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Alt-pop artist and creative director Angela Mona is pulling listeners directly into her creative process with Moshi’s Demos, an upcoming seven-song collection arriving exclusively through SoundCloud and YouTube ahead of her debut LP. Instead of waiting until every detail is polished, Mona is sharing the earliest versions of the music, complete with rough vocals, initial arrangements, and ideas captured before anyone had the chance to clean them up. The project centers around Moshi, an alter ego within Mona’s larger mixed-media universe, iAM. Both superhero and villain, Moshi embodies rage, healing, confrontation, and the process of protecting the parts of yourself that are often pressured into silence. Across seven demos, Mona documents that character at different emotional pressure points. The unfinished nature of the recordings becomes part of their appeal. Listeners are not simply hearing songs before an album; they are getting access to the foundation of the world Mona is constructing. That world extends far beyond music. A first-generation Armenian-American, Mona blends cinematic pop, alternative R&B, soul, dance, and protest-driven songwriting with character development, visual direction, and performance. Moshi’s Demos continues that multidisciplinary approach with a visual identity drawing from glitchy Y2K zines, VHS nostalgia, dreamcore imagery, dark whimsy, and crimson against black. Mona has previously released music through HRDRV Records and Venice Music Collective, while tracks including “Relax Bro, I Win,” “Fellas,” and “DramaBomb” have helped establish her increasingly genre-resistant catalog. With Moshi’s Demos, however, perfection is deliberately removed from the equation. Angela Mona is inviting listeners into the messy beginning, presenting the sketches before the final portrait and making the creative process itself part of the story. You’re intentionally releasing Moshi’s Demos in an unfinished state. What do these early versions reveal about you as an artist that a fully produced record might hide? This demo project is just a rollout towards my debut LP and plays as an experiment to see which songs actually hit. They’re all fully produced, mixed, and mastered. As I continue pushing out the songs and sharing them wherever, ultimately I’ll pick 3 or 4 songs to release on the LP. Also half of the songs I recorded contain licensed music which haven’t been purchased yet, hence why it’s safe to release as ‘non-profit’ crediting the original producers while I just co-produced, wrote, and arranged everything. I’m not rushing to release anything on Spotify anyways- once the Spotify team removes every AI-generated piece of slop and quits investing in ICE ads, then I’ll reconsider. Moshi exists as both a superhero and a villain within the iAM universe. What parts of yourself were you able to explore through her that felt harder to confront as Angela Mona? My god, everything. It was all hard, and what made it all harder was the unfamiliarity. ‘Moshi’ is a side of me that would’ve protected and nurtured my younger self as she needed, like an intelligent older sister figure. Coming up with characters really helps me navigate through life and keep the imagination alive cause what’s life without imagination? What’s the purpose without that whimsical wonder and creativity? Since COVID, I learned to appreciate myself more, build inner confidence, forgive myself, and practice going where I’m respected. Maintaining friendships has been on and off because of this; it’s not easy, although I wish it were- not many can meet you at your level and frequency, which I also had to pick up along the way. Reciprocation is an underappreciated form of real love. Shamelessly basking in my sensuality and androgyny is a huge thing as well, which took years. The ‘Moshi’and ‘Mona’ in me bring it out. Honestly, I’m getting into it more through my 20s, and it’s so liberating. I love it. I love this version of me, so let me enjoy every moment. The women before me would be hella proud. My 13-year-old self. My grandmother Shushan, whom I never met, sadly, is with me in spirit, telling me to give them fire, give them love and pain. The project moves through rage, healing, confrontation, and self-protection. Was there one demo that fundamentally changed meaning for you between the moment you wrote it and where you are now? These for sure: “Afraid”, “None of Ur Biz”, “Why So Envy”, and “Angela’s Theme”. Yup, I wrote a theme song for myself cause why not? I always talk about my Moshi, but not the original creator. “Afraid” and “None of Ur Biz” took 2 years to produce, record the vocal layers, and arrange everything. When I started recording them, they felt so average- I wanted something different. I’d play around and experiment with various styles and sounds until something hit, so whatever came out is the ultimate product of my growth. I wouldn’t say it’s my best work, but definitely way better than “Fellas’ lmao. The energy is cinematic. I’ve cried, screamed, laughed, complained, vented- a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. Your work combines music with character development, film, fashion, and visual world-building. When you create, does the song come first, or are you already seeing the character and visual world before the music is finished? It’s always a melody with weird visuals happening in my head. You ever imagine literal film shots or choreography, anything animated when listening to certain music? That’s what’s going on, along with a bunch of colors and patterns. Rarely, I may even get hit with a scent depending on the song; I remember dancing to “Afraid” and suddenly a whiff of apple cinnamon and red velvet hit me; I was like, whoa, wtf. I didn’t have a scented candle lit or any fragrance on me. Same with my cheesy self-produced pop track “Fellas”, at some point during production the smell of pink bubblegum came to me, then pink-glazed doughnuts. It was so random, but I embrace it and find it fascinating. I let everything else flow; I can’t force it. I tell the same thing to my music students who practice songwriting and composition- let the music create itself; you’re just the vessel. You’re letting listeners experience the demos before your debut LP arrives. When they eventually hear the finished record, what do you hope they understand differently because they heard where these songs began? It’s all just a fun, well-needed experiment. Nothing serious. Just a project I’m creating as a rollout to an official debut, so that I’m more consistent with releasing projects, and then more people discover my work and become maddies. I’m doing the best I can with what I got. I don’t have a team; I’m not signed; it’s just me. Out of pocket, out of sight, out of mind. Of course, I want to give a shoutout to the talented musicians and creatives on Musiversal. I book musicians from that platform whenever I need violin, guitar, bass, etc. Even for mixing and mastering, when I need a great mixing engineer to help, I book a slot and get to work. That site is growing, and I’m all in for it; for people like me, it’s so worthwhile. In the LP, there will be 2-3 new songs that aren’t from Moshi’s Demos. Nonetheless, I’m sooooo hyped for what’s to come, and hopefully my bank account can manage lmao. Here’s to breaking cycles like a mad badass.

San Diego independent artist and producer Rafa Mendez introduces his sound and story through El Mexirriqueño, a debut album rooted in his Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage. Blending reggaetón and trap with references to history, cultural figures, identity, struggle, and ambition, Rafa Mendez approaches El Mexirriqueño as more than an introduction to his music. The 12-track album serves as a way of documenting the people and cultures that shaped him while translating those influences into something distinctly his own. El Mexirriqueño is also entirely self-produced, with Rafa Mendez handling everything from developing instrumentals and recording to experimenting with new sounds and refining his production skills along the way. That hands-on process gives the debut an especially personal foundation, capturing an artist still evolving while maintaining a clear sense of what he wants his music to represent. “I hope that my people find me and connect with this album,” Rafa Mendez says. “More than anything, I wanted to show my love and appreciation for my people and my culture in the best way I knew how, through music.” With El Mexirriqueño now establishing that foundation, Rafa Mendez is looking toward more live performances and the next stage of his development as an independent artist. Your debut album pulls heavily from both Mexican and Puerto Rican culture and history. What specific stories, figures, or experiences had the biggest influence on the project? I would say some of my biggest influences were my own history. Growing up in San Diego, RELIGIOUSLY listening to Latino music, and talking to others in my community. A lot of the people around me were Latino, and we shared our stories of what we saw on the streets of Chula Vista. I was in love with music, having headphones on all day. I first discovered my love for music in 4th grade, taking up the violin for a couple of years. I was just so interested in being able to make a sound that has rhythm, and people can move to. It's insane what it is. Then from 6th grade on, I would always be listening to music. Mostly reggaetón and trap. I like to listen to artists like Myke Towers, Bad Bunny, and Ozuna. I would say those 3 artists are my biggest influences when it comes to finding my flow. Another thing I would like to add is, of course, Mexican and Puerto Rican history. But to save time, I'll talk about 2 people who really influenced me. First, Choutemoc. He was the leader of the Aztecs (an indigenous group of Mexico) when the Spaniards came. They were looking for gold and treasures on the land. He led the resistance against them. In 1551 they took Cuauhtémoc captive and tortured him, trying to get secrets from him. But he refused to give up the wealth of his people. He was later executed in 1525. Agüeybaná El Bravo, which translates to Agüeybaná The Brave, was the leader of a certain “tribe” of the Taínos (indigenous group of Puerto Rico). When the Spaniards arrived, he noticed that the people they thought were gods were treating them horribly. So he led a secret operation to drown one of them to see if they died. If they died, that means they weren't gods. So he led a rebellion. I don't know if you could tell, but I love my history. You produced the entire album yourself while continuing to learn throughout the process. Which song challenged you the most creatively or technically, and what did it teach you? I would say the hardest part for me was trying to put what was in my mind onto the computer. I had so many ideas that I wanted to put in, but at the time I didn't know how. And after a while, those ideas went away when I came up with new songs. Of course. Making music is not easy. So I tried my best to research every possible thing I could. I would say the song that challenged me the most is the song Están Matando Mi Gente. In that song, I have a break after the first section. The second section has a completely different vibe. The BPM is faster. I use different instruments, and it's technically a different genre. I had to learn how to convert my vocals into that different space, without it sounding off. I would say that song taught me that there is not a right way to do things. Everyone has their own solutions. And I found mine. But the song I worked the most on was Lento, Violento. I wanted this to be my first song because it was the song I felt most comfortable with. With this song, I actually learned how to use plugins to my advantage. I learned how to make my vocals fit into a song. This song holds a special place in my heart because I spent countless days trying to find my sound and my voice. This song was like a template of what came next. I used it to practice my vocals, find equipment that fit what I was doing, and find instrumentals that fit into the song. You’ve said you want your people to find and connect with this record. What does representation mean to you personally as an artist? To balance my history and tradition, I just went with what I hear every day. I really love the reggaetón and trap today, and I wanted to add stuff from the past. I want people coming from my background (not just culturally) to really connect with this as an outlet to express themselves. I want people to see this as a sense of community, and to find people like them that don't look like them. Because now we are in an age where everyone is disconnecting from each other. I just want people to get back into going to parties, functions with new people, and stuff like that. Representation is really important to me. I feel my culture is my whole identity, and I love to represent who I am. I love talking about my background and where I come from. I just feel that as an artist, you need to have your own character, in a way, and express it as much as you can. Because at the end of the day, that's what people connect to. They don't connect to just some random guy making music. They need to have a person behind the music they're listening to. They need to have an identity. That's why I love to represent. And that's why I made this album, so that people get a first look at who I am. Now that you’ve built this foundation and started performing live, what do you want the next chapter of Rafa Mendez to look and sound like? The next chapter of Rafa Mendez is something I already know. I've been building this career since I was 13. You know, bits and pieces here and there, but now I have the whole puzzle. I'm 19 now, and I have many projects lined up in the future that I'm really excited for. Many albums are planned as well. I'm just really excited to show the world who I am and meet great people. I don't know exactly what the future looks like. But I know for sure that I'm gonna keep going and do my best. Because this is what I love to do.

Los Angeles-based Italian artist Gianluca Todisco explores soulmates, memory, and the connections that exist beyond logic on his self-written and self-produced Afro House single “AMNESIA.” Originally from Rome, Todisco blends his interests in music, spirituality, and human connection into a track built equally for movement and introspection. “AMNESIA” imagines two people unknowingly searching for one another, connected by an invisible thread that survives distance, time, and different chapters of life. The song’s title introduces its central question: what if we once knew who we were meant to find, but somehow forgot? Within that idea, falling in love becomes less about meeting someone new and more about recognizing someone who already feels familiar. Musically, Todisco grounds that dreamlike concept in the physical pulse of Afro House. Percussion creates an immediate invitation to move, while the melody and lyrics leave room for listeners to disappear into their own imagination. Rather than prescribing one meaning, Todisco wants “AMNESIA” to function as a love song, spiritual reflection, or simply an escape onto the dancefloor. At its core, the track suggests that some connections may never be fully explained, but they can still be deeply felt. “AMNESIA” asks whether falling in love could actually be a form of remembering. Where did that idea first come from for you? The idea came from a question I kept asking myself: What if, before we entered this life, we already knew the people we were meant to meet, but somehow forgot? I’ve always been fascinated by the feeling of meeting someone for the first time and experiencing something that feels strangely familiar. Not necessarily because you know anything about that person, but because something inside you reacts before your mind has had the chance to understand why. I started thinking about love not only as discovering someone new, but potentially as remembering something that already exists somewhere within us. Maybe that is why certain connections can feel immediate, almost as if there is a story between two people that started before they actually met. I don’t claim to have an answer to whether that is literally what happens. I’m much more interested in the question itself and in the feeling it creates. AMNESIA was born from that mystery. You describe an invisible thread connecting two people across time and distance. Have you ever personally experienced that unexplained sense of recognition with someone? Yes, and I think that personal feeling is one of the reasons I was able to write the song so honestly. There have been people I’ve encountered where the connection felt different from what I could logically explain. You can know very little about someone and still feel an unusual sense of familiarity, attraction, or recognition. Sometimes you don’t even have a relationship with the person yet, but something about their presence seems to activate a part of you. For me, the interesting part is that these experiences don’t always have to become conventional love stories. Sometimes someone can enter your life for a very short period and still leave a very deep imprint. I’ve learned not to immediately try to rationalize those feelings. I like leaving a little room for the possibility that there are forms of connection we don’t completely understand yet. That invisible thread in AMNESIA represents exactly that: the possibility that two people can be connected even before they consciously recognize the connection themselves. Afro House gives “AMNESIA” a very physical, dance-driven foundation while the concept is deeply spiritual. What drew you to that contrast? That contrast is actually one of the things I loved most about creating the song. Spirituality can sometimes be presented as something very quiet, still, or detached from the body. But I’ve always experienced spirituality through the body as well. Movement, rhythm, breath, sound, and vibration can all change the way we perceive ourselves. Afro House gave me the physicality I wanted. I wanted the song to make you move before you even start analyzing what it means. You can dance to it, but at the same time the lyrics can take you somewhere much more internal. For me, that creates almost a two-layer experience. Your body is dancing while your imagination is traveling somewhere else. And I think that is very connected to the idea of frequency itself. Music is vibration. We physically feel it, but we can also attach memories, emotions, and meaning to it. So the spiritual concept didn’t need to sit separately from the dancefloor. I wanted the dancefloor to become part of the spiritual experience. You wrote and produced “AMNESIA” yourself. What production choices were most important in creating the dreamlike, almost hypnotic world you wanted listeners to enter? Because I produced the song myself, I was able to build the production around the emotional sensation I wanted rather than starting with a specific formula. The rhythm had to remain very physical and hypnotic, but I wanted the elements around it to feel spacious, almost as if the song exists somewhere between a dream and a memory. I paid a lot of attention to repetition, atmosphere, and the way the sounds enter and disappear, because I didn’t want everything to be immediately revealed. I also wanted the vocals to feel intimate and almost like they were coming from inside the listener’s own thoughts. The vocal processing became an important part of that world. Rather than making the voice completely clean and exposed, I wanted certain moments to blur into the production, creating the feeling that the voice is another texture or frequency within the track. There is something very intentional about hypnotic music: sometimes what you remove is just as important as what you add. I wanted enough space for the listener’s imagination to complete the song. Ideally, after a while, you stop listening to the individual elements and simply find yourself inside the atmosphere. Your work frequently explores spirituality, intuition, and human connection. As your sound evolves beyond THE INNER CIRCLE, how do you see those ideas shaping the artist you’re becoming? THE INNER CIRCLE was very much a journey inward. It was about exploring the self, nature, spirituality, consciousness, and the different layers of my own inner world. I think AMNESIA takes some of those ideas and turns them outward, toward connection with another person. That feels like an important evolution for me. I’m becoming increasingly interested in the space between the internal and external worlds: what happens inside us when another person enters our life, how intuition communicates with us, and how emotions can exist before we have the language to explain them. I don’t want spirituality to become a box that my music has to fit inside. I want it to remain a source of curiosity. I want to be able to talk about consciousness, love, desire, intuition, the body, sexuality, memory, nature, and even the things we cannot explain, while still making music that people can simply feel and enjoy. As my sound evolves, I think I’m becoming less interested in defining exactly what something means and more interested in creating an experience that allows people to find their own meaning. If THE INNER CIRCLE was about entering my inner world, perhaps AMNESIA is about stepping outside of it and asking: Who else is connected to this world I’m experiencing? And maybe that’s where the next chapter of my music begins.

Indie-pop artist paō confronts the complicated desire for emotional release on “relief,” a vulnerable standout from his debut EP, make yourself, at home. The larger project traces paō’s entrance into adulthood after leaving a small village in Lebanon and stepping into an unfamiliar, much larger world. On “relief,” that transition turns inward. The song centers on his inability to cry and the frustration, longing, and eventual acceptance that come with searching for a release that simply will not arrive. What makes “relief” especially effective is how its production moves alongside that emotional progression. Dreamy guitars communicate through a subtle call-and-response, creating space around paō’s vocals while reinforcing the feeling of an internal conversation. His 60s-inspired harmonic sensibility brings warmth to a subject that could easily become overwhelmingly heavy, allowing moments of playful honesty to coexist with genuine vulnerability. The song saves its greatest emotional weight for its bridge and outro. Key changes begin destabilizing the track’s earlier comfort before heavier synths enter and repeated vocals build toward a dense, cathartic climax. There is an interesting contradiction in hearing the music achieve the release its narrator struggles to access. The arrangement effectively cries for him. “The brain is an infinite jungle, and sometimes you’ll want to take control of all of it. That’s okay,” paō says of the release. That sentiment reaches beyond “relief” and into make yourself, at home as a whole. Between immigration, adulthood, distance, ambition, and identity, paō is documenting what happens when life suddenly becomes bigger than the place you once called home. “relief” finds its strength in admitting that adjusting to that expansion does not always come with neat emotional resolution. “relief” deals with wanting to cry but being unable to reach that release. Was there a particular moment when you realized that feeling needed to become a song? I was at quite a low point in my life and under a lot of stress from life events which threatened my future in music. And as I reached what seemed to be a "breaking point," nothing happened. Pure silence. That's when I realized crying was such a privilege and that I don't have it. That's where I started yearning for this feeling the most, and where it became a theme leading to writing "relief." There’s an interesting contrast between the warmth and playfulness of the music and the heavier emotions underneath it. How intentional was that tension when you were building the track? ​Writing music is ironically a form of emotional relief, a tension breaker. And when I start singing, I genuinely enjoy the little guitar parts that I'm playing at the same time. This leads to this layer of lightheartedness. I also seek comfort when I write songs. So these playful elements almost calm me for a second so that I can feel like the music is giving me a warm hug, even though it gets intense at points. The guitars almost communicate with each other through their call-and-response. What were you trying to express through that conversation instrumentally? At first, it came from sheer enjoyment of composing guitar, especially being inspired by legendary guitarists like Mac Demarco. As I arrived at the chorus, I wanted to mirror the conversation in the lyrics. I’m speaking one-sidedly to the embodiment of “crying,” and the call-and-response guitar licks create the illusion of a reply - a hint that I might finally experience that “relief.” The bridge and outro dramatically escalate through key changes, heavier synths, and repeated vocals. Why did you want the song to reach its emotional peak in such an intense way? It almost felt like it was my last shot at expressing how I feel. After this song, it felt like I was going back to the status quo that I'm not a fan of. So I felt compelled to write repeated vocals that express the same thing. I felt compelled to bring out every bit of energy in the composition of the guitars, the harmonies, and every other instrument. I wanted to feel every goosebump I could get from writing music. Much of make yourself, at home reflects entering adulthood after leaving your village in Lebanon. How has immigration changed your understanding of what “home” actually means? It changed everything. You leave home with a bittersweet taste in your mouth. It’s the place that shaped you, where you made your most meaningful connections and experienced so many things for the first time. You learn to love it deeply, even though you left for a reason. It couldn’t offer you the future or stability you needed, and it gave you painful experiences that might have been avoided somewhere else. Then you arrive at this new “home,” and all of that disappears. You become a speck of dust, completely disregarded, while still trying to build something meaningful for yourself. At least for now, I don’t really know what “home” means. Maybe the idea I’ve always had of it is too idealistic, especially if I’ve never truly experienced it. Maybe I need to stop looking for that version of home and learn to see it differently.

Pittsburgh singer-songwriter Kiley Maeve reflects on growing up, changing relationships, and the strange nostalgia of missing a moment before it has even ended on her introspective single “Now.” Written when Maeve was 17, shortly after returning from a trip to Italy and before leaving for college, “Now” captures a transitional period when the world suddenly felt much larger than the familiar boundaries of her hometown. Recorded at Barn Burner Studio in Rochester, New York, the song follows her debut single, “Amy March,” while further establishing the stripped-down, poetic songwriting at the center of her emerging sound. There is an impressive restraint to “Now.” Maeve does not attempt to make growing up feel more dramatic than it needs to be. Instead, she focuses on the smaller memories and realizations that tend to gain significance only after life moves forward. Her writing explores holding on without becoming trapped by the past, letting relationships change without allowing them to define you, and recognizing the beauty of an ordinary moment while you are still living inside it. That perspective gives “Now” an emotional maturity that feels especially promising this early in Maeve’s career. Its nostalgia is warm rather than defeated. Memory becomes evidence of growth rather than something preventing it. “Despite the inevitable changes of life, your memories make you who you are and will stick with you as you grow into someone new,” Maeve explains. Balancing her independent music career with life as a full-time college student, Maeve is learning to give her songwriting room to develop without becoming overly precious about releasing it. With plans to begin work on her debut album next year, “Now” offers an intimate glimpse at a songwriter discovering that some of life’s smallest moments can become the ones worth writing down. You wrote “Now” at 17, during a period when your life was beginning to expand beyond your hometown. Looking back, what do you understand about that version of yourself now that you couldn’t have understood then? I was struggling with the idea of change, and back then, I thought that growing up and moving on was something that I would have to reconcile with. It took three years, but I feel more comfortable with the idea than I ever thought I would. I didn't understand that there would come a time when the change would feel natural. “Now” captures the strange feeling of missing a moment before it has even ended. Why do you think you were already so conscious of time and change at that age? I had just graduated from high school, and it kind of all caught up to me. I didn't want it to end, or at least I wanted to remember how happy I felt doing what I loved to do that year. I was singing a lot for school, sharing a lot of my music with my friends for the first time, and that summer, I traveled to Italy. It's a bit cliché, but that trip kind of felt like a coming-of-age movie. I would stare at the window of our travel tour bus and just look at the castles dotting the hills along the highway. You just don't see that in the U.S. The song explores relationships changing without allowing those relationships to define who you become. Was that something you understood while writing “Now,” or did its meaning become clearer with time? When I wrote the song, I think that was something I wanted to believe was possible for me. I had placed a lot of my self-worth the year leading up to writing "Now" on the opinions of people who were closest to me. But I didn't really realize how much that would affect me until the nature of those relationships changed, and I was left to deal with the aftermath. It took a lot longer than I would like to admit to heal from that. You’ve described your songwriting as introspective and poetic. How do you decide which personal experiences belong in a song and which ones you want to keep entirely for yourself? That is such a good question. Some songs I definitely keep for myself. One reason is that some of the lyrics I write are pretty obviously referencing something about my life. A more interesting reason is that some songs just feel sacred. Songwriting has always been therapy for me, and most of my songs are just about processing what I'm going through. With “Amy March” and “Now” introducing listeners to your sound, what are you discovering about yourself as a songwriter that you want to explore more deeply on your debut album? I love this question. Honestly, I'm discovering new influences that I want to implement in the production phase. I write most songs with just me and my guitar, so my sound tends to be very stripped down and folky. But recently, I have been so inspired by the intricate soundscapes of pop artists like Gracie Abrams and Sarah Kinsley, who use synths and electronic sounds so effectively. I don't want to shift completely into pop, but I look forward to broadening the scope of production on this album.

Independent singer-songwriter Cassie Bouchard confronts modern loneliness and the increasingly complicated search for genuine human connection on her indie-pop single, “Since I Got Here.” Arriving ahead of Cassie Bouchard’s debut album, Smile As You Bleed, out October 30, the track introduces the deeply personal songwriting at the center of Cassie Bouchard’s work. “Since I Got Here” was born from Cassie Bouchard’s frustration with a culture where personal relationships can sometimes feel more transactional than intimate. For someone who deeply values emotional closeness, that disconnect can leave even familiar spaces feeling strangely isolating. Cassie Bouchard turns that experience into a song about feeling like an outsider in a world everyone else seems to understand. At its core is a simple but heavy desire: to belong somewhere, to be truly known by another person, and to experience relationships that extend beyond surface-level exchanges. Rather than dressing those feelings up, Cassie Bouchard allows the vulnerability behind them to remain visible. The singer-songwriter instincts behind “Since I Got Here” give the track its emotional center, while its indie-pop foundation keeps the song accessible without diluting its message. There is loneliness here, but there is also an attempt to reach across it. That tension makes “Since I Got Here” particularly timely. In an era of constant digital communication, being connected does not necessarily mean feeling connected. Cassie Bouchard captures the strange contradiction of having endless ways to reach people while still struggling to feel genuinely understood. With Smile As You Bleed arriving October 30, “Since I Got Here” offers an early glimpse into an artist willing to turn uncomfortable emotions into something communal, reminding listeners that feeling out of place is often far less solitary than it seems.

Being an independent artist means doing a lot more than making music. You’re recording, releasing, promoting, traveling, creating content, hiring people, and, whether you think of it this way or not, potentially operating a business. As 2026 winds down, it’s a good time to look at what you actually spent on your music career this year. Depending on where you live, how your music business is structured, and how an expense was used, many legitimate business costs may be tax-deductible. Here are 18 expenses independent artists should have on their radar before closing out 2026. 1. Recording + Studio Costs Studio rentals, rehearsal spaces and other costs directly connected to professionally creating your music may qualify as business expenses. If you’re paying for space specifically to create music as part of your career, keep those receipts. 2. Mixing + Mastering Hiring engineers to mix, master or prepare your music for commercial release may be considered part of operating your music business. Keep invoices and payment records for every project. 3. Producers + Session Musicians Payments to producers, instrumentalists, background vocalists and other professionals hired to work on your music may qualify as business expenses. Keep records showing who was paid, how much and what the work was for. 4. Instruments + Music Equipment Instruments, microphones, interfaces, monitors, headphones, MIDI controllers and other gear used for your music career may qualify. Depending on local tax rules and the value of the purchase, larger equipment may need to be depreciated over time rather than deducted all at once. 5. Software + Subscriptions DAWs, plugins, sample libraries, cloud storage and other software used to create, distribute or manage your music may qualify. Those monthly subscriptions can add up to a significant business expense over a full year. 6. Distribution Fees Paying a distributor to get your music onto Spotify, Apple Music and other platforms? Fees directly connected to distributing and maintaining your releases may qualify as legitimate business expenses. 7. PR + Publicity Publicists, press campaigns, media outreach and other professional publicity services used to promote your releases or artist career may qualify as promotional business expenses. 8. Advertising + Promotion Paid social campaigns, digital advertising, posters, flyers and other promotional costs used to market your music may qualify. Rules surrounding advertising deductions can vary by country, so check what applies where you file. 9. Photography + Content Creation Artist photoshoots, graphic designers, videographers, editors and other professionals hired to create promotional content may qualify. Think press photos, cover artwork, social content and other assets created specifically for your artist business. 10. Music Video Production Music videos can get expensive quickly. Directors, videographers, editors, equipment rentals, locations and other qualifying production costs may potentially be treated as business expenses when the video is created to support your professional music career. 11. Website + Domain Costs Your artist website is part of your business infrastructure. Domain registration, hosting, website platforms, professional design and certain maintenance costs associated with keeping your site running may qualify. 12. Touring + Business Travel Travel for performances, touring, recording sessions, conferences and other legitimate music-business activities may create deductible expenses. Depending on the circumstances and local rules, that can include transportation, airfare and accommodation. 13. Vehicle Expenses If you’re driving to performances, recording sessions, meetings or other qualifying business activities, some vehicle expenses may be deductible. Personal driving generally doesn’t count, so keeping an accurate mileage log and documenting the purpose of each trip matters. 14. Home Studio + Workspace If part of your home is legitimately used to operate your music business and you meet the applicable requirements, you may be able to claim a portion of certain home expenses. Don’t assume having a microphone in your bedroom automatically makes your entire rent deductible. 15. Phone + Internet Using your phone and internet to book shows, communicate with collaborators, distribute music, manage social media or run your artist business? The portion actually attributable to business use may qualify rather than your entire personal bill. 16. Legal + Accounting Fees Accountants, bookkeepers, lawyers and other professionals hired for legitimate music-business purposes may qualify as deductible expenses. That can include professional help with contracts, bookkeeping, taxes and other business matters. 17. Merchandise Costs If you sell shirts, vinyl, CDs or other artist merchandise, qualifying production, packaging and inventory costs can factor into your business expenses or cost of goods sold. How inventory is treated varies, so keep detailed records of what you produce, spend and sell. 18. Business Meals A legitimate business meal may be partially deductible when it has a genuine business purpose, but grabbing dinner with another musician doesn’t automatically make it a write-off. Different countries have their own rules and limits, so document who was there, what was discussed and why the expense was business-related. This Isn't the Full List There are plenty of other expenses independent artists may be able to write off. Business insurance, payment-processing fees, office expenses, professional memberships, licences and other costs associated with operating your music career may also qualify depending on your circumstances. Before 2026 ends, go through your statements, organize your invoices and receipts, separate personal spending from legitimate business expenses and make sure you know where your money actually went. Most importantly, do your research. Tax rules aren’t one-size-fits-all. What you can claim depends on where you live, how your music business is structured and how each expense was used. Some purchases may also need to be depreciated or treated differently rather than deducted immediately. Use this list as a starting point, keep your records organized and speak with a qualified tax professional to make sure you’re claiming everything you’re eligible for when it’s time to file.

Los Angeles singer-songwriter Carly Keyes strips heartbreak down to its most human form on See This Through..., a nine-track acoustic-pop album shaped by longing, grief, memory, hope, and the difficult work of moving forward. Rather than dressing those emotions in oversized production, Keyes keeps the record close, relying primarily on voice and acoustic guitar to create something that feels caught somewhere between a journal entry and a late-night living room performance. Opening track “Love That Remains” establishes the album’s reflective foundation before “Feeling High” and “Sober From You” explore the complicated emotional aftermath of connection. By “Enough,” the record begins asking harder questions about validation and self-worth, themes that feel particularly at home within Keyes’ understated approach. The title track, “See This Through...,” sits naturally at the album’s center. Even the unfinished punctuation of its title feels appropriate for a project largely concerned with continuing through experiences that do not necessarily provide clean endings. “Fireflies” and “Hear Your Name Again” carry the record deeper into memory and longing, while “Vibrations” connects Keyes’ musical and filmmaking worlds. She originally wrote the song for Good Vibrations, a short film in which she co-starred about an anxious singer-songwriter and an ASL poet finding their way back to the stage. “Understood” ultimately closes the nine-song collection. What works about See This Through... is its refusal to overproduce vulnerability. Keyes embraces atmosphere and imperfection, giving the songs enough space to feel genuinely lived-in. Written across different chapters of her life, the album ultimately finds its cohesion through emotional honesty. See This Through... is not interested in pretending grief disappears. Instead, Carly Keyes offers something quieter and arguably more useful: companionship while you carry it. You describe See This Through... as songs written across different chapters of your life. What made you realize these separate experiences belonged together on one album? I wrote three of these songs within the past year, but the others are all five… ten… even twenty years old. “Hear Your Name Again” is actually the first song I ever wrote. I chose songs that… when I play them now, I still feel like myself. Kind of how friendship circles typically shrink over time, this album is like a close-knit crew that’s kept in touch across time and distance. “See This Through…” felt like the obvious title for a collection that truly reflects “the mileage” (to borrow from Indiana Jones…) There’s very little separating the listener from your voice and guitar on this record. Was there ever a temptation to build the production out further, and what made you ultimately protect that stripped-back sound? While I’ve recorded before in studios with bands and producers, I feel most at home when it’s just me and my acoustic guitar or my keyboard. So, I knew I wanted to DIY and keep the production simple: I recorded in my apartment, tracked live, mostly one-takes, with a single mic for both vocals and guitar. When mastering, I crafted a crisp, warm, raw sound to preserve the overall intimacy. My hope is that listeners feel like they’re hearing a half-hour acoustic set at a late-night living room hang or cozy venue. I keep the sessions in an archive on Vimeo. The album touches on the need for validation alongside trust, vulnerability, grief, and connection. Has your understanding of validation changed since writing some of these songs? At some point, I internalized the fallacy that love must be earned through achievements. A therapist even once described me as “a human doing, not a human being…” That line made almost too much sense to me and led to my writing “Enough,” which was the first time I really explored a pattern of tying my entire self-worth to various goal-oriented pursuits, typically within highly structured, intense environments. However, art has never felt like a goal to me, but rather, like relief… some innate desire for a break from that way of operating. It’s messy, subjective, vulnerable, undefined. I’m not trying to win anything when I write a song, just connect honestly. It’s freeing. “Vibrations” was originally written for Good Vibrations, a film you also co-starred in. How did writing for a character or visual story change your songwriting process compared to writing directly from your own experiences? Usually, lyrics randomly “come to me” first, and then I find the music with no timeline for completion. However, for this film, my co-directors wanted a specific musical style and subject matter, and I had to create with a deadline. I would also be performing the song for camera, alongside a character who is an ASL poet, so that helped inform my lyrics. After a couple rounds of feedback, I offered two songs: We settled on “Vibrations,” and the song we didn’t use (“Feeling High”) ended up on my album, too. This project was a great opportunity to grow while blending my longtime love of music-making with a more recent passion: improvisational acting. Writing about my own life is cathartic but can get heavy and self-involved. Improv classes are my ideal complement because they get me out of my head and force me to be present, playful, and vulnerable with a supportive team. Musical improv is especially satisfying; I’ve never felt more joyful and alive than when inventing lyrics in real time with a group of people! You’ve said you hope this album can be a companion for people carrying grief or other heavy emotions. Is there one song on See This Through... that was especially difficult for you to write, but ultimately became important for you to release? “Love That Remains” was my deliberate attempt to accept how I can’t simply “turn off” challenging feelings. I wrote it after my Nanna had passed away, and I was struggling with a sadness I’d never known. Historically, I default to stuffing… like: “Oh no… Don’t feel sad… that hurts… I’m fine!” I’m now trying to get better at pausing and acknowledging, allowing tears or whatever my body needs… hugging my cat… journaling or reaching out to a friend. And anytime I perform this one live, it’s yet another reminder to integrate my grief versus deny it…to celebrate it as proof of the courage it takes to care deeply. I recently wrote and produced a short film with this same theme called Pacific Pilgrimage. I studied screenwriting at the University of Michigan (Go Blue!), which is where I first found myself drawn to stories that explore attachment and emotional complexity. I’m simply fascinated by situations that demand two states at once… like holding space to mourn while also funneling leftover love into new outlets. Music is always an essential one for me.

Internationally acclaimed singer, actress, and composer Ute Lemper looks beyond borders, languages, and cultural divisions on “MOTHERS,” an ambitious multilingual project centered on motherhood, human connection, and the universal desire to protect future generations. Originally written while Lemper was hosting a European television series about motherhood, the song remained with her after producers ultimately chose instrumental music for the program. Years later, she returned to the composition with a new sense of urgency, transforming it into a project spanning 14 languages and cultures. At its core, “MOTHERS” is built around a remarkably simple observation: regardless of nationality, religion, or circumstance, parents share many of the same hopes and fears for their children. Lemper channels that idea into a composition that moves from intimate expressions of refuge and care toward broader themes of dignity, equality, freedom, and peace. The multicultural arrangements are particularly central to the project. Rather than presenting one musical interpretation repeatedly in different languages, Lemper explores sounds and traditions associated with different cultures while preserving the composition’s underlying structure. AI-assisted production is used as a creative tool within that process, though Lemper emphasizes that the songwriting, artistic direction, and decisions remain human-led. That distinction fits an artist whose career has repeatedly examined the relationship between music and the world surrounding it. “MOTHERS” does not pretend that a song can neatly resolve political conflict. Its strength comes from approaching division through something more instinctive: the fear of losing someone you love. “What unites us is a lot more important than what separates us,” Lemper says. With “MOTHERS,” she turns that belief into a global musical experiment, asking listeners to consider what remains when political and cultural labels are stripped away. The answer she arrives at is profoundly human: the desire to give children a future in which they can flourish.

Alternative metal band Monstrosa confronts physical pain, emotional suppression, and the difficult process of finding your voice on their latest single, “Mandible.” Blending metal, alternative, and hard rock with vulnerable songwriting, the track transforms deeply personal experiences into a forceful statement about refusing to stay silent. “Mandible” originated from a period when emotional trauma was manifesting physically for Monstrosa through jaw and throat pain. Teeth grinding, neck tension, and difficulty opening their mouth while singing became inseparable from a larger struggle to communicate and speak up. That connection eventually became the foundation of the song, with the physical act of opening the mouth serving as a striking metaphor for reclaiming a voice. The track’s main riff carries an equally personal history. It was written on Monstrosa’s first guitar, an old blue Stratocaster covered in puffy animal stickers that had been sitting at their parents’ house. After setting the guitar up in Drop C to learn Gojira and Mastodon songs, its lower register inspired the riff that would become “Mandible.” Playing it offered a way to communicate without words while the song was taking shape. Musically, that origin translates naturally into Monstrosa’s guitar-forward approach. The heaviness feels purposeful, giving the frustration behind the lyrics somewhere physical to go. The song also extends beyond individual experience, addressing the pressure to become desensitized to suffering and remain quiet in the face of injustice. For Monstrosa, finding their own voice became connected to using it for others as well. Known for combining heavy music with theatrical performances, movement, demon masks, and emotionally exposed songwriting, Monstrosa has created a world where darkness is confronted rather than hidden. On “Mandible,” that philosophy becomes especially visceral. The track is ultimately about what can happen when silence becomes more painful than finally making noise. “Mandible” connects physical jaw and throat pain with the emotional struggle to speak up. When did you first realize those two experiences were connected enough to become the foundation of a song? The first time I fully realized these two experiences were connected was during singing lessons. Because I play in a metal band, projecting my voice properly is so important, but I always felt I was falling short. I was also equally insecure about it since so many people in the genre can growl, do distortion, scream, all sorts of cool, loud stuff that I love. I met the artist AARYS at a women and non-binary producers night hosted by Wadi in Toronto, and she said she did vocal lessons. Working with her has been such an eye-opener for me because she helped me identify all the ways I was physically holding back my voice. I was barely opening my mouth when singing and would shut down mentally and physically if I started singing louder. The discomfort I felt when raising my singing volume was a full-body experience, and it started from my jaw. This also helped me come to terms with other times in my life where I froze or couldn’t speak up in the face of danger. Grinding my teeth at night, neck pain, struggling to open my jaw enough to enunciate- these were all physical manifestations of pushing down emotional pain in my life, as well as being conditioned to stay quiet to please those around me. Singing about this experience in “Mandible” has been very cathartic for me, and I feel the connection between jaw/throat pain and emotional pain is a more universal experience than we realize. The main riff was written on your first guitar while you were dealing with trauma surrounding your jaw. How did playing guitar become a way of communicating when using your actual voice felt difficult? Playing guitar has always been like therapy to me. Having an outlet is important, but I find it especially so when you’re in the early stages of processing trauma. Sometimes I desperately needed to get my feelings out, but I didn’t have the right words, so playing guitar took the pressure away from having to fully formulate coherent thoughts around really traumatic events. Playing guitar was a way to express myself without having the physical pain in my jaw swell up from speaking or singing, as well as a way to process emotions without the pressure of talking when I wasn’t ready to. There’s a powerful contradiction in making such a loud, heavy song while admitting you’ve struggled with the idea of being “too loud.” How has creating “Mandible” changed your relationship with taking up space? “Mandible” helped change my relationship with taking up space in a lot of ways. It’s the first song on our discography I feel I can confidently call a metal song. It allowed me to view my own voice as powerful, even if it wasn’t a traditional metal vocal performance. This contradiction of making such a heavy song while actively struggling with the idea of being “too loud” is also an example of the DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) skill “opposite action.” I talk a lot in my songs about my experiences with BPD, but “Mandible” is an interesting example of this because it uses DBT skills in real time. The skill “opposite action” means deliberately acting contrary to a negative emotion in order to cope with it/help lower its intensity. Writing “Mandible” while simultaneously having strong urges to self-isolate, be silent, and invalidate myself helped change my relationship to taking up space by actively using “opposite action” and singing lyrics about my pain loudly and intentionally. “Mandible” moves from an intensely personal experience into a broader statement about becoming desensitized to other people’s suffering. How did you approach connecting those ideas without losing the personal core of the song? Connecting these ideas came naturally to me, as I believe the personal is political. I was simultaneously suppressing my emotions around my own trauma, while also suppressing my emotions around world events. I think sometimes to process trauma, whether it be our own or vicarious trauma, we mistakenly normalize it. We bite it down and go about our day because that somehow feels easier. And this manifests physically as well as mentally. In the very last chorus of “Mandible” instead of saying “don’t pretend my pain’s not real” I change it to say “don’t pretend our pain’s not real.” This was a deliberate choice because I feel our pain and suffering are connected, but so is our liberation. The song started from a very personal place of admitting my pain was worthy of healing and attention, and part of that healing journey was feeling interconnectedness with others. I know so many people’s pain, physical, mental, and otherwise, is dismissed, minimized, and ignored. And I knew I was not immune to doing this either; I worried about becoming desensitized to images of war, to the genocide in Palestine, to police violence, or any other injustice in the world. No one should ever have to beg for their humanity to be acknowledged, and “Mandible” is a cry against the propaganda that makes us numb to our own pain as well as the pain of the oppressed. Finding connection through suffering turns it on its head, helps us heal, and teaches us to speak up for ourselves and others when previously this pain may have suffocated, divided, and silenced us. Your live performances use masks, movement, and theatricality alongside vulnerable subject matter. How do you see the visual world of Monstrosa expanding the meaning of a song as emotionally charged as “Mandible”? My band has an insanely talented roster of multi-disciplinary artists. The visual world of Monstrosa expands on the meaning of the song “Mandible” by exaggerating its physicality. We love using horror motifs and props to draw in audiences. For the visuals, we had makeup artist @abigailmuaofficial craft a literal mandible for me to wear over my jaw. With theatre-size body parts, we hope to drive home the connection between mental and physical trauma. Plus, having strange, massive body parts on stage makes for a fun metal show