The questions nobody escapes. Because music is never really just about music. This first edition of The Thing About Us #1 brings together Alex Amen, Sylvan Esso, Graham Hunt, Carlotta Schmidt and The Healing Power of Horses, five artists wrestling with the same persistent questions: Who are we becoming? What do we hold onto? And what happens when certainty disappears? People spend an alarming amount of time pretending. Pretending to know where they're going. Pretending to hav

Five releases worth spending time with this week. Finding resilience through uncertainty, connection and change Not every song about struggle sounds the same. This edition of On This Track: Midweek Listening #1 moves between hardcore, punk, alternative rock and pop, highlighting five artists confronting uncertainty from different angles. Whether through personal transformation, burnout, conflict or friendship, these releases explore what it means to keep moving forward when c

Five releases worth spending time with this weekend Searching for connection through memory, community and shared experience Not every release arrives with the same intention. On This Track Weekend Listening #1 moves between math rock, art-punk, dream-pop, Balkan alternative music and classic power pop, highlighting five artists approaching connection from different angles. Daydream Plus – "Speed Limit" Photo by Daydream Plus Blending math rock precision with city pop warmth

AI-assisted editorial collage On hypervisibility, algorithmic pressure and the exhaustion of constant presence OPENING TENSION Artists used to disappear between albums. Now disappearance feels dangerous. Silence no longer creates anticipation. It kills momentum. Post less for a few weeks, and the algorithm notices immediately. Engagement drops. Followers stagnate. Reach collapses. In a culture driven by constant visibility, absence is no longer interpreted as mystery. It's in

AI-assisted editorial collage On the invisible pressure that turns individuality into a formula OPENING TENSION Alternative culture was built on the promise of escape. Escape from mainstream aesthetics, mainstream sounds, mainstream ways of being seen. But scroll through indie music spaces today, and contemporary indie artist aesthetics start to feel strangely familiar. Everyone is escaping in exactly the same direction. MAIN THESIS The algorithm doesn't just decide who gets

Early movements across authorship, continuity and articulation This first Three Track Week: Signals #1 selection brings together artists operating across different stages of their practice, from long-term scene presence to reconfigured authorship and socially engaged songwriting. Rather than forming a unified narrative, these tracks point toward distinct directions in how independent music is currently being made and positioned. What emerges is not a shared sound, but a set o