Brooklyn-based retro soul-rock outfit The Slim Kings return with a smoldering new track, “Keep On,” that explores the quiet strength of patience. In a world addicted to speed and certainty, the band flips the script by choosing to sit still, to wait, and to trust.
It’s a song about giving someone the space they need without letting go of your presence. A slow burn with vintage soul textures, “Keep On” is rich in restraint, resolve, and realness.
From its laid-back groove to its timeless sentiment, “Keep On” is equal parts support system and soul serenade.
It’s about knowing when to step back and when to show up. Sometimes the best thing you can do is let the answer come on its own. – The Slim Kings
With his new single, “I Know This,” St. Catharines-based artist Joe Lapinski delivers a raw and rhythmically charged celebration of new love. Ecstatic, visceral, and vulnerable, the track pulses with the chaotic beauty of falling fast and hard. Produced alongside longtime collaborator Dave Clark (Gord Downie’s Country of Miracles, Rheostatics), “I Know This” fuses indie rock grit with danceable New Wave urgency – equal parts Talking Heads and Sonic Youth.
Featuring a transcendent saxophone performance by Karen Ng (The Weather Station, Andy Shauf), the song captures the disorienting rush of first touch, first dance, and the inner peace that comes from simply knowing love is real. It’s the second single to be shared from Lapinski’s forthcoming new album, New Day, out on June 27th, 2025.
Driving forward with punchy beats and swirling textures, “I Know This” is a celebration of surrendering to love in all its vulnerability. It was designed to move you – to the dancefloor, or deeper into your own heart.
“I Know This” is about the chaos that comes with new love. It aches with beauty. I knew I wanted a solo instrument to reflect the emotional waves throughout the song and Karen absolutely nailed it. Her part is other-worldly. – Joe Lapinski
Singer-songwriter Hillary Reynolds invites listeners into a whimsical and warmly contemplative sonic world with her latest single, “Can’t Turn Off My Mind.” This silvery, playful track marks the foundation of Reynolds’ upcoming debut album, Changing Seasons (out later this year), offering a grounded yet daydreamy soundtrack for your morning routine. Blending thoughtful lyricism with classic singer-songwriter stylings, the single evokes a soft space reminiscent of Beatrix Potter illustrations and Jane Austen musings.
“Can’t Turn Off My Mind” was originally written years ago, but found new life after Reynolds reconnected with collaborator and dear friend Madison Malone in Los Angeles. What began as a reflection on insomnia and intrusive thoughts gained richer meaning over time – particularly as both artists became mothers. That distinct sense of sleep-deprived tenderness now permeates the song’s groove-driven chorus, which Reynolds describes as “quirky, left-of-center, but completely natural when you feel it.”
Anchored by upright bass and dreamlike phrasing, the song balances whimsy with lyrical vulnerability. “I love how playful it is,” Reynolds shares. “Sometimes we just need music that makes us feel less heavy. I wanted to put out an album that feels like saying ‘hello’ to an old friend and I feel like this first single is an invitation to that space.”
Canadian vocalist, composer, and Bruce Peninsula frontman Neil Haverty unveils his new single, “Man Down” – a brooding, introspective meditation on illness, survival, and the slow, complicated return to self. Built on dark synths, stirring strings, and Haverty’s unmistakable ghostly growl, the track marks his first solo release after more than a decade composing for award-winning film and television.
On its face, “Man Down” is a reckoning with Haverty’s 2011 leukemia diagnosis, a life-altering moment that shook the foundation of his world. Written as a form of self-talk, the song explores grief, resilience, and the blurred lines between trauma and transformation. Rather than tying a neat bow around survival, Haverty leans into the clumsiness of healing, examining how ideals formed during hardship often fade in the forward tumble of everyday life.
Recorded with longtime collaborator Leon Taheny (Owen Pallett, Austra) and featuring layered string arrangements by Mika Posen (Agnes Obel, Timber Timbre), “Man Down” combines analog synth textures, creaky orchestral moments, and organic found sounds – including field recordings from a Galileo museum in Florence – to build an atmosphere of both ascension and collapse. It’s music that searches for the spark of aliveness even as it grapples with mortality.
Poet William May is expanding the world of his debut chapbook, Blaze Without Burning (Finishing Line Press), with a dynamic and deeply personal audio companion—a collection of 25 original musical compositions written and produced by celebrated artists Denise Marsa and Paul A. Harvey. The soundtrack will be available Friday, June 13, across major streaming platforms.
Blaze without Burning, William May’s debut collection, offers readers of poetry a deeply personal, intricately structured exploration of resilience, transformation, and human connection. This chapbook stands out for its innovative approach to form: each poem in the first section is paired with a “twin” poem in the second section, two poems sharing a title but presenting distinct perspectives. William May’s Blaze without Burning exemplifies the ways poetry can illuminate and ultimately connect us all.
The audio companion reimagines the chapbook’s structure through a musical “twinning” concept reflecting the twinning concept William May displays in his book: each poem is interpreted with a paired composition—original and “after”—mirroring the emotional arc and thematic tension within the book. The result is a soundscape that fuses ambient instrumentation and sonic narrative, guiding listeners through the book’s raw intimacy and lyrical architecture.
Denise Marsa, founder of Marsa Media and a pioneering voice in creative production, brings her seasoned artistry and producer’s edge to the collaboration.
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Paul A. Harvey crafts textured layers of guitar, rhythm, and melodic nuance that deepen the listener’s connection to each poem.
Marsa also represents May through her media company, Marsa Media, handling PR and marketing for his endeavors.
“This music breathes between the lines,” says May. “It doesn’t just accompany the poems—it expands their meaning and enhances the reader’s experience.”
With 25 short-form compositions, the companion album is both a standalone listening experience and an immersive counterpart to Blaze Without Burning. From acoustic intimacy to electric transformation, the soundtrack honors the emotional pulse and poetic shifts that define May’s celebrated debut.
The Blaze Without Burning audio companion will be released via KeyMedia Group and distributed digitally on Friday, June 13, 2025. Links to all streaming platforms here.
About the Artists:
William May, a fourth-generation native of New York’s Greenwich Village, dubbing himself a “Neurodiverse Language Wizard,” began writing poetry when he was 9 years old while a student at The Stephen Gaynor School, a pioneer in special education.
There he received individualized support, allowing him to thrive academically, and, eventually, enabling him to attend New York City’s highly competitive Collegiate School. His work has been featured in SoFloPoJo, Chameleon Chimera: An Anthology of Florida Poets, and The Centifictionist. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the University of North Carolina’s MFA program in creative writing, William shares his work through performances, newsletters, and his podcast, Argh! Not Another Podcast About Book Publishing. Find more of his work, links to publications, and social media contact information at WilliamMayWrites.com.
Denise Marsa is an award-winning singer-songwriter, producer, and founder of Marsa Media. Known for her work across music, publishing, and creative advocacy, Marsa brings decades of production experience and narrative insight to this collaboration.
Paul A. Harvey is a UK-based composer and musician known for his cinematic guitar compositions and atmospheric sound design. He has written for, toured, and/or recorded with Prefab Sprout, Tom Robinson, and Ellis Beggs & Howard. His work spans solo projects, scoring, and cross-genre collaborations.
Sometimes, the most resonant songs emerge not from a single moment of inspiration but from a long, quiet process of rediscovery.
“Open Wide” is the latest single from cinematic folk-pop artist Havilah Tower, and it is one such song – a reflective and emotionally charged meditation on what it means to outgrow the life you thought you wanted. Tower explores the quiet reckoning that comes when ambition gives way to presence, and when clarity begins to form in the spaces we often overlook.
The journey to Open Wide began with an unexpected spark: an article about her alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin, hiring their first Songwriter-in-Residence.
That artist, Darden Smith, would go on to mentor Tower through a series of creative breakthroughs, helping her reconnect with her voice in new ways. What followed was a groundbreaking collaboration across borders – Tower and her longtime trio partnered with international music startup Hall Up to bring the track to life, working with UK-based producer David A. Griffiths and Hollywood engineer Adam Freeman to shape the sound.
“Open Wide” marks a shift not just in Tower’s sound, but in her storytelling. It’s the product of reflection, resilience and a willingness to see – and sing – the truth.
1.Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically in this way?
Our newest single, Open Wide, is a cinematic folk-pop song that explores what happens when you’ve built up a “dream life” but it turns out to be different than you thought or want anymore.
Open Wide is a raw, lyrical reflection on trading illusion for truth—and finding the courage to be honest with yourself on what really matters to you, which often are the simple things around you all along.
2. What was the inspiration behind this new video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?
For the Open Wide music video, we wanted to bring the core message of the song, showing the contrast of someone leading a seemingly successful life on the surface while also struggling.
In the music video for “Open Wide”, you follow a central character as she rises to fame through her music, a life she worked hard to create. Even though it all looks beautiful on the outside, she is struggling on the inside missing the core, fundamental things in her life she grew up like spending time with family, true connections with friends and a sense of herself.
Central to where we meet the main character in the story is an unraveling of this supposed “dream life”. It’s through this unraveling that she breaks through to something more meaningful, her own truth and direction – all things that take courage to embrace when you’re leading such a seemingly successful life. This shift plays out in the music video as a parallel between her adult self and her childhood memories that she starts to reconnect with.
It’s a reminder that all the glitters is not gold, and that sometimes our hardest moments can be doorways into something more truer and more meaningful. Hence the lyrics: “Unraveling minds open wide”.
3. What was the process of making the video?
In making Open Wide, we wanted to push the envelope of leveraging technology to tell the story. We tend to embrace a “test and learn” mentality so we decided to leverage some of the latest AI tools, like Runway, and build out the narrative portion of the story, which involved a lot of hours of fine-tuning prompts and then of course, editing the clips to tell the story. Through this work, we built out the journey of our central character.
Simultaneously, we wanted to ground the video in this world with a performance from our band so we conducted multiple filmings in order to capture each of us to interweave throughout the video, mainly featuring Havilah Tower as the primary narrator who is singing Open Wide.
There is a subtle moment that happens at the beginning and end of the music video, starting off with what appears to be a forced smile but ending with a more real, authentic smile. The smile bookends the journey of going from a seemingly successful life to truer success of being connected to yourself and making choices that are actually fulfilling.
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