BŠĀR – Venus
BŠĀR—the stage name of classically trained composer Ben Royston—has built a reputation on genre-agnostic experimentation, mining the edges of pop, jazz, R&B, new wave, hip-hop and alt-rock with an "anything is possible" approach that treats musical boundaries as suggestions rather than rules. What's immediately striking about 'Venus' is how this omnivorous musical appetite serves the song's emotional core rather than overwhelming it. This is synthpop with a philosophical bent, wrapped in enough glossy production sheen to slip past your defences before delivering its more sobering observations about contemporary human frailty.