Artist Spotlight
Michael Berman paints smiles without words on “Various Smiles (Alternate Mix)”
Michael Berman’s latest release “Various Smiles (Alternate Mix)” brings us back with a softly confident moment in a infused instrumental pop track that puts the weight on the listener to slow down and actually listen. Clocking in at around three minutes and thirty-five seconds, the track proves that a song doesn’t need lyrics to say something memorable. It appears on Berman’s 2025 album, “Autumn (Alternate Mix),” as the third track.
“Various Smiles (Alternate Mix)” feels deliberate, a pause in conversation where feelings can speak. The alternate mix framing indicates it, with a suggested, refined outlook, and the track leans into that by centering on texture, pacing, and mood rather than just storytelling. The song has a soft movement from the opening. It’s organized but never sharp, giving melodies space to breathe and change on their own terms.
But as a pop instrumental, it walks the line between accessibility and understated complexity, the former making it a breeze to listen to on autopilot and the latter rewarding those who tune in for closer listening. Each section feels carefully sculpted, adding to a general feel of warmth and low-key optimism. “Various Smiles (Alternate Mix)” stands out is in its emotional candor, and it somehow hints at different moods, calm, reflection, and quiet joy, as its title suggests.
It’s the kind of song that easily slots into a personal soundtrack, on during a late-night drive or a reflective afternoon break. In this release, Michael Berman again demonstrates that instrumental pop can be as personal and expressive as any other genre. “Various Smiles (Alternate Mix)” exemplify Berman’s mood-driven approach to writing, and it boosts the album’s momentum. It reinforces that alternate mixes can illuminate new emotional angles in a song without altering its essential nature.
Connect with Michael Berman on Spotify
Artist Spotlight
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” finds a new direction through Ghost of Panama
Rearranging a song that carries six decades of cultural weight is a creative challenge, but Ghost of Panama approaches “Subterranean Homesick Blues” with clear purpose. The rock band radically reworks Bob Dylan’s counter-culture hit, reshaping its identity while keeping its rebellious spirit. It’s a tribute to musical heritage and a statement of artistic independence all in one.
This new interpretation is very much shaped by the production, made at Ghost of Panama’s home studio in West London. The setting allows an intimate approach to reinterpreting a familiar song and lets the group engage directly with the material, taking it in a new artistic direction.
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” centers on the tension between conservation and transformation. Ghost of Panama is true to the song’s rebellious spirit without adding to its legacy, and this approach gives the release an adventurous feel, grounded in countercultural energy but driven by a desire to see what the composition can become in a different musical context.
Their version of this 60-year-old classic shows that respecting a song’s history can also mean breaking the rules and finding new ways to express its spirit. Fundamentally, “Subterranean Homesick Blues” presents Ghost of Panama as artists who want to engage with the past without being tied to it. The release’s strongest identity is a familiar heritage reimagined through a singularly forward-looking creative vision.
Artist Spotlight
“NO MORE” by Amanda Holley connects healing, awakening, and survival
“NO MORE“ carries that kind of emotional weight, and some songs feel like they come from lived experience but reach for something bigger. Amanda Holley blends R&B and soul, turning a lifetime of survival into a vision of healing, awakening, and the determination to move beyond what caused the pain.
“NO MORE“ is a healing anthem for people who have gone through bad experiences and reached a place of higher awareness, but it’s also an emotionally charged protest. The duality is introspective and outward-looking at the same time, turning personal survival into a broader declaration that some experiences, conditions, or cycles should end.
Holley had a premonition of the song six months before the world went into global shutdown. In the vocal booth, working out melodies with her collaborators, she pictured people in the streets. Those images were hard to imagine at the time, but subsequent events would make them painfully familiar.
“NO MORE“ is given a particularly contemplative underpinning by the context. The identity of R&B and soul leaves room for emotion. The song’s themes link survival, awakening, resistance, and the need for change. Amanda Holley is an artist using music to process personal endurance and a broader sense of social awakening. It’s got a complicated significance, and its release feels like a glimpse of a moment when personal intuition and public reality collided in an unexpected way.
Photo Credit: Yulia Shusharina
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