Defying any one label, MMOONN is a deeply textural and cosmic record created by Los Angeles-based composer and producer Nicolas Snyder and interdisciplinary vocalist Odeya Nini. MMOONN merges the improvisational and compositional skill of two artists who have each honed a personal sound for many years: Odeya Nini with her embodied dynamic vocals, and Nicolas Snyder with his textural multi-instrumental work. Today, MMOONN shares the track “Change” along with its ethereal, layered, vast and gorgeous video.

Odeya notes: “Change is a clarion call of unconditional love and acceptance written from the perspective of our beautiful planet.” Nic texted me the lyrics and a rough recording of him singing this song last fall, a few hours before we were scheduled to meet for rehearsal. 

He and I had lots of conversations about what was happening in the Middle East. I was holding (and still do) a lot of distress and pain around what has been (and still is) unfolding there. It is very close to home. This was a moment of him giving me very spacious  words and a lot of love to move through challenging feelings. It’s said from the perspective of the planet – her words, my words, universal words – an unconditional love that is coming from Mother Earth, Gaia, from oneself. An affirmation of love to remind us that no matter what, we are loved, and only love will end the cycle of hatred and destruction towards ourselves and others. 

The initial inspiration for the video was a clip from a 1930’s film called “Le Roi des Aulnes” that we came across. There is a surreal image of a woman seemingly floating on a waterfall. The supernatural mixed with nature was appealing to us. The filming and editing process kept revealing to us what this video wanted to be – a dramatic, emotional and otherworldly expression of the physical body in relationship with dynamic landscapes. Every moment was carefully thought out to represent something both very clear and very abstract. Once in process we also realize we were paying homage to the classic 90s Red Hot Chilli Peppers video – Give It Away. I (Odeya) worked very closely on the vision, cut and edit of this video to truly birth a visual that brings the song to life.” 

MMOONN orients listeners in an enticing, liquid musical realm while also reinventing the spatial possibilities of sound.  There is a sense of sonic terra firma while also inviting a realm of outer space, deep time, and unified consciousness. The tracks on this debut record merge Odeya’s grounded to ethereal vocal range and Nicolas’s lush and electric soundscapes on the Soma Terra, a new kind of synth out of Eastern Europe that looks like a lump of wood with brass nodules and knobs, something at once alien and terrestrial -looking and sounding. Nicolas’s voice is heavily featured as well. He tends to sing high soaring falsettos while Odeya creates a deep and guttural vocal underbelly, often animalesque in timbre.

Odeya Nini and Nicolas Snyder first met in a cavernous tunnel, high in the peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains in 2021. Odeya was performing a solo set with only her voice and its reverberations for the then blossoming outdoor live performance series, “Floating”, in Los Angeles. “The performance felt like something ancient and primal,” says Snyder. “She was making sounds I had never heard in a vocal performance before, but something more than just her voice was being transferred. It awoke something in me. A desire to reconnect with my own voice in a new way.”

Starting out his career as a vocalist in the 2010’s indie band boom, Snyder’s artistry has covered a wide spectrum of projects from cinematography to composing music for animation, film and dance. His most recent work has been composing for HBO Max’s animated space opera Scavenger’s Reign as well as Adult Swim’s psychedelic comedy-thriller Common Side Effects.  “I looked Odeya up after the performance and saw that she gave lessons in something called vocal-embodiment. That sounded intriguing to me. I reached out.” They began meeting for lessons in a wooded grove of Los Angeles’ Elysian Park and quickly realized a kindred musical spirit. “I could tell from the start that Nic had a deep connection with his voice. I felt like our open channels could sense the other’s frequency, which is the space where music is created in real time.” 

After working together for some time, Odeya then sang on some of Snyder’s soundtrack work. The scene in Common Side Effects where Marshall first drops the blue angel mushrooms into a dead pigeon’s beak, bursting into a cosmic scene of rebirth, features Odeya’s vocals. “She just nailed everything, first or second take. “She was super easy to work with” Nic recalls.” A few months later he suggested the two make a collaborative album. “We both had limited time but would get together a few evenings a month with zero concept of what we were going to make and just see what happened”, says Snyder. The first track they made was a five minute long drone track called “Blizzard,” named for the swirling, dense, snow storm-weather landscape. “The Soma Terra has a sound you can just feel and it opened up a world of tactile sonic play between us. “Blizzard” began that play portal for this album” says Odeya. 

Odeya’s work extends the scope of vocal expression, whether as a solo artist, composer, sound healing practitioner or master teacher-facilitator. As Mark Swed wrote in the LA Times: “Nini gave the sheer power of her vocal prowess, reaching notes deep as the earth and reaching twinkling harmonics meant for dog’s ears.”  Celebrated music critic Alex Ross of The New Yorker witnessed Nini’s performance of I See You during Wild Up’s 2021 Darkness Sounding festival and wrote: “One day, I sat with the composer-vocalist Odeya Nini in a small park in Mount Washington, while she performed her piece I See You. No one else was there. It felt like music being reinvented note by note, after the deluge.” It is from this oceanic capacity that Odeya’s musicianship co-creates in MMOONN.

“I expected us to complete the album in a month or two, but it took us nearly a year and a half to complete,” says Snyder. Eventually the duo invited renowned jazz and experimental drummer Max Jaffe to add percussive sparks and propelling rhythms to the tracks. Saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi also lent his powerful sound to the recording of From The Mother. As a group, MMOONN’s first public performance was for a packed audience at the Warehouse at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles. The group is now ready to share their sound with the world. Their self-released, self-titled album MMOONN comes out April 10th, 2026. 

Alternative rock artist Em Armstrong breathes new life into “Maybe Probably Never,” an edgy, bold, and empowering anthem about closure, self-respect, and choosing yourself.

“This song came from a tough breakup and sparked the realization that the wrong people can’t keep coming back into my life whenever it’s convenient for them,” Armstrong shares. “It’s a reminder that if someone truly cares, they show up the first time.”

The title itself reflects the emotional limbo she once felt. “‘Maybe, probably I’ll go back,’” Armstrong says, echoing the confusion that followed the split. “Spoiler alert: I never did.”

1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically? 

Maybe Probably Never was written at the crux of a breakup, and has taken new shape and meaning since its original release in 2023. MPN now is a song about leaving situations that don’t serve you and putting yourself first, even if you don’t believe in yourself and the initial decision. 

What empowered me to create this music video was something a videographer asked me a year before I had decided to go solo. He asked me if I ever planned to make more music by myself and create a video for this song, since he loved it. I simply said no – I was focused on the current band I was in with no intent to go solo again. That stuck with me through my decision of if I should go solo or hang my music hat forever. Thankfully, I had the right people supporting me who also are featured and filmed the music video and brought it to life. 

2. What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)? 

The main inspirations for this video was keeping it very early 2000’s where the band plays in a jam space and just rocks out to the song. It lets the viewer get a taste of what the live show is going to look and feel like. 

3. What was the process of making this video?

We kept the process very simple, as this is my first music video as a solo artist. I have a few of my current live band along with a couple of friends play and direct. We found a studio that had a great lighting set up and props like the amps and the drum stage. Shout out to “RVX Studio” and to my wonderful team/ friends: Christian, Cody, Mercedes, Keagan, Ben, Alex and Nikhil!

Born in Montreal’s DIY scene, Empty Melon (the solo project of Ada Lea bassist/producer Summer Kodama) introduces her debut single “Hoping to Find,” a cinematic, mellow, and emotionally introspective track that drifts between consciousness and dream. Rooted in ambient folk textures and experimental sensibility, the song captures a moment of creative reclamation and quiet self-renewal.

The first demo emerged in May 2024, shortly after Summer played bass for Michael Feuerstack. “It was such a fast, in/out type of experience,” she recalls. “I really enjoyed his music; he had a song called ‘Disenchanted’ that totally charmed me.” Inspired by the musicians around her, including Tim Crabtree and Erika Angell, Summer bought her first acoustic guitar from Tim before he relocated to Berlin. “I went home and the first iteration of this song was one of the first things to come out.”

At the time, she had been feeling burnt out from working as a side musician across multiple Montreal projects. “Writing this song helped me regain myself,” she says.

What sets “Hoping to Find” apart is its atmosphere. “The song is sort of like the space between being awake and being asleep,” she says. “It sits in a corner of my brain that allowed me to do whatever I wanted, in accordance with the feelings I held without judgement or parameters.” That in-between quality defines the track’s tone: cinematic yet intimate, ambient yet grounded in organic instrumentation.

The recording process deepened that sense of intention and collaboration. Summer first met Samson Wrote during a 2023 Joni Mitchell musical production in Ontario. Drawn to the “magical quality” of his albums Pigeon and In Season, she began shaping “Hoping to Find” with him in January 2025, working exclusively over Zoom. Samson later introduced her to mixing engineer JoJo Worthington and cellist Jill Sauerteig, whose contributions added further texture and emotional weight.

Stylistically, authenticity guided every decision. Summer points to the 1963 solo jazz album, Mingus Plays Piano, as a touchstone and an example of music that feels undeniably real. The raw guitar intro remains intentionally untouched. “I wanted it to feel like an old, lost, forgotten Polaroid,” she says. “I wanted this song to have a strong vibe above anything else. I wasn’t trying to be the perfect musician, I just wanted to be real.” At the same time, she notes she was meticulous about the details, balancing looseness with precision.

SCS Cello Ensemble presents “Hymne à l’amour,” a romantic and cinematic live arrangement of Édith Piaf’s timeless classic, reimagined for eight cellos. Recorded live, the performance carries both intimacy and power, offering a familiar melody and new emotional depth through the unified voice of a single instrumental family.

This release is deeply connected to the documentary Where Music Grows (Et klassisk liv), which follows Scandinavian Cello School (SCS) and its founder Jacob Shaw over five transformative years. Within the film’s narrative, the ensemble returns to the hospital where Shaw was treated for cancer, performing for staff and patients. In that context, “Hymne à l’amour” becomes more than a performance, standing as a gesture of gratitude, resilience, and unwavering love.

The title remains Édith Piaf’s original, instantly recognisable across generations. Here, however, its meaning feels steady rather than sentimental. Love is not portrayed as fragile or fleeting, but as uncompromising and enduring. Without lyrics, the melody itself becomes the guiding line, carried collectively by eight cellos whose blend creates warmth, weight, and closeness.

Arranged specifically for SCS Cello Ensemble, the performance gains a distinctive texture. The decision to keep the recording live preserves the honesty of phrasing and dynamics, allowing subtle shifts in tone and intensity to emerge naturally. The result is passionate yet restrained, cinematic yet grounded; a classical crossover interpretation that honours both the romance of the original and the strength of communal expression.

Emerging pop artist Eric Reinhart drops “Chances,” an electric and energetic new single that captures the feeling of standing at the edge of possibility and choosing to leap. Rooted in gratitude and forward momentum, the track reflects on the improbability of simply being here, alive, creating, moving, and refusing to waste that opportunity.

“I started thinking about the chances of me being here, doing what I’m doing, being alive in this exact moment, and it honestly made me feel really grateful,” Reinhart shares. “I caught myself thinking, ‘what are the chances?’ That question stuck with me. The song came from that place of awe, realizing how unlikely and special this moment is, and not wanting to waste it.”

More than a song about dreaming, “Chances” lives in the decision to act. “One thing that makes this song unique is that it’s not just about dreaming, it’s about doing,” Reinhart explains. “It talks about stepping out, letting go of anxiety, and trying new things. I really believe that’s how you figure out who you are; by moving, by taking risks, by saying yes even when you’re unsure. The song captures that turning point.”

The origin of “Chances” was equally spontaneous. Reinhart recorded the original voice memo at 1AM at his producer’s house. The following morning, his producer played him a beat. “The first time I heard it, I just started freestyling,” he says. Those off-the-cuff verses became the chorus, and ultimately defined the direction and energy of the entire song.