Our purpose is to love,if only it were as simple s a sip of coffee and a good jazz song.

‘Love Me Too Hard’ by Hollie Carmen Sounds like a Sunday morning, one where your lover lies, entwined in shared sheets, the scent of fresh coffee and French pastries drift lazily from the bedside as the curious sun peaks through the shutters, watching smiles adorn your faces.

With a melody that echoes vintage bikes on cobblestone streets, and painted nails caressing ceramic mugs, this song defines the essence of falling in love.Its pace evocative of the heavy thud of time when you’re apart from your person,Hollie’s jazz-infused vocals gently descend like heavy raindrops on a windowsill you watch from.

Hollie’s harmonies and poetic lyrics provide a soundtrack for all those lovers trying to bury the days they are apart. A suprise reunion or a stranger in the supermarket wearing your lovers cologne? Their face becomes a roadmap, gawping at similarly shaped backs of heads and waving at hands you believed to have held, until you find yourself infatuated with shadows in the park.

Your love leaves town for a week just to make a home in your mind.Each chime, each whisper, each silence filled with them. Everyday is precious until you’re apart then each one is just a roadblock in the way of your heart.Eyes may fall upon yours, yet you remain unseen until they grace your presence.It is there in their arms that you are alive again.

Hollie’s vocals are both powerful and peaceful, a surprising juxtaposition that infuses the whole song with distinctive character. Although evocative of mid noughties Eliza Doolittle and with whispers of Etta James, Hollie is undeniably unique, demonstrated in her ability to produce such a sensual groove that has both a slow, patient feel yet propelled with optimistic undertones of a heart in wait.

Exploring narratives where you were once so self assured now each moment a deliberate firework display in the hope they will look your way. Prepping your parents to meet them, hoping they will share your heart and hold theirs highly. From swapping numbers to cardboard boxes the journey love can take us on, the person we become on the way, it is tumultuous and terrifying, it is so easy to ‘love too hard’.

Love is both cruel and magnificent,l ike the ocean a beast that is both destructive and beautiful, falling I love is like dipping your toe in a bath run by a stranger and hoping it doesn’t burn you. A chief that has stolen your senses, leaving you with carousel dances and crystal smiles. It is lingering eyes and stolen kisses on dance floors.Love remains captivating, an enchanting symphony that echoes through our hearts. Our purpose is to love,if only it were as simple s a sip of coffee and a good jazz song.

It’s a scorcher of a single.

With the temperatures rising, days feeling longer and drinks getting cooler, summer is approaching. It’s around this time we turn to the past, sharing stories of past summers round the beer garden table as the sunsets. Sentences start with ‘remember when’… and unravel into a kaleidoscope of orange imbued scenes full of laughter and friendship flood the table a you’re transported back to your favourite summer. a holiday you will never forget, one you try to replicate but always failing, each experience so unique to that day.

Stone Mile’s new single Sunset Kisses explores the semantics of rejoicing in previous events, living them vicariously as you flick through photo’s, admiring who you used to be and how you’ve grown alongside family and friends, wondering where the time’s gone and how you can reflect these faces in the upcoming summer.

Made up of Rae , lead singer and lyricist, Scott on lead guitar, Robbie on Rhythm, Gordon the drummer and Ryan on bass and backing vocals, the five formed in 2021 after meeting online. Since then they have released three songs, Settle Down, Circular Quay and now Sunset Kisses. With fans nationwide and over 2000 streams on Spotify it is clear as to why Stone Mile is becoming a household name in the Manchester Music scene.

Ryan has described the Sunset Kisses as being “ about the nostalgic feeling of that one amazing summer you just can’t recreate. That one holiday that’s messy: Cocktails at 2pm, sunburn, melting ice cream and kisses at sunset”. Envision long days with open skies, close friends by your side as you exercise your right to party, the beat of this track taking you there. Upbeat and poppy this single is bound to get you boogieing this season, you can’t help but sing along to the catchy chorus. Celebrate the joys of days gone by and look forward to making more memories full of ice cream and kisses at sunset.

The powerful opening verse sets the tone for the rest of the single with it’s optimistic delivery, exploring a narrative burning with idyllic images, the summer, and the new possibilities it hosts.

“Strawberry ice–cream and 

drops of Malibu 

Soak in the sunshine and

 Be right next to you

Cat eye sunglasses And

White pretty dresses

I love the summer but it burns me with kisses “

Sunset Kisses

It’s evocative of Sandy’ and Danny’s summer, one where everything changes, everything is perfect in a chaotic concoction of too many drinks, strangers gazes and blazing nights. Hands find each other in the sand and then discover more, lips meet lips, love rises as the sun falls.

Sunset kisses settles on a more joyous tone than other tracks that fall under the ice rock repertoire like riot anthem settle down that demands a decent head bang and a room full of moshers.

The sun burns the burdens away, erasing unsettling emotions that simmer within us, keeping us warm throughout the winter, we sip the sunrise and look at the sky through new lenses, life is good, life is liquid and we swim in it. Childhood is reborn when the rays of light burn through the clouds.

Recently being shortlisted to play YNOT this year looks as though it could be an exciting horizon for the quintet.

Time to grab that flow dress and run into the sunset.

My mindless scrolling is ceased as this song floods my ears, women running in beautiful dresses, Ceilings reaches its crescendo and my heart holds its breath, a rare feeling that only happens when I am on the precipice of greatness, an outstretched hand reaching out for another, but the distance is just too great, this song is the soundtrack for the tragedy of what if.

From for you to the World, Ceilings by Lizzie McAlpine shot to the first top ten of the official UK singles chart. This is not her first appearance in the charts though with her album Five Seconds flat reach 5th place on Heatseekers Album in 2022. This song has seen her perform on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight show to millions of viewers and a live audience.

This breakthrough single has spotlighted the ethereal, poetic talented that is Lizzie. Her previous work has seen her collab with the likes of John Mayer which landed her, her first Grammy nomination for best instrument, arrangement, and vocals.

And what a voice she has as her sound narrates the journey of an idealised relationship. The truth is disappointments don’t matter when you’re in love, the hole in your shoe, the stain on your shirt all muted by their hands on your face, round your waist, the lips your fingers trace. The idyllic, Sunday morning love, the smell of coffee the only disturbance to your union, the only stir to your spoon. The fresh flowers in each room, the smile at the door after a long day sort of love, the love you know is not real, it doesn’t exist.

Love can be this, but it can also be, lost keys on a late morning, dinner gone cold left on the side, smoke from a neglected candle, the singed smell spilling into a bedroom. Spilled paint on the fresh carpet, raised voices and wet necks. Love is passionate, love is pain, the sacrifice we give for it could drive us insane, but when you’re held close, when that toast is buttered by them, cut into a heart, we call the tears love, the sleepless nights, the rough, the joy its a rubix cube puzzle of emotions and I think Ceilings captures the line of what could have been and what actually was. Love is angry, it demands to be felt.

“Touch me like nobody else does
Lovely to just lay here with you
You’re kinda cute and I would say all of this
But I don’t wanna ruin the moment
Lovely to sit between comfort and chaos”

Desperation from deprivation, the passing eye of a stranger, an imagined life with them from a glance at their iris, not knowing if it was blue or brown, you know your kids first name and the colour of your front door you’d pick out together. Lovers spilled on pages, stretched on the screen all the skin you touch in between, skin stuck to bedsheets, you’re filled but you’re not complete. The fantasy, to be important enough to be loved especially by a person like you, is an indulgent one, that we sip as our eyes glaze over at work, as we wait for the bus to turn, the rain drops on the window showing us a life we want to live, one where we are loving each other, one where we are the people I see us as.

“But it’s not real
And you don’t exist
And I can’t recall the last time I was kissed”

The songs heart breaking realisation comes in the concluding verse. This heart balloon bursts, recognising the hand you hold is your own, you are sat alone in your car, where are you driving too? not to them, they’re not real, you haven’t met them yet. You’re home, a potential dinner is in the fridge, but you pack yourself away to your unmade bed, why tidy it, why make it special if it’s just for you? The sudden horror as the intrusive thought that perhaps you are decaying, you are not enough to be loved so therefore must make it up. 

Lizzie is already hard at work on her next album which she describes as the “most authentic music [she’s] ever written.