Artist Spotlight
The Narcissist Cookbook present ‘This Is How We Get Better’ album
The Narcissist Cookbook, led by talented musician Matt Johnston, has released their third album “This Is How We Get Better.” The album has 12 songs and lasts for 41 minutes and 14 seconds. It is a beautiful piece of art that takes the listener on a journey through different emotions. The album teaches us about being true to ourselves and overcoming difficulties.
Matt Johnston started his musical journey while listening to American blues and country rock. He is a self-taught artist who has evolved. He rebelled against conventional sounds after listening to Green Day’s “Insomniac” and started to love unconventional music.
“This Is How We Get Better” is not just an ordinary album. It shows Matt’s transformation and reflects his story of discovering himself, overcoming adversity, and being honest about his feelings. The album has honest lyrics and dominant acoustic arrangements that show his journey.
The first song, “Practically ImPerfect,” is vulnerable and sets the tone for the rest of the album. The song “the Pattern” explores the complexities of life, while “Good Morning Sunshine” teaches us about resilience. The album climaxes with the emotional song “Eaten Alive by Wolves.”
Matt Johnston’s songs explore themes of mental health, non-monogamy, and abusive relationships, making the album relatable to a diverse audience. The album shows his commitment to self-acceptance and the power of facing our fears.
The Narcissist Cookbook’s unique music blends thrashy acoustic punk with folk storytelling and one-person theatre performances. Matt’s queerness is an important part of his storytelling, creating an empowering musical experience.
The Narcissist Cookbook has plans to tour internationally in 2024, and a compilation album featuring the highly-requested “Courtney (Director’s Cut)” is also in the works. Furthermore, Matt Johnston continues his artistic exploration with the upcoming album “MYTH.”
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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