Toronto-based singer-songwriter Julian Taylor shares “Drive,” a stirring new track that reflects on the uncertainty of the current moment while offering a reminder to keep moving forward. Blending thoughtful lyricism with a warm, full band arrangement, the track explores themes of hope, compassion, resilience, and the ongoing pursuit of a more connected world.

Written when Julian observed growing tension, confusion, and hurt between people, “Drive” was born from a desire to counter those feelings with something more hopeful. Inspired by the writers, thinkers, and teachings that shaped his worldview, including Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou, Handsome Lake, and The Giving Tree, the song serves as a reminder to continue striving toward kindness, understanding, and positive change.

“The song was inspired by the times in which we are living,” Julian explains. “It’s a strange time and I think people are stressed, confused, hurt, and it feels as if those emotions are being taken out on each other. I want to keep spreading the good word.”

Sounds wonderful. Julian Taylor is a unique voice in Americana. His songs and his sound compel you to listen.

– Lyle Lovett

That sense of purpose is reflected in the song’s title. After considering several options, Julian ultimately chose “Drive” as a daily reminder to himself and others to keep pushing toward meaningful goals. It speaks to the internal force that motivates creators, thinkers, and everyday people to continue working toward something bigger than themselves. At its core, “Drive” is about the commitment to growth, compassion, and finding a way forward even when circumstances feel uncertain.

Musically, “Drive” bridges the timeless qualities of folk and Americana songwriting with the energy of a full band folk-rock arrangement. Originally conceived as an acoustic track, Julian and his collaborators continued refining the song until they discovered the larger sound it needed.

“We took a long time fine tuning this track,” Julian shares. “It started off acoustically but ultimately we chose to go with a full band and I am glad we did.”

The final recording channels the spirit of ‘90s folk-rock, drawing inspiration from artists such as Tracy Chapman, Fleetwood Mac, and Dave Matthews Band. The track features Julian’s UK touring band, including Michele Stodart on bass, Raevennan Husbandes on guitar, and Sian Monaghan on drums, with engineering and mixing handled by longtime collaborator Saam Hashemi.

Following the release of his debut single “Chances” and the bold, self-assured “Keep It Simple,” emerging pop artist Eric Reinhart returns with “Over and Over,” a heartfelt, nostalgic pop anthem that celebrates the people, places, and memories that shape who we become. Blending uplifting melodies with reflective storytelling, the track captures the desire to relive life’s defining moments while embracing every twist and turn that brought us to the present.

The song was born from a studio conversation about nostalgia between Eric, longtime friend JT, and producer Justin Gray. “We got talking about how there are certain things in life you just want to do over and over again because they’re such great memories,” Eric shares. “That conversation sparked the idea, and we just started writing from there.”

Rather than dwelling on regret, “Over and Over” embraces the idea that every experience, both joyful and difficult, plays a role in shaping who we are. At its core, the song is about gratitude: for friendships, for community, and for the memories that continue to define us long after they’ve passed.

“There are so many versions of this life I could be living,” Eric says. “There are things I didn’t do perfectly along the way. But I’d go on every version of this ride because those experiences made me who I am. I’m genuinely content with who I am, even knowing there are parts of me that still need work. I’m here today because of everything I’ve been through, and I wouldn’t trade that.”

That message is reinforced by the song’s dynamic production. While “Over and Over” carries an easygoing, feel-good pop energy throughout, its soaring bridge shifts unexpectedly into power ballad territory, adding a dramatic lift that gives the emotional payoff even greater impact. “The bridge really takes you somewhere else,” Eric says. “There’s this slightly rock, power ballad energy to it that lifts the whole song into a different place. That shift is something I’m really proud of.”

The songwriting process itself unfolded just as naturally as the song’s theme. Rather than beginning with a finished concept, the session evolved through conversation, with memories and personal stories flowing freely around the room. “I came in and started sharing memories, experiences, things I’d been through,” Eric recalls. “JT just started writing. He penned a lot of the lyrics, pulling from the stories we were all sharing. It was a really natural, organic process, and I think you can feel that in the song.”

“Over and Over” also continues the larger message behind Eric’s growing catalogue of music. Alongside past and future releases, the single forms part of a broader collection centered on hope, resilience, friendship, family, and finding strength through community. “Life can get tough,” Eric says. “Sometimes you just need a little lift. I want my music to do that for people.”

Award-winning singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Kate Schutt shares “Drumfire of the Hurricane,” a moving new single inspired by the extraordinary true story of Austrian painter and writer Christiane Ritter’s 1934 memoir A Woman in the Polar Night. Blending folk-rooted storytelling with sweeping adult contemporary arrangements, the song captures a moment of profound uncertainty: a woman alone in an Arctic hut, facing a violent winter storm and the terrifying realization that her survival depends entirely on herself.

The song’s title comes directly from Ritter’s description of the storm as “the furious drumfire of the hurricane,” a phrase that immediately stayed with Kate after first reading the memoir. “Ritter’s phrase is pitch perfect,” Kate explains. “Her writing is so visceral, capturing the overwhelm and terror of being inside a major winter storm. It’s my hope that my song adds another dimension to Ritter’s incredible, indelible story.”

“Drumfire of the Hurricane” explores a moment suspended between fear and action. Ritter knows the danger she is facing, but she has not yet found the courage to act. The song exists in that liminal space between the person she was before the storm and the person she becomes after surviving it.

The track’s emotional intensity is rooted in Kate’s commitment to storytelling. Guided by the songwriting advice that “songs are like little movies,” she approached the song with a cinematic mindset, carefully considering every lyric, sound, and moment. “I knew in a song I’d only have about 150 words, so every word (and every sound we recorded) had to count,” she says.

“Drumfire of the Hurricane” was written during Kate’s second journey to Svalbard in 2024 as part of the Arctic Circle artist residency program, a trip inspired by her decade-long fascination with Ritter’s memoir. While aboard the MV Ortelius, surrounded by the same Arctic landscape that shaped Ritter’s experience, Kate began piecing together the song during one of the expedition’s roughest days at sea.

“I holed up in my cabin and started piecing together bits of lyric ideas and melodies,” Kate recalls. “My cabinmate had to listen to me play it over and over for hours and hours as we tossed and rolled on the rough seas.” Days later, she performed an early version of the song for the artists-in-residence, Arctic guides, and ship’s crew, joined by Danish saxophonist and author Benjamin Koppel on alto saxophone. Writing and sharing the song within Ritter’s landscape became a deeply meaningful full-circle moment.

Initially imagining the track as a simple voice-and-guitar performance, Kate’s vision expanded during pre-production with co-producer, engineer, and mix engineer Jay Newland. “My mind was changed when Jay suggested that a full band could help create the atmosphere of the cold and ice and storm,” Kate explains. “He was totally right.”

The final recording builds that sense of elemental force through the contributions of Kate’s collaborators, including drummer Dan Rieser, whose powerful performance brings the song’s “drumfire” to life. Kate also highlights Jay’s mix work and the subtle details that complete the atmosphere, including the howling wind that closes the track.

Mikey Tableman’s My Manic Maze takes readers far beyond the public image of a man living an exciting life in Los Angeles. The memoir examines the private battles that can exist behind a busy career, social connections, and an outwardly successful life, revealing an experience shaped by mental illness, addiction, manic episodes, and an ongoing search for stability.

Instead of following a conventional chronological format, Tableman builds the book through a collection of connected scenes. The approach gives the story a visual quality, with individual moments gradually revealing the larger picture of his life. Memories, observations, painful experiences, and moments of humor come together to create a portrait of someone attempting to make sense of a mind that does not always operate quietly.

That tension is central to the book. Tableman describes a life that, from the outside, could appear exciting and enviable. His involvement in the Los Angeles celebrity and nightlife scene places him in an environment associated with energy, entertainment, and constant activity. Yet his internal experience is considerably more complicated.

Anxiety, depression, ADHD, addiction, suicidal thoughts, and periods of mania become part of the story without being reduced to labels. Tableman examines how these experiences affected his relationships, decisions, sense of identity, and understanding of himself. The result is a memoir that focuses as much on the emotional consequences of these struggles as it does on the events themselves.

The title’s maze becomes an effective way of understanding that experience. There are wrong turns, dead ends, unexpected openings, and moments when the way forward is difficult to see. Tableman uses that idea to give readers a sense of what it can be like to navigate thoughts and emotions that do not follow a predictable route.

Despite the seriousness of the subject matter, the book is not relentlessly bleak. Tableman’s humor provides moments of relief and reflects the complicated ways people cope with difficult circumstances. His ability to recognize the absurdity in certain situations gives the narrative personality without taking away from the gravity of what he describes.

Just as importantly, the memoir avoids turning suffering into something glamorous. Tableman writes about the less polished aspects of recovery, including therapy, sobriety, difficult realizations, misdiagnoses, and the willingness to acknowledge when he needs support. Progress does not arrive in a perfectly ordered sequence. Some steps forward are followed by setbacks, and understanding oneself can take considerably longer than expected.

That honesty gives the book an accessible quality. Readers do not need to share Tableman’s specific experiences to recognize the broader questions running through his story. What happens when the person others see is very different from the person struggling internally? How does someone rebuild a sense of self after years of coping mechanisms that no longer work? And what does recovery actually look like when there is no single moment that changes everything?

Tableman’s writing style adds another dimension to those questions. His prose frequently feels immediate and spoken, moving between reflection and storytelling rather than maintaining the distance sometimes found in traditional memoirs. The scenes create a sense of movement, while the reflective passages provide room to consider what those experiences meant.

At its most personal, My Manic Maze is about learning to confront parts of oneself that can be difficult to acknowledge. Tableman does not position himself as someone who has discovered every answer. Instead, he allows readers to see the uncertainty, mistakes, fear, and gradual understanding that accompany genuine change.

The book also speaks to the people surrounding those who struggle with mental health and addiction. Not every battle is visible, and not every person who appears functional is doing well. By opening the door to experiences that are often kept private, Tableman creates space for greater understanding and less judgment.

My Manic Maze ultimately leaves readers with an honest portrait of a complicated journey. It is not a story built around a perfect ending. It is about continuing to examine the past, confronting the present, and figuring out how to move into the future while carrying everything that came before.

For readers interested in candid memoirs about mental health, addiction, identity, and personal change, Tableman’s story offers a deeply revealing look at the life that exists beneath the surface.

Brooks John Martin isn’t interested in making “Do” easy to explain.

The first single from his upcoming album War All The Time, “Do” takes the emotional turbulence of a manic arc and turns it into something unexpectedly buoyant, surreal and funny. It is a song about breakdowns, breakthroughs and the unpredictable territory in between, yet its energy is closer to celebration than collapse.

Martin describes it as “non-linear Lewis Carroll nonsense,” an intentionally loose description for a song that refuses to move in a straight line. Its subject matter may come from a complicated emotional place, but the track approaches it without the heaviness listeners might expect.

In fact, Martin calls “Do” arguably the happiest song ever written about a manic arc.

That contradiction is central to the song. Rather than attempting to neatly translate emotional instability into a conventional narrative, “Do” allows the experience to remain messy. Ideas collide, moods shift and the absurd becomes part of the storytelling. The song doesn’t necessarily explain what a breakdown or breakthrough feels like. Instead, it captures the sensation of moving through one.

That fits naturally with Martin’s broader approach to songwriting. Throughout his artistic evolution, he has tended to favor lyrics that communicate moods and feelings over straightforward, linear narratives. His songs often operate through impression, atmosphere and emotional association, giving listeners the freedom to experience them rather than simply follow a plot.

“Do” pushes that philosophy further.

The track comes from the emotional extremes surrounding a manic arc, but there is no attempt to make the subject solemn simply because it is serious. Martin allows humor and absurdity to exist alongside the more difficult material, creating a song that can feel exhilarating even when its underlying subject matter is anything but simple.

The accompanying music video takes that idea even further.

Set against a stylized version of 1960s Japan, the visual is a completely AI-generated journey that operates according to its own dream logic. Reality isn’t particularly important here. The video is designed to complement the song’s refusal to follow conventional rules, creating a visual world where anything can happen.

And then there is Tom Jones.

At Martin’s specific request, the video features his own likeness dancing like the legendary singer. The sequence arrives as the ultimate payoff to the video’s increasingly surreal journey, with the final 30 seconds becoming an intentionally ridiculous spectacle.

Martin is clearly in on the joke.

Rather than using the technology to create something overly serious or visually self-important, the video embraces the strange possibilities of AI and lets the concept become increasingly absurd. The result is less a traditional narrative music video than a visual fever dream built around the personality of the song.

The humor doesn’t diminish the subject matter. If anything, it gives Martin another way to approach it.

There is something revealing about taking a difficult emotional experience and allowing yourself to find the ridiculousness inside it. “Do” doesn’t attempt to sanitize its subject, but it also refuses to suggest that every complicated experience needs to be presented through darkness.

That tension has long existed in Martin’s music.

His dreamy baritone carries the romantic qualities of post-punk, new wave and Brit-pop, giving his songs a sense of emotional weight even when the material itself moves somewhere unexpected. On previous albums, crunchy alternative-rock guitars have provided much of the musical foundation, creating a contrast between the rougher instrumental textures and the more romantic quality of his voice.

With “Do,” those qualities meet a much more playful sensibility.

The result is a song that can be heard as both an emotional document and a piece of surreal pop-art absurdity. The music invites the listener into Martin’s headspace, while the video throws open the doors and lets the imagination run wild.

Martin’s relationship with music began early. He started learning piano at eight and guitar at 14, eventually developing the instrumental and songwriting instincts that would become central to his work. Over time, his music has evolved through different sounds and influences, but the emphasis on emotion and atmosphere has remained.

War All The Time will continue that evolution.

As its first single, “Do” offers a particularly unpredictable introduction to the album. It suggests a record willing to explore difficult emotional territory without becoming trapped by it, and willing to find humor in places where humor isn’t necessarily expected.

There is also something fitting about beginning an album called War All The Time with a song that sounds so happy.

“Do” understands that emotional life rarely behaves in neat categories. A breakdown can contain exhilaration. A breakthrough can arrive in the middle of confusion. Something painful can become funny years, months or even minutes later. Happiness can exist alongside chaos.

Martin doesn’t try to resolve those contradictions.

He turns them into a song.

And then he ends the video by dancing like Tom Jones.

Stay for the final 30 seconds.