> Dish: New Pop – feature updates every Monday
listen to the article
Moon and Aries – High Noon

Moon And Aries Turn The Desert Into A Cinematic Reckoning
Moon and Aries return with “High Noon,” a heat-hazed dispatch from their Electronic Cinematic Soul universe that feels equal parts mirage and revelation. Built on trip-hop pulse, atmospheric electronics, soulful vocals, and a saxophone line that cuts through like sunlight on metal, the track moves with the slow confidence of a modern western. Guest guitar from Peter J. Mitchell and saxophone from Hanna Marchand add grain and lift, while the duo’s organic production keeps the song breathing, human, and close to the bone.
What gives “High Noon” its charge is the way it balances shadow and surrender. It bridges the dustier, more tactile world of Prairie Souls with Moon and Aries’ broader cinematic vision, circling themes of transformation, truth, and stepping into the light. Written, performed, and produced entirely by human hands, it’s a reminder that their music doesn’t just build atmosphere — it opens a door.
VelumVelvet – Yellow Brick Roads

VelumVelvet Turns Memory Into A Conversation Across Time
VelumVelvet’s “Yellow Brick Roads (piano room)” feels less like a single than a handwritten note slipped through time. Built for the Reflection Room of her House of Emotional Rooms, it strips the song to piano, voice, and ache, letting Donna James’ poetry breathe without ornament. The twist is in the detail: the cover art was drawn by her teenage self, turning the release into a literal exchange between the woman who stayed quiet and the one finally singing back.
James, a nurse and lifelong poet from Brigg, writes from “word soups,” and this one lands with the clarity of someone who has spent years holding other people’s stories. The earlier version already travelled widely, but this piano-room take feels even more intimate — a soft apology, a self-reckoning, and a reminder that the roads that shape us are rarely straight.
Michael Waters – La La Love Song

Michael Waters Turns Feel-Good Pop Into Something Hard To Shake
Michael Waters writes like someone who trusts a great melody to carry real feeling. The UK-based songwriter and composer has been leaning hard into the craft, recording in New York with world-class musicians and letting the songs do the talking. That approach has already paid off: his recent releases have travelled well, with “A Baby Of My Own” and “The Boy Who Really Loved You” making a serious mark on the World Indie Music Chart.
Now comes “La La Love Song”, a laid-back, beach-lit burst of pop that moves with easy confidence and a hook that sticks fast. It’s the kind of track that feels sun-warmed without turning lightweight, all glide and shimmer with a proper emotional pulse underneath. If that single leans toward the carefree, the upcoming “Requiem for Earth” promises the other side of Waters’ range—bigger, deeper, and more reflective. Together, they show a writer thinking in contrasts, and landing them.
Bailey Grey – Unfortunately (I’m in Love with You)

Bailey Grey Turns Yearning Into A Pop-Rock Fairytale
Bailey Grey’s “Unfortunately (I’m in Love with You)” lands like a teen-movie confession with a punk streak: all early 2000s nostalgia, stadium-sized longing, and glittering emotional chaos. The New Jersey artist, who moves easily between indie, jazz, rock, folk, and alternative, turns a classic crush into something sharper and more self-aware, folding fairytale imagery into a hook that aches with push-and-pull. It started as folk-pop, but in the studio with Sam Cook-Stuntz at Homespun Audio in Seattle, it swelled into a pop-rock anthem that feels part Avril Lavigne, part Chappell Roan, with a cinematic lift that never loses its bite.
What makes it stick is Bailey’s instinct for detail: the 12 clock tower chimes tucked under the pre-chorus, the deliberately unfinished vocal, the way the song leans into loud feelings without apology. It’s romantic comedy with teeth, and Grey wears that contradiction beautifully.
Approaching Jupiter and R.Y.B. – When it Comes to Us

Underneath Neon Lights: The Nostalgia of “When It Comes To Us”
Approaching Jupiter and R.Y.B. shape “When It Comes To Us” as a late-night meeting point between dance-pop momentum and emotional afterglow. Atmospheric synths and a pulsing bassline give the track its forward motion, while R.Y.B.’s vocal brings a softer tension to lyrics caught between memory and reality. Backseat laughter, whispered secrets, and the slow unravelling of connection flicker through the song like scenes recalled after midnight.
There is polish in the production, but the track never loses its reflective centre. Its rhythm suggests release, while the writing keeps circling what remains unresolved. For Approaching Jupiter, “When It Comes To Us” extends a developing pop vocabulary built on atmosphere and motion; for R.Y.B., it offers space for vocal depth without overstating the emotion.
If you would like to submit your music for playlist or feature consideration, please submit here via our partnership with MusoSoup.







