patrick Ames, and Chana Matthews have been a consistent thread since 2022. In what ways did those experiences prepare the ground for the fully autonomous yet outwardly expansive approach taken on After a Fashion?

Working with these awesome folks, we can be each other’s first audience. There’s peril in sitting alone in my studio with only those walls as the horizon.

• With After a Fashion now released, what new compositional directions or collaborative formats are you pursuing next, and how do you envision these future works continuing to explore the tension between technical precision and untethered musical curiosity?

I’ll be recording a fairly major work for chorus and synth pipe organ in May. Also, a while back I really wanted to develop a new kind of music platform that allowed people to play with artists’ stems and easily create and share their own versions of their songs. Maybe I’ll revisit that for a piece or two, because it is both a technical and compositional challenge.

The song explores the emotional whiplash of realizing someone you trusted is actively harming others online. Sabrina Nejmah, born in 2008 to a Moroccan mother and German father, draws from her own observations and experiences to craft a track that balances sharp commentary with melodic accessibility. “I Can’t Love You” marks another step forward after her 2025 debut single “Deep End,” showcasing her growing confidence as both a composer and lyricist.

Sabrina Nejmah, born in 2008 and living in Hamburg, is the daughter of a Moroccan mother and a German father. She is spending her free time composing, writing lyrics, and singing. Together with her father, Sabrina Nejmah has written several sensitive and original songs.

“I Can’t Love You” is the new fresh song for 2026. Sabrina Nejmah sings about finding out that your friend is an internet troll, who insults people and proliferates hate. A very serious subject that the song addresses with wit and a subtle dose of dark irony.

• Find what we said about “I Can’t Love You” here.

Compared to “Chemicals,” this one sits a little quieter in its approach, but the Moon Construction Kit fingerprints are all over it. The layered production, the vintage warmth, the way Cornu builds atmosphere from the inside out – it’s all present. The Elliott Smith and Father John Misty references make sense here more than they did on the previous single. The song earns its fairground-at-night description, and the Big Pharma mantra that closes it out lands with the unsettling feeling he was clearly going for.

One-man projects live and die by how intentional every decision sounds, and Cornu’s are. “Snake Charmer” is another solid entry in what’s quietly becoming an interesting catalog.

Built on radiant synth layers and crisp electric guitars, the production sparkles with movement. There’s a deliberate sheen to it: bright, expressive, almost cinematic; yet it carries enough punch to anchor it firmly in alt-pop-rock territory. The rhythm drives forward with urgency, giving the song a sense of motion that mirrors emotional release.

The hook is immediate and magnetic, the kind of chorus that demands to be sung at full volume. But beneath the infectious energy lies lyrical intention. “Who Whatever” doesn’t dwell on who caused the hurt; instead, it reframes the narrative around reclaiming identity. It’s about reaching that pivotal moment where validation from others becomes irrelevant.

Vocally, Connolly moves with emotional agility. The verses feel intimate and reflective, while the chorus expands outward: brighter, stronger, and defiantly self-assured. Her delivery carries both softness and steel, allowing vulnerability and empowerment to coexist rather than compete.

Connolly’s multidimensional presence, balancing music, runway appearances in New York and Paris, Nashville performances, and her long-standing anti-bullying advocacy, feeds naturally into the track’s ethos. The confidence she sings about doesn’t feel manufactured; it feels practiced, lived, and embodied.

“Who Whatever” feels less like a single and more like a statement of identity. In this release, Maryann Connolly proves she understands the power of pop-rock not just as a genre, but as a vehicle for self-definition. With this release, Connolly delivers exactly what the title of this review promises: something bold, bright, and undeniably built for your main-character moment!