Dark moods and a poetic sensibility guide the Belgian singer-songwriter.

When Biig Piig, aka Irish pop dynamo Jess Smyth, listens back to her debut album, she hears a record that reflects how much music is a friend to her. These songs are where Smyth has channeled her emotions over the past few years, where she’s tried to make sense of the turmoil. “Within the chaos, the only thing that really keeps me together is music and being able to make it, and expressing through lyrics and melodies and storytelling—just to be able to talk to something and get my feelings out,” she tells Apple Music. “When I listened back to it, I was like, ‘Fucking hell!’ There was so many moments that I really needed a friend and music was that for me.” <i>11:11</i>, the follow-up to her excellent 2023 mixtape <i>Bubblegum</i>, marks the arrival of a striking new voice in modern music. The music deftly shapeshifts from one song to the next, an exhilarating ride through strobing electronic pop, minimalist, melodic techno, downbeat balladry, atmospheric trip-hop, and synth-disco anthems. One thing, says Smyth, unites them. “There’s a lot of sad bangers on this fucking record!” she hoots. “If you can’t celebrate it, what are you going to do, if you can’t get a little dance on whilst you’re crying?” Dab down your tears and head towards the dance floor: Biig Piig is here to take you through <i>11:11</i>, track by track.

<b>“4AM”</b>
“When I started ‘4AM,’ I knew I wanted it to be the first track because the way it starts is, ‘You could’ve hit me with the bad news first.’ And I was like, ‘I want that to be the opening line because I know that where we’re going with every other track, and the way we’re weaving through this relationship and diving into those things.’ I’m like, ‘Fucking hell, I wish I knew that it was going to hurt, diving in.’ It sparked something in me where I was like, ‘Oh fuck, I really want to delve deeper with it.’”

<b>“Ponytail”</b>
“This was made with Lloyd MacDonald [aka producer/artist Mac Wetha], who I really like because he’s so integral to everything for as an artist. I wouldn’t have released music without him so I really wanted to make sure that he was on this record. Lloyd is the OG, the first producer that I just ever felt comfortable enough to show music to and he was so encouraging with bringing things out. ‘Ponytail’ is a sad banger. It’s basically about a toxic relationship and trying to navigate how hard it is when you’re so attached to something that’s not good for you but you’re like, ‘Fuck, I just can’t really picture my life without it because it’s become such a pattern now that I need you, even if it’s killing me.’”

<b>“Cynical”</b>
“For this, I thought about walking through a city, flicking my hair, and being like, ‘Do you know what? I’m going to go to the bar, I’m going to have a good time.’ It’s when you’re a bit over it—all the fights and everything else with this partner, or with this person. You’re romanticizing your life, and then you run into him, and you’re a bit like, ‘Oh.’ It feels a bit more play-by-play of how that works, and the romanticization to get yourself out of that headspace. It’s about that and about city girls, and how everyone chats, and how it just gets around, summing up what it’s like to be a girl in the city, heartbroken.”

<b>“Favourite Girl”</b>
“‘Favourite Girl’ is a little pop banger. We love her. She’s so fun. I made her with Maverick Sabre and Zach Nahome, who are two longtime collaborators of mine that I love working with. We did ‘Kerosene’ before, the three of us. ‘Favourite Girl’ is tongue-in-cheek, it’s a flirty little track.”

<b>“I Keep Losing Sleep”</b>
“‘I Keep Losing Sleep’ took ages to get done. We had a loop that went on for about six hours, it was this big jam that we did in Paris with me, Zach, and Mav. ‘I Keep Losing Sleep’ was literally a 30-second clip of that jam and we worked off that little part of it and built it out. Lyrically, for me, it’s that point where you’re pretending you’re fine in the record, you’re like, ‘Everything’s good, I’m good, I’m coming back.’ But you’re not taking care of yourself and you’re like, ‘I keep losing sleep over this thing and it’s not helping.’”

<b>“9-5”</b>
“We wrote this in Montmartre, Paris in the studio. You can’t not want to make music there. It used to be Philippe Zdar’s studio, and it’s super small, everyone that works there has worked there forever. It’s super, it just brings something else out of you. Writing this, I was away from my partner at the time and I was missing him. It’s a love song, that kind of ‘I’ll go anywhere for you. I’ll do anything for you because I love you.’ That’s a part in the relationship where everything feels more romantic because you’re in love.”

<b>“Decimal”</b>
“This is a track also made in Montmartre with [producer] Andrew Wells. We were just having fun at this point, in a really good writing space. He was like, ‘What do you want this one to feel like?’ and I said, ‘Do you know what? Let me strut.’ He brought in this whole idea of a dance element that we get with the synths and this expanding bit and it just ended up happening. It’s quite a sexy tune. It’s just about finding someone, meeting them across the room, and being drawn to them, and losing inhibitions, and diving into that desire.”

<b>“Silhouette”</b>
“‘Silhouette’ is the opposite to ‘9-5.’ They’re like day and night. It’s one we also wrote in Paris at a different point in the year when things weren’t going so well. But it’s also an important for the story of the album, we’re exploring all sides of a relationship. This one is getting to a point where it’s ‘You know that it hurts me, why do you do it?’ and coming face to face with the pain of that and the loss of trust and the self-destructive thing comes into that a lot as well. I feel like a casualty in the fucking records that I made. It’s a heartbreak song.”

<b>“Stay Home”</b>
“This is about falling for someone, that point where everything’s a bit soft and sweet. Then I was like, ‘Do you know what? My family and my friends have been so important to me through everything and they’re really what represents love to me, there’s no chance I’m making my first record and not having them on it.’ I was like, ‘Let’s do it, let’s go to the pub and we’ll get everyone down with some drinks, and we’ll do a recording of the chorus.’ So we did that, which is so cute, so messy but so cute. Through relationships, through everything, through different points in your life, who do you look to as real love? That’s family and friends for me.”

<b>“One Way Ticket”</b>
“This is a sad one, about someone that I lost in my life. So many things are happening now and, [in] the last couple of years have been happening—and it’s sad that he’s not here to see them. He’s someone that I wish I could share that with and so this is a love letter to him a little bit, just to let him know what’s going on, and to be like, ‘Wow, you always said this would happen and now you’re not here to see it, but you’re here.’”

<b>“Brighter Day”</b>
“‘Brighter Day’ is the overarching moment where you look back on everything that’s happened, and you go, ‘Fucking hell, it’s mad!’—and watching someone go and accepting that that’s what’s happened and where you are in your life. It’s appreciating every moment for what it has been and being hopeful for the next round.”

Tamara Lindeman’s music as The Weather Station seems to expand and contract with every movement. The long-running project broke through in 2021 as fifth album <i>Ignorance</i> grew her folk-rock milieu to encompass the sounds of sophisti-pop acts like The Blue Nile and Prefab Sprout, while 2022’s companion record <i>How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars</i> pared back her arrangements to nearly nothing. On her seventh album, <i>Humanhood</i>, Lindeman has blown up her sound yet again: Alongside the nocturnal vibe she so expertly cultivated across <i>Ignorance</i>, these 13 tracks—initially recorded straight to tape over the course of two improvisational sessions in late 2023—encompass freewheeling ’60s psychedelic pop, darkly shaded jazz, and flurries of spoken-word sound collage.

Joining her trusty supporting players from the <i>Ignorance</i> sessions is a who’s who of left-field sounds, including orchestral-folk auteur Sam Amidon and ambient-saxophone jazz sensation Sam Gendel. At the center of it all, Lindeman’s ability to pull back and let silence briefly reign remains as breathtaking as her most acrobatic vocal moments. Her lyrical focus picks up from where she left off on the previous two Weather Station records, pivoting specifically from the encroaching threat of climate change towards an episode of depersonalization she experienced while contemplating the world’s ever-evolving ills.

What results is an album that’s contemplative and soul-searching, as Lindeman avoids finding easy answers and instead seems to channel her thought process in real time. “I don’t know quite where to begin,” she sings over the brushed drums and elegiac piano of <i>Humanhood</i>’s quietly devastating closer, “Sewing.” “I know it don’t look like I’m doing anything.” Quite the opposite, in fact.

“I try to focus on the present,” Ela Minus tells Apple Music as she explores the songs of <i>DÍA</i>. “I’m never thinking about the past or the future. I try not to compare past experiences with anything that followed them. I simply spend my days making new music.”

On her previous releases, the singer and multi-instrumentalist born in Bogotá and based in Brooklyn attempted to manifest a safe and comfortable space where people could listen to her songs. Her 2020 breakout debut, <i>acts of rebellion</i>, felt like someone communicating electronic pop to you in secret, with warm analog synth squiggles and a delightfully brittle feel, not unlike coldwave’s minimalist steeliness or the punkish, romantic sound of ’80s synth-pop. On <i>DÍA</i>, Minus cranks up her stylistic tics to max volume: The synths crash and her voice soars above the music instead of lying in wait in the shadows.

The saucer-eyed wobbles of opener “ABRIR MONTE” immediately recall the lush rave waves of Jamie xx’s “Gosh,” while “ONWARDS” conjures peak-era electroclash, right down to Minus’ excellently disaffected and cool-to-the-touch vocal take. “I’m not a simple person,” she admits. “I decided to be honest on this album and paint a more accurate picture of myself. This is why the opening track is titled ‘ABRIR MONTE’ [‘TO CROSS THE HILL’]. Recording it felt like opening up a new pathway into my inner world.” Here, she walks us through the album, track by track.

<b>“ABRIR MONTE”</b>
“It’s the first track that I recorded for the album. The first chord progression that seemed interesting enough to define the sound of <i>DÍA</i>. It’s like a mantra that envelops you. I’d like it to sound like I’m jumping off the speakers and embracing you, literally. I’m inviting you to step in and follow the road that’s outlined on the rest of the record.”

<b>“BROKEN”</b>
“This song is like a complement to ‘ABRIR MONTE,’ and it appeared in the same order. It’s an anthem that celebrates every person’s current emotional state, because we should accept that every single moment is valid.”

<b>“IDOLS”</b>
“This is my favorite song on the album. The definition of what I’m feeling like these days, and how I would characterize the music industry. I’d love for artists from all disciplines to listen and internalize the lyrics. I hope it inspires people to do whatever they please instead of chasing blindly after the pop idols of the moment.”

<b>“IDK”</b>
“Perhaps I should have left this one out. It’s a little too honest, and it makes me uncomfortable. I attempted to drop it in every possible manner, but the album never felt complete without it. If there’s a song that defines my emotional state at the time—and how thoroughly lost I felt—it’s this one. It’s the heart of the entire record. Something that I cherish in music is the relationship between tension and resolution. ‘IDK’ is the crux of all the tension that percolates in this project.”

<b>“QQQQ”</b>
“A moment of euphoria. I had developed bits of this song for the longest time: pieces of lyrics, beats, and melodies. But I couldn’t quite bring it all together into a cohesive song. I envisioned it as a bonus track, but just as I was wrapping up the album, I felt that it was missing a moment of pure euphoria for the concerts, the clubs, or wherever you experience this project in a live setting. The night before mixing, I revisited this one from scratch. I told myself, ‘I have to make the most joyful song of my career, so that it becomes a symbol of complete liberation.’ That’s what this is, or at least I hope it is.”

<b>“I WANT TO BE BETTER”</b>
“This may well be the only love song I’ve ever written. The lyrics are very literal. I feel relationships force you to question who you really are, and how you interact with the world. I had never examined that, until I fell in love. This song speaks of love as surrender—that moment, like a mirror, when there’s someone else in your life. You can almost see yourself through their eyes, and evidently you strive to become a better person.”

<b>“ONWARDS”</b>
“I don’t know what else to add here—the lyrics say it all. I wrote it when I felt frustrated with my life. The perception that we’re always meant to be wanting more, pursuing our ambitions. As time goes by, the pressure is on to prove your worth, and that feeling makes me desperate. This song is a response to those questions, so that I can get rid of my fears and insecurities. I want to follow my own path, calm and focused. I just need to continue being myself.”

<b>“AND”</b>
“It’s the track that connects ‘ONWARDS’ with ‘UPWARDS,’ but also a very intimate moment on the album. One of my parents had passed away, I was experiencing a massive amount of pain, and I recorded a voice memo where you can hear things falling around the house—a negative ambiance. I thought that brief moment of pain was meant to become something else, and I developed this piece.”

<b>“UPWARDS”</b>
“It marks the resolution of ‘AND.’ It’s the one piece of advice that I’m always expecting from my friends, no matter what the situation. Life has taught me that even though we wish we could change things for other people, the truth of the matter is that we can only be responsible for our own lives, our own wellbeing and goals. I’d like this song to become an anthem about this uncomfortable truth.”

<b>“COMBAT”</b>
“This is a very moving song for me, because it’s the first time that I recorded with instruments other than synths. I wrote an arrangement for a wind quartet, and ‘COMBAT’ signals the resolution of the entire album. It feels like we’re standing on terrain that has burned to the ground, and now the rebuilding begins. It has the spirit of a new life—an invitation to be born again.”

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“I’ve made enough mistakes/To fill up the oceans, babe,” sings Holly Humberstone in the opening verse of “Dive,” the gauzy first track on <i>work in progress</i>. This compact EP, comprised of vault demos that have been dusted off and refreshed—with production from long-term collaborator, Rob Milton—is thankfully not one of them. Over pared-back synths and warm chords, the BRIT Award-winning singer-songwriter leaves room for growth and understanding as she laments her missteps and stumbles. The single anomaly is “Down Swinging,” cowritten with Benjamin Francis Leftwich, which lifts the EP out of its brooding self-flagellation with smooth sax riffs, an urgent groove, and a defiant Humberstone standing her ground against life’s blows.

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