by Jane Lambert

Roxana Labatt Finds Strength in Vulnerability on Latest Release “Someone to Call”

On her latest single “Someone to Call,” Austin-based singer songwriter Roxana Labatt delivers an achingly beautiful ballad that speaks directly to the heart of human loneliness.

Produced, mixed and mastered by Kfir Gov at Evil Snail Studios, the track pairs intimate, soaring vocals with polished modern pop production.

Drawing from a deeply personal place, “Someone to Call” captures the sharp ache of realizing you have no one to lean on during life’s most pivotal moments. When you look down at your emergency contacts, and realise nobody is there to call on except yourself.

Inspired in part by a moment in Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana documentary and a memory from her own life – waiting alone at a doctor’s office after a frightening diagnosis – Roxana transforms these painful experiences into a universal song for anyone who has ever felt isolated at a time they most needed connection.

The song opens with a gentle, melancholic atmosphere that allows Roxana’s voice to take center stage. The vocal performance is stunning. Rich with emotion but never overdone, carrying a natural weight that makes every lyric feel lived-in. As the track builds, layers of harmonies and instrumental textures swell around her voice, amplifying the emotional stakes without ever drowning the vulnerability that defines the core of the song.

With the lyrics, Roxana exhibits many of the same strengths that have earned her acclaim since her debut in 2020 – vivid storytelling, visceral emotion and a strong ability to articulate complex feelings with clarity. Every word in “Someone to Call” feels purposeful. And it is very much the product of Roxana’s background not just in music, but also in years of expository and creative writing.

“I was inspired to write a song about that feeling. I think it is often during our highest highs and our lowest lows that we feel that lack of someone to call most acutely (that’s the idea underlying the chorus lyric in my song “shouldn’t there be someone to call . . . to cheer me on whenever things got good, and when I thought they never would”). The themes reflected in “Someone To Call” – of feeling alienated/isolated from other people and of being in a lot of pain on the inside when things maybe look pretty great from the outside – recur in a lot of my songs.

As for the production of the track, I had for some time been wanting to produce songs with a more commercial pop sound, without losing the emphasis on lyrical content and dramatic musical moments that are characteristic of my songs. When I wrote this track, I immediately had the feeling that, out of all of the songs that I’d written up to that point, it was the one that had the most potential to achieve that goal. So, I hired a Producer in Austin who I had read had experience in that type of pop production (Kfir Gov at Evil Snails Studio) and we produced this track. Songs I especially looked to for inspiration in deciding how to approach the production of this track were P!nk’s “Turbulence” and “A Million Dreams” and Céline Dion’s “Ashes.”

And while the subject matter of the song is heavy, there is a thread of resilience that runs throughout. By confronting lonliness head on, Roxana ultimately offers listeners a quiet hope, a reminder that feeling isolated doesn’t mean you are truly alone. Also, that the ache for connection is something that binds us all.

“Someone to Call” does showcase a more modern pop sensibility for Roxana , while still staying true to her indie roots. The balance of programmed elements with live instrumentation, especially the clever interplay of rhythmic tectures, creates an expansive backdrop for the emotional narrative to unfold.

With this latest release, Roxana Labatt continues to establish herself as a distinctive voice in indie-pop storytelling. She is not afraid to dig deep, expose the raw places and remind us that even in our loneliest momentswe are seen and heard.

Her next chapter includes new music set for 2025, but for now, “Someone to Call” stands as one of her most moving releases to date.

Keep up to date with Roxana Labatt on her Website

Stream music on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music

04.25.25

by Jane Lambert

VIDEO VOYAGEUR: 3 Q’s WITH REEYA BANERJEE

Reeya Banerjee’s new single “Misery of Place” isn’t just a standout moment on her upcoming album “This Place”. This is the album’s emotional thesis, wrapped up in crunchy guitars, sharp lyrics and a healthy dose of self-aware swagger.

Inspired by a haunting question that first surfaced in her teenage years – “Are you experiencing misery of place, or profound, lifelong misery of self?” — the song digs into the complex relationship between geography and identity, asking how much of our discontent is rooted in where we are. And, how much in who we are.

To bring those layered themes to life visually, Banerjee teamed up with longtime friend and visual literacy expert Kelly Kingman-Joslyn, whose work translates complex ideas into striking hand-drawn images.

The result is a music video that’s anything but traditional. It is more of a moving sketchbook full of flickering memories, half-thoughts, bold colors and scribbled commentary. It’s part animation, part stream-of-consciousness and entirely unique.

In this exclusive interview, Banerjee explores the origins of Misery of Place, the question that’s haunted her for over 20 years, and the deeply personal (and creatively rich) process of making the video with Kingman-Joslyn.

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

“Misery of Place” is essentially the thesis statement of my upcoming record, “This Place” — a collection of songs exploring how the places we live leave emotional imprints on us.

The song was inspired by a question that’s been rattling around in my brain since high school — over 20 years ago(!): “Are you experiencing misery of place, or profound, lifelong misery of self?”

It came from a teacher, passed along through a friend, and at the time, I was furious. I was 17, and it felt cruel and unhelpful — like, what kind of teacher says something that brutal to a kid still figuring out who they are?

And yet… the question stuck. Through every move and transition in my life, I kept coming back to it. It shaped how I think about identity, belonging, and change — how much of what we feel is about where we are, and how much is about who we are.

This song wrestles with that tension — between geography (physical and existential) and self — and it does it with crunchy guitars, narrative lyrics that nod to Bruce Springsteen’s character-driven storytelling (with a smirk), and the sonic swagger of the 90s power pop I grew up on. It felt right to kick off the album cycle with this one, because it asks the question the rest of the record is trying to answer.

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

I didn’t want a traditional narrative video for this song — the song itself is full of characters, but it’s also packed with doubt, cheek, and internal monologue. So I teamed up with my dear friend Kelly Kingman-Joslyn, a visual literacy expert whose job is literally to transform spoken ideas into powerful, hand-drawn visuals. She works with keynote speakers at corporate events, sketching huge live illustrations on whiteboards or easel pads to help visual learners absorb complex ideas — and she also creates animation videos for clients like Goldman Sachs.

That combination of clarity, creativity, and abstraction made her the perfect person to bring Misery of Place to life. I wanted the video to feel like flipping through someone’s subconscious — a swirl of memory, sarcasm, self-doubt, and scribbled footnotes.

Instead of telling a linear story, the video leans into abstraction: sketchbook textures, bursts of color, and hand-written text that echo the psychological layers of the song. It’s part inner monologue, part visual essay — and it adds a new dimension to the song’s central question.

3. What was the process of making the video?

The video was a true collaboration, but also an act of deep trust. I gave Kelly the track and a brain dump of what the song meant to me — a mix of stories, reflections, and the emotional weight behind the lyrics. Then I stepped back.

I trusted her completely to take all of that and filter it through her own artistic lens. Her ability to translate words and feeling into image is extraordinary, and I knew the best thing I could do was give her the space to do what she does best.

There was also something quietly full-circle about working with Kelly. She’s married to one of my closest friends — we met freshman year of college, and after graduation, we were roommates for nearly a decade. He moved out when he married her! So asking Kelly to make this video kind of felt like calling on family. That trust wasn’t just creative — it was personal.

Kelly is based in Beacon, NY — a small city in the Hudson Valley with an enormous artist community. It’s a place filled with visual artists, filmmakers, photographers, writers, and musicians, many of whom I’ve crossed paths with over the years. I lived there for a long time, and it was one of the most creatively rich chapters of my life. So in a way, this video wasn’t just a collaboration between two artists — it was a product of a larger creative ecosystem I was once part of.

A community-rooted project in every sense. We didn’t storyboard it traditionally. Instead, Kelly treated it like a live sketchbook in motion, responding to the song’s tone and energy in real time. What she created was a moving mural — quirky, emotional, and raw — that mirrors the rhythm and spirit of the song itself.

Keep up to date with Reeya Banerjee on her Website.

04.22.25

by Jane Lambert

VIDEO VOYAGEUR: 3 Q’s WITH KRISTY CHMURA

In a powerful tribute to Earth Day, singer, harpist and songwriter Kristy Chmura releases a re-imagined version of her song “Wake Up”. This is a heartfelt environmental anthem that brings together music, activism and visual storytelling.

Originally released on her 2018 debut solo album “Stained…Glass Heart”, the song now returns with a fresh cinematic arrangement and a compelling music video that shines a spotlight on the urgency of protecting our planet.

Deeply rooted in her love for nature and her decade-long commitment as a volunteer with her town’s Shade Tree Commission, Kristy’s passion for trees, forests and wildlife pulses through every frame of this video.

Collaborating with world-class musicians Christian Eigner and Niko Stoessl, along with longtime creative partner Damien Musto, Kristy brings new life to “Wake Up” through haunting melodies, stunning visuals and a message that resonates deeply in today’s climate.

In this interview, Kristy shares the story behind the song, the inspiration for the video and the creative process that brought this urgent and moving project to life:

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

The seed for my song “Wake Up” was planted a while ago. I released my original version of “Wake Up” with my longtime creative partner, Damien Musto back in 2018 on my debut solo album, “Stained…Glass Heart”.

I’ve always felt a deep connection to nature, a sense of belonging that resonates in my soul especially whenever I’m surrounded by trees, and I was becoming increasingly worried and distressed by what I would see in the media: the destruction and attacks on our environment, and how greed and thoughtlessness towards the planet hurts us all.

All these things overwhelmed me – the images of deforestation, the oil spills, the sheer disregard for our planet, even seeing things in my own community like clear cutting properties for new construction – I reached a point where the the inner activist in me became ignited. It wasn’t just about the planet; it was a personal ache, a sense of loss. I had to do something, I couldn’t stand by any longer, so I used what I have: my voice.”

“Wake Up” is a call to action to myself and to anyone, reminding us we need to look within ourselves and become more conscious of how our actions affect one another. We’re all part of a giant ecosystem. If we each do something, no matter how big or small, that contributes to solutions and creating health and balance for our environment – that’s a step in the right direction, and we need to keep going in that direction one step at a time. Sometimes that first step is just becoming more self-aware.

This newly reimagined version of “Wake Up” came to be because one summer, the smoke from the Canadian forest fires drifted south, casting a pall over New Jersey. The air hung heavy, and the poor air quality made it challenging to breathe. The sun was a hazy orange disk in the sky, and you could smell the wood burning from hundreds of miles away. Experiencing that broke my heart, thinking of the acres of trees and the extreme impact on the entire ecosystem.

This reignited the pull inside me to want to do something to help, so I turned to my music once again. I reached out to my team of music collaborators—Christian Eigner, Niko Stoessl, and Damien Musto—and told them I had this idea to rearrange my original version of “Wake Up” into something new and bigger, because I felt the song had an important message that needed to be heard. They were all on board, and there was an electric energy between us as we created this more pop/alternative style of “Wake Up”.

I decided to visualize this song in this specific way because I wanted to make the video more about delivering the message and bringing this important global issue about the health of our planet to the spotlight.

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

The inspiration behind this new video came from many things – I like watching documentaries about the environment on Pattrn TV, and I’ve always been incredibly moved by Michael Jackson’s video for “Earth Song.” However, I had to narrow it down and keep my budget in mind, so I chose a source of inspiration from a past experience – a concert I had attended, which was the Live Earth concert organized by Al Gore when he released his documentary, “The Inconvenient Truth.”

That concert was so inspiring, with such an important message raising awareness about climate change, that it has always stuck with me. Melissa Etheridge did a music video for her song that she created for the film, “I Need to Wake Up,” and so I gathered inspiration to create my own version of what they created back then. I decided to try to focus on one climate issue that I feel passionate about, which is our forests, and try to highlight how they are such an important ecosystem that we need for maintaining the health of our planet.

3. What was the process of making the video?

Creating the video was a long process. This video is the culmination of many ideas. It was challenging to create something with such an important message, as there are many different environmental issues warranting attention, so I needed to narrow it down to just one. I didn’t want to be the focus of this video; instead, I wanted the message of the song to be in the spotlight. So I worked with my video team at Sunbeam Productions LLC, and we brainstormed many ideas.

I had a strong vision about gathering many different environmental images and text with different facts to create a story in the form of a mini-documentary, but I still wanted to have shots of me singing interwoven within those images. I researched the text that appears in the video from many different sources, like the Arbor Day Foundation and the Audubon Society, etc. I then put together the text story within the visual story of the images I gathered.

I came up with the idea of projecting all these images onto a large backdrop. We then scouted a location with a cyclorama wall and shot the singing scenes there, and it all worked out perfectly. I have Julia Schnarr and her team at Sunbeam Productions LLC to thank for putting all the pieces of my vision together into this video.

Keep up to date with Kristy Chmura on her Website

04.17.25

by Jane Lambert

Stephen Jaymes Gets Existential (and a Little Ironic) on “Waiting for the Drugs to Kick In”

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Stephen Jaymes, the folk punk poet, returns with a sly and soul searching song for the frayed nerves of 2025.

There is a special kind of exhaustion that hits when outrage becomes the national pastime. On new release “Waiting for the Drugs to Kick In”, Stephen Jaymes captures that feeling with an almost uncomfortable accuracy and is able to make it sound catchy too!

This latest single from Jaymes’s upcoming album “King Jaymes” finds him in rare form: drowsy-eyed, world weary but lucid as ever. Over a shuffling rhythm that evokes a late night stumble through emotional wreckage, Jaymes meditates on trauma, conflict and the desperate search for relief.

Whether it’s heartbreak, politics or the growing absurdity of modern life, the title isn’t really about narcotics at all. It is about the long aching pause before healing can begin. “Whatever it takes,” the song seems to shrug: “Whatever gets you through.”

The track walks a tightrope between bar room blues and surreal lounge punk. Bottles clink in the background like percussion. The chords are loose but deliberate also, with an unhurried groove. Jaymes’s voice, part crooner part confessor, floats just behind the beat as if he is narrating from the bottom of a half remembered dream. It is theatrical, but not posturing. You can believe every word he says.

The lyrics for “Waiting for the Drugs to Kick In” deliver a kind of poetic clarity that is becoming of Jaymes’s signature sound. He doesn’t give you slogans, he give symbols. Voodoo dolls, needle pricks. Arguments that circle the drain. In one breath, he is talking about a romantic burnout; in the next, he is hinting at a bigger cultural fatigue.

This is the kind of song that can make you laugh, and then maybe tear you up a little because you have felt it too.

If Baby Can’t Be Helped was Jaymes diagnosing our collective Baby Brain Syndrome, this new single is him whispering from the recovery room.

For fans of Leonard Cohen’s sardonic honesty, Beck’s melancholy, or even Zappa’s smirking surrealism, “Waiting for the Drugs to Kick In” is a necessary stop. It doesn’t promise easy answers, but it does something which is more powerful. It sits with you in the chaos, cracks a half smile and asks “Should we put on another record while we wait?”

Listen to “Waiting for the Drugs to Kick In” on Spotify.

Keep up with everything Stephen Jaymes on his Website.

04.11.25

by Jane Lambert

George Collins Pushes Forward with Electrified Grit on “New Way”

George Collins doesn’t just wear his influences on his sleeve. He very much channels them like a man with something urgent to get off his chest.

His new single “New Way” is a blistering, hook-heavy declaration of discontent and renewal. It opens with a fuzz-drenched guitar riff that’s instantly memorable.

Collins, who is a Washington D.C. born, Prague-based singer-songwriter with an unconventional path to music, knows how to get to the point. And in “New Way” the point is clear. Essentially, the world is a mess both culturally, politically, spiritually, and the time to shake things up has arrived.

It’s time for a new way – ’cause I know that something’s wrong

It’s time for a new way – it’s been going on too long

Tired of waiting. No more hesitating. Future’s unwritten – not set in stone.

What gives the track its bite though is not so much the urgency of its message, but the way it blends grit with melody. Anchored with tight drums and layered vocals that recall the energy of an early Costello, the tension of “The Rising” era Springsteen, and the swing for the rafters bravado of classic Stones. But it is all filtered through Collins’ own lens – that of a man who has spent decades in high finance before returning to music with a fresh dynamic and perspective and zero interest in any pretense.

Collins says:

The tune was indirectly inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s classic dystopian film, “A Clockwork Orange.”

Early in the movie, Georgie (no relation!) attempts to wrest control of the ultra-violent gang of Droogs led by Alex (played by Malcolm MacDowell), telling him repeatedly that “It’s part of the new way.”

This line has always stuck with me, and ever since my student days, whenever I decided it was time to turn over a new leaf and start afresh, I would tell myself (in my best Droogie accent), “It’s part of the new way!”

With this phrase in mind, I set out to write the song last year, based on my views of the current scene and a killer guitar riff that had been kicking around in my head for years.

The song starts out dark and uncertain but finishes on an optimistic and hopeful note with a positive message I hope will resonate far and wide.

Lyrically, “New Way” doesn’t overreach with metaphors — instead, it speaks plainly and directly, like a letter from someone who’s been watching the chaos unfold for years and is finally ready to shout over the noise. There’s frustration, yes, but also a glimmer of optimism and a belief that change is still possible if we’re willing to meet it halfway.

One of the more intriguing inspirations behind the song comes from Stanley Kubrick’s 1970’s film “A Clockwork Orange“. Musically and thematically, “New Way” does indeed set the tone for Collins’s upcoming album entitled “New Ways of Getting Old”, a collection which he has described as his very own attempt at a sprawling, genre spanning work à la Revolver or The White Album.

And “New Way” also proves that you do not need to be young to raise your voice – you just need to have something to say. Lucky for us, George Collins has that in very good measure.

Keep up with George Collins Band on his Website

04.10.25

by Jane Lambert

Ben Neill Channels Sheldrake’s Radical Science into a Living, Breathing Soundscape on “Morphic Resonance”

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Ben Neill’s “Morphic Resonance” is not just a piece of music, but is a philosophical gesture rendered in sound.

Released as a dual version single and marking the final chapter of his forthcoming album “Amalgam Sphere”, the work is deeply informed by the theories of Rupert Sheldrake, the British biologist whose controversial concept of morphic resonance proposes that memory and learning are not confined to the brain but embedded in nature itself.

That Neill chooses to explore this idea not in a lecture hall, but in a dense, immersive soundscape says a great deal about his own creative philosophy. And, the growing porousness between art, science and technology.

Listen in here:

Neill, who is perhaps best known as the inventor of the Mutantrumpet, a fantastic shape-shifting hybrid electro-acoustic instrument, has built a decades-long career on this kind of boundary-blurring.

Across thirteen albums released on labels like Astralwerks, Six Degrees and Universal’s Verve imprint, Neill’s work has embraced minimalism, ambient electronica, interactive art and jazz, often in the same breath. But Morphic Resonance feels like something new. It is more of a culmination, a synthesis and a provocation.

Central to the track’s construction is Sheldrake’s voice, which Neill doesn’t just sample but transforms into a kind of metaphysical presence. It is at once narrator, texture and spirit guide. Fragments of Sheldrake’s speech drift in and out of the mix, sometimes intelligible, often distorted beyond recognition, suggesting that memory is not a fixed archive but is a vaporous, shape shifting force. The haunt the piece like neural echoes or half remembered dreams.

The sound world that Neill creates around this voice is astonishing in its detail. The original version of the track opens with a delictae interplay of processed trumpet tones and low, glowing drones. Gradually, the sound field thickens, enriched with granulr textures, harmonic overtones, and subtle rhythmic pulses. Rather than moving in a linear arc, the track seems to unfold in spirals and circles back in on itself, expanding and contracting like a breathing organism.

This is music that does not simply develop, but it evolves.

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Much of this fluidity comes from the way Neill engages with the Mutantrumpet. With its multiple bells, integrated electronics and gestural control system, it allows for real-time sampling and transformation. The instrument itself is sensitive, reactive and alive. Neill’s use of it here is not virtuosic in the traditional sense; instead, he plays with restraint, allowing the textures and resonances to accumulate organically. The trumpet doesn’t lead so much as it listens.

In a particularly elegant twist, Neill maps the letters in the title “Morphic Resonance” to musical pitches, creating the harmonic and melodic material from linguistic structure itself.

It’s a subtle but profound move, echoing Sheldrake’s ideas about the resonance of forms and habits. Language becomes sound. Sound becomes structure. Structure becomes memory. It’s a recursive loop, and Neill navigates it with remarkable sensitivity.

The “Bifurcated Mix” is the second version included in the release, fracturing this dreamlike world with glitchy percussive interventions and sharper electronic edges. If the original mix is memory as mist or sediment, the Bifurcated version is memory under pressure. The introduction of rhythm here turns it into a shifting terrain of broken patterns and flickering signals. It’s less meditative, and more hallucinatory.

This dual presentation is not just a clever production choice—it reflects the underlying philosophy of the piece. For Sheldrake, morphic resonance is about pattern transmission through time: the idea that habits of nature are inherited non-genetically, through fields of information. Neill’s music channels this idea not by describing it, but by embodying it. Patterns are set and then mutated, phrases recur in altered forms, motifs dissolve and are reborn.

“Morphic Resonance” also acts as a sound companion to Neill’s recent book “Diffusing Music: Trajectories of Sonic Democratization”, in which he considers how emerging technologies from AI to algorithmic composition tools, are changing not just how music is participatory, fluid and radically open ended. Neill’s interest lies not in fixed compositions but in adaptive systems where the boundaries between composer, performer and listener begin to blur.

In this light “Morphic Resonance” asks: what if music isn’t just a product of human creativity, but part of a larger ecological and temporal process? What if memory isn’t stored, but acted out? And what if every performance, every iteration is a ghost of what came before, re-shaped by what is happening now?

One gets the feeling that Amalgam Sphere, when fully released, will only deepen these themes. If Morphic Resonance is the seed, the coming work may very well be the bloom – alive, unpredictable and carrying within it the memory of every note that came before.

Find out more about Ben Neill on his Website

Stream music on Spotify , Apple Music and YouTube