Every week, Music News and Liberty Music look at the best new releases from emerging and self-releasing artists.
Bootie Brown - ‘2 Get 2 U’ Hip-hop veteran Bootie Brown brings his unmistakable charisma to ‘2 Get 2 U’, a smooth and playful new single exploring the elaborate lengths people will go to when attraction takes hold. Built around production discovered through Brown’s own OrganicBeat Session platform, the track connects the adventurous spirit of his work with The Pharcyde to his continuing appetite for fresh collaborators, proving that decades into his career, his curiosity remains as sharp as ever.
Samsara - ‘Stab ‘n Smile’ London-based, Australian-born artist Samsara turns vulnerability into exhilarating pop on ‘Swordfight’, a bold new EP where maximalist electronics and theatrical production collide with deeply personal explorations of identity, sexuality and transformation. At its centre, ‘Stab ’n Smile’ transforms Samsara’s changing relationship with her body into a euphoric synth-pop rush, capturing the project’s defining tension between uncertainty and empowerment while revealing an artist increasingly comfortable embracing every contradiction within herself.
Mark Duggan - ‘Don’t Know Why’ Waterford singer-songwriter Mark Duggan looks towards his debut album ‘Hold That Ghost Down’ with ‘Don’t Know Why’, a beautifully understated folk-rock single that wrestles with uncertainty, fading relationships and the stubborn hope that something might still be salvaged. Moving from intimate acoustic reflection into sweeping full-band crescendos, the track carries echoes of R.E.M. and Tom Petty while revealing Duggan as a compelling storyteller capable of turning memory, loneliness and the struggle to move forward into something quietly anthemic.
Tom Ymani - ‘Amorium’ Belgian artist Tom Ymani transforms the thrill and frustration of unattainable romance into pure pop escapism on Amorium, a double single bringing together ‘I Want You Way’ and ‘Encore Plus’. Pulsing with colourful dance-pop energy, the release refuses to let unrequited desire become purely melancholic, instead turning longing, vulnerability and romantic obsession into a vibrant celebration of freedom, identity and self-expression.
Lone Till Payday - ‘Bike Lane’ North Jersey collective Lone Till Payday embrace their most vulnerable instincts on ‘Bike Lane’, a sweeping art-rock and chamber-pop meditation on recognising that someone you love is already beginning to drift away. Drawn from three separate experiences of relationships nearing their end, the track layers piano, bowed guitar, percussion, strings and choir-like vocals into a beautifully expansive arrangement, offering an affecting glimpse into the communal spirit behind debut album ‘the People and the Places’.
