Listen: Hearts Fall In Line by Ian McFarland

The latest single from Ian McFarland represents a departure from his usual sound, citing a musical rebrand as leading to a repositioning from ‘punk and edge’ towards pop and dance-ability.

The resulting sound, at the fore on Hearts Fall In Line, is warm and textural. The song opens with arch, fuzzy guitars as McFarland produces a slightly whimsical vocal. The result has just a dash of the nostalgic feeling of something like Smashing Pumpkins’ 1979. Having gradually opened up, the short chorus at the thirty-second mark transitions the song into a kaleidoscopic instrumental bridge, drums and instrumentation giving the song a freewheeling, dream-like quality.

McFarland’s exploration of music began whilst studying abroad in Spain, where he started writing music and performing music under his own name, leading to him taking a minor in music production at Berklee College of Music. After moving to New York, Ian’s career began to take shape, with him performing in numerous live venues and, ultimately, assembling his current trio of musicians.

Opening with the line, ‘Picking up the pieces of our time’, Hearts Fall In Line was written on the USA’s election night back in November. It represents McFarland’s attempt to make sense of what he was seeing, manifesting in the chorus’ line, ‘Hearts fall in line for you, hearts fall out of time for me’.

The song has a playful feel to it, almost ferris wheel like, conveying the ups, downs, and circular nature of politics, society, and history. At the same time, there is an underlying sadness to McFarland’s performance, and you can sense him attempting to retreat into the innocence of youth, particularly on the line ‘Putting back together fragments of my youth’.

Ian McFarland has created a compelling musical collage on Hearts Fall In Line, whilst conveying the weird alienation many of us feel in this specific moment.

Listen: Flowers Fell by Avery Friedman

The latest single from Brooklyn-based musician Avery Friedman opens with soft guitars and hushed harmonies, a layered blanket of sound that ushers in a fragile vocal. Flowers Fell finds more stable footing as its solid drum beat cautiously thumps out, like feet testing the ground. Avery’s music here floats on a complex ocean of noise — distortion and fragments glimmer, but the overall texture pulls together to create a sense of buoyancy.

Having originally felt that songwriting was something reserved for other people, Friedman began taking music seriously following both a transcendent live music experience and a traumatic mugging, that led to her seeking solace in music. Having first taken to the stage in July last year, she has since shared it with a number of artists, including h. pruz, Dead Gowns and Sister. She is now in the process of releasing her first album.

Coming ahead of Friedman’s debut LP, New Thing, the song Flowers Fell represents its lead single. Weaving together grungy, distorted instrumentation, Avery creates a soundscape that slowly builds, as she explores the human experience of change and transformation, most directly paralleled in our sensation of the changing seasons:

‘The opening melody for Flowers Fell came to me on a headphone-less walk home one night down Greene Avenue in Brooklyn. I had noticed that the flowers that once lined the branches had been replaced by leaves — seemingly in the blink of an eye. I was briefly disappointed until I considered that the petals had made way for something more sustainable – and equally full of life. The song became a meditation on the concept of place – how things of our surroundings like “sidewalks,” and “balconies” and “trees,” can act as fixed backdrops upon which we measure our personal evolutions (and the evolutions of our relationships) across the span of many seasons.’

I’ve already referenced how relevant this notion of change feels right now, in early January, not just seasonally, but politically and from a more macro-societal perspective. I find the Stoicism Friedman employs on Flowers Fell comforting. It isn’t about letting go and giving up on creating the change you want, but instead reflects a recognition that things naturally evolve, and cycle. Check it out below:

Listen: Prettiest Girl Of Heaven by Caroline Strickland

Originally hailing from Virginia, Caroline Strickland is a Brooklyn-based musician who focused on making music exploring the sense of self, self-actualisation, and ‘the tension between arrogance and tenderness’.

Prettiest Girl Of Heaven is the final single to be lifted from Strickland’s forthcoming EP, Martha’s Calling. The song sees Strickland perform the kind of rousing vocal that reminds me of Florence Welch, setting it against a slowly building crescendo of fuzzy, folky guitar and earthy instrumentation. Carefully overdubbed vocals create soft harmonies and a sense of self-compassion, those additional layers feeling like the support of a friend gently providing encouragement, as Strickland repeats the song’s title refrain to herself.

The song itself has a slightly complex origin story — an example of someone arguably saying the wrong thing, but it landing in a moment where it actually ends up helping the person it is said to. Caroline explains:

‘Prettiest Girl Of Heaven takes its namesake from a catcall I received walking east in Manhattan towards 2nd Avenue (in) Fall 2023. I had just left a shift at Madewell in SoHo. I was crying my eyes out. It was November (…) Walking with a wet cold face under scaffolding someone, some angel, yelled at me, “You are one of the PRETTIEST GIRLS OF HEAVEN!!!” I was struck with a white blade of light and love all at once, despite the misogyny of it all. It was as if this yeller brought me back to the present, where I suddenly had the strength to reckon with the fact I was alone, and most of my continued unhappiness was now a choice.’

The imperfect nature of the moment somehow created a moment of perfection for Strickland, being the thing she needed to re-centre herself and find what she needed to know at that moment. Just don’t take this as validation of misogynistic behaviour.

Check out Prettiest Girl Of Heaven below, and look out for Caroline Strickland’s forthcoming EP, Martha’s Calling, set for release on 7 March through Good Eye Records.

Listen: Love Me Harder by HunBjørn

With smooth-yet-android-like bleeps and analogue synth bass tones, HunBjørn’s latest single Love Me Harder opens with a cool, stripped back electronic aesthetic. Combining those with HunBjørn’s shimmering vocals serves to enhance her sense of humanity, but rather than appearing vulnerable amidst so much technology, she sounds augmented, emboldened, and enhanced by it. It is as though those synthesisers and drum patterns have adhered themselves to her skin, a form of cybernetic armour.

HunBjørn has spent the past year establishing a collection of songs tackling ‘sensitive dilemmas for a distinctly feminine perspective’. Love Me Harder arrives as a preview of her forthcoming album, The Digital Organic Life, targeted for release on 4 April. On the song, HunBjørn has chosen to depict the universal experience one has at the start of a romantic relationship. There is a point where you hesitate, waiting for a definitive signal from the other person, or alternatively build the determination and confidence to make the first move. Describing the song, HunBjørn says:

‘The song is about finding the courage to reveal yourself to someone else. It’s about the doubt and nervousness that arise when you start falling in love. You long to know if your feelings are reciprocated, but it takes bravery to speak up and expose yourself. Often, we need to push through our own insecurities to achieve the connection we desire.’

The writing and production of Love Me Harder were developed by HunBjørn herself, and the production work is a masterclass in understatement, slowly building to emphasise HunBjørn’s emotional state. Each section of the song introduces additional elements, like the complexity that comes with a deepening relationship. Additional synthesisers begin to pick out melodic refrains in the second verse, with the bridge out of the second chorus embracing a clutch of soaring acid synth stabs. As she lets loose, HunBjørn’s vocal vamping gives me goosebumps, unveiling the full extent of her feelings. It is a thrilling moment that sees the song unshackle itself from restraint, much like someone who has finally committed to telling the subject of their affection how they really feel.

Listen: HWYGO by Mins

As the year unfolds before us, a blank page of possibility and moderate anxiety, Natherlands musician Mins is here with his second release, and BlackPlastic’s first song of the 2025.

Opening with soft synths, muted guitars and an earnest falsetto vocal, HWYGO is restrained as it gradually builds to a drop, one-minute in, which sees propulsive percussion establish a sense of momentum. Mins’ vocal performance culminates in a distinctively hushed shout of the song’s titular reference, “How would you get out?”.

The escape portrayed here is in reference to moving on from relationships and people, as Mins describes:

‘HWYGO is a song about acceptance and goodbyes, letting things be how they are, and moving on. I have a hard time with not thinking about things too much, I spend too much time regretting and hoping and not living in the now. In this song, the main topic is about love, but it's applicable to every part of life.’

Mins is the musical pseudonym of Minne Bussemaker, who grew up in the countryside close to Amsterdam. Raised in an artistic family, by actors, Bussemaker was surrounded by creativity from a young age. Music was originally a side project, and in high school his focus shifted to basketball. Whilst he had the support of his family, and even travelled oversees to Dublin to further develop before going on to play college basketball in the US, unfortunately an injury led to Minne having to move on from basketball as a career. In the period that followed, he started to explore music production, initially in Garage Band, and after a period exploring law and then politics in education, Minne realised he wouldn’t be happy doing anything that didn’t involve music. Since then, he has been accepted into LIPA, the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, and whilst studying music, has launched his musical career as Mins.

At a time of year that is ripe with reflection and change, HWYGO feels particularly appropriate. I appreciate the soft-focus psychedelia in Mins’ production style and performance. Check it out below, and look out for Mins’ upcoming debut EP.