**The Milwaukee jazz queen purrs her way through her tenth album with feline grace, swinging hard and sighing soft — and the results are rather irresistible.**

Pop music, at its most honest, is the art of the confessional dressed in its Sunday best. It is the ache beneath the melody, the longing that hides inside a good chorus, the peculiar bravado of a man who picks up an instrument and insists — against all probability — that the feeling he carries is worth your time. Max Restaino, the Sheffield-bred multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter whose Italian grandmother unknowingly launched a career by bringing a button accordion back from the old country, has built his entire artistic identity on precisely this proposition. And with *Girl of My Dreams*, he makes it stick.

British music has always done its finest work at the intersection of pain and defiance. From the bruised soul of Dusty Springfield to the barnstorming confessionals of Adele, this island has a particular gift for turning heartbreak into something that feels like a collective reckoning. Carmen Rose Davidson's **Make Sure** belongs squarely in that lineage — and it arrives, with rather impeccable timing, at a cultural moment crying out for exactly this kind of song.

Sheffield has long harboured a quiet genius for producing artists who refuse to be tidily categorised. The city that gave us the clipped electro-angst of the Human League and the baroque pop architecture of Pulp has, it seems, been quietly incubating something altogether more warm-blooded. Max Restaino — pronounced, lest you fumble it at a dinner party, REST-I-KNOW — is not the Sheffield you were expecting. And that, emphatically, is the point.

The French six-piece Shooqa 22 have crafted a peculiar little gem with "Waaa (you make me slow)", a track that refuses to settle into any comfortable genre classification while somehow feeling entirely cohesive. This is music for those who've grown weary of the algorithmic predictability that plagues so much contemporary output—a song that demands your attention through its sheer compositional audacity.

Romain Gutsy has spent decades living between languages, between subway platforms and recording studios, between the ghosts of Jacques Brel and the whispers of Leonard Cohen. With "Comme un Azur dans l'Ame," he finally plants his flag back in French soil—and the homecoming feels earned rather than opportunistic.

Melbourne's Shani Weiss returns with "Feel Alright," a single that transforms personal crisis into universal anthem with the deft touch of a songwriter who understands that the most profound moments often arrive disguised as simple gestures. Following the critical and commercial momentum of "All About Life" and "What's Left," this third offering finds Weiss mining deeper emotional territory while maintaining the vintage pop sensibilities that have earned her consecutive Outstanding Achievement awards from The Real Songwriters of Melbourne.

Bailey Grey is a talented American singer-songwriter and actor who is preparing to release her debut album 'Love it All' in May. The upcoming album includes 14 tracks filled with beautiful lyrics about life and death, love and separation.

Collaborations is a unique musical project through which excellent creative ideas are embodied, which is based on close cooperation between professional musicians, composers, arrangers and producers.

Jonathan Brenner is an important part of the Atlanta music scene. He constantly performs and releases his colorful tracks, bringing sincere and thoughtful songs to our modern world.