Three artists this week, each with a different grip on big pop: a classically trained powerhouse from Phoenix, an atmospheric LA songwriter building worlds out of shadow, and a Barcelona-based performer who turned a personal mantra into a full-on psychedelic anthem.
Kaitlin Corbett Jones – Make The World Stand Still
Kaitlin Corbett Jones delivers a brilliant cinematic anthem on Make The World Stand Still, a wonderfully emotionally commanding pop release
Make The World Stand Still is a wide-screen pop production that earns its ambition. The track’s got the big orchestral weight with soaring, melody-first vocals, building the way a film score builds: right in the feels. There is real dynamic range here, quiet passages breathing out before the whole thing lifts. The music video extends the cinematic logic, presenting the song as something closer to a short film than a standard release. It sits confidently in the space between contemporary pop and the grand anthemic tradition.
Kaitlin Corbett Jones is a Phoenix-based vocalist with a five-octave range developed through formal classical training that started at age eight, including performing with the Chicago Lyric Opera’s Children’s Ensemble. She later won Arizona Idol on FOX 10 in 2009, and studied under Hollywood vocal coach Seth Riggs, whose roster includes some of the most prominent voices in popular music. Her background pulls equally from operatic technique and contemporary songwriting instincts, which is precisely why Make The World Stand Still sounds so good. It’s a fantastic single, and we can’t wait for more this year.
MILYAM – Lost In The Jungle
MILYAM makes Lost In The Jungle a genuinely gorgeous atmospheric pop record, the kind that wraps around you like a film sequence you can’t quite shake.
Lost In The Jungle is just a real vibe. It’s a study in restraint. The production layers texture beneath MILYAM’s vocals without ever crowding them out, keeping the listener in a state of suspension between intimacy and scale. Where a lot of cinematic pop reaches for drama by turning everything up, this track trusts its negative space: the silences matter as much as the sound. It’s the dark, deep groove we all need.
MILYAM (pronounced “me-lee-AHM”) is a Los Angeles-based independent singer-songwriter whose sound she describes as Atmospheric, with a capital A. Her work has earned coverage across international press and regular rotation on Amazing Radio in both the UK and USA, a platform with a strong track record for spotting singular voices early. The project operates with a high-end minimalist visual and sonic identity that runs consistently across releases, which is part of what makes MILYAM feel like a world rather than just a catalogue. We love this, and will be keeping a close on on MILYAM this year.
eүrin – Freakuency
eүrin turns a personal mantra into an excellent retro-psych pop anthem on Freakuency, one of the most hypnotic and quirky tracks you’ll hear so far this year.
Freakuency is built from live instruments across multiple sessions, and you can feel it: the track has the kind of physical warmth that studio-assembled stuff finds its hard to achieve. Sensual backwards blues guitar lines coil around punchy pop-rock beats, with piano tickles and harmonies filling out the tune. The track began as a mantra eүrin developed during personal self-reflection, which gives it an almost chant-like repetitive drive underneath the groove. It’s all that and more, as the result is a song that sits somewhere between empowerment anthem and hypnotic psych trip, and works brilliantly as both.
eүrin is a Spanish-Russian independent artist born in the USSR, raised in Russia, and based in Barcelona, a multicultural trajectory that feeds directly into her refusal to settle into one genre. She writes her own lyrics, composes on piano, records her vocal arrangements, and designs her own album artwork, operating as a genuinely self-contained creative. Her songwriting pulls from what she calls naive psychedelia and retro groove, and her recent catalogue has drawn growing attention for its whimsy and depth. Freakuency is fantastic. More of this please, eyrin.