Weekly Discover 70 : Static Veins & Velvet Fists

Weekly Discover 70 doesn’t enter — it erupts.

A burst of static, beer-scented air, and a pulse that thumps like concrete under your feet. This week leans hard into rock’s raw muscle and modern R&B’s velvet tension, stitching both into one charged current.

Rock fires the opening shot: jagged guitars, heat from the amp, that scorched-metal energy only late-night stages know. It’s gritty, loud, alive.

Then R&B slides in — smooth, yes, but sharpened at the edges. Warm vocals over bruised basslines, a softness built on truth, not sugar. It’s velvet dragged across asphalt.

The pacing glitches, breathes, tightens. Textures repeat like real memory — beer, static, concrete, ash — grounding the session in a narrative more felt than told. A Hero’s Journey hidden in rhythm: ignition, conflict, transformation.

Weekly Discover 70 isn’t a playlist.

It’s a current.

Let it spark.

“DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?” – Love Ghost x Cinnamon Babe bleed metal and middle fingers)

Love Ghost doesn’t flinch. They never have. But on “DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?”—a snarling alt-metal swing that smells like beer, static, and a little righteous ash—they finally turn to face the noise head-on. It’s a question sharpened into a blade, thrown straight at the haters who want to see them crack. Instead, they double down. And they brought Cinnamon Babe with them.

The track lands like concrete meeting bone—loud, unapologetic, engineered for catharsis. MIKE SUMMERS (Tech N9ne, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Wayne) shapes the production with that signature “pressure-cooker” tension, letting Finnegan Bell spit the kind of truth that only comes from being pushed to the edge and somehow laughing back. There’s a moment in the chorus where his voice fractures just slightly, and that tiny break becomes the emotional hinge of the whole thing: a micro-beat where you hear both the kid who once doubted himself and the artist who refuses to anymore.

Love Ghost’s story has always lived in movement—tour vans, airport terminals, beer-soaked clubs, German static humming through the Rockpalast broadcast. They’ve battled through Europe, stormed Mexico City’s Auditorio BB, and set off sparks at Amazon’s Gamergy Festival for all of Latin America. Concrete floors, ash in the air, fans screaming like they’re part of the band. That connection—electric, messy, real—is their lifeblood.

Cinnamon Babe slips into the track with venom and velvet, amplifying the duel-energy: hurt and heat, rage and resilience. Together, they build a narrative that feels less like a collaboration and more like a frontline.

Behind the noise, Finnegan is in Mexico right now—writing, recording, cross-pollinating with a constellation of Latin artists and producers, from Shantra to BrunOG to SAGA. And on the horizon: an entire album with Tim Skold, commissioned by Metropolis Records.

If “DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?” is the question, the answer is already roaring back.

Violet Love – Destined to Fail | Bedroom scars, queer heart, zero polish)

There is a buzzing and popping feeling that exists in the small hours—beer cans slapping hard and fast against the ground and the sound of static slithering out of a worn-out, electric device. Violet's world is filled with all the above references—messy states of being, jagged edges and the introduction of a song called Serpent which is the lead song of the upcoming EP called Destined to Fail. When you listen, you are engulfed in a personal yet endless world that combines emotion, trauma and coupled with a truth that most people run from.

Violet Love is a South Orange, New Jersey native, but has spent her life on the go --- both with her mind and body. From playing in punk bands in Las Vegas to indie folk bands in Arizona, she has traveled across the United States carrying with her her guitar, notebooks and an abundance of energy that has yet to settle. Each place she has settled, she has left an imprint on the walls, a mark that created new sounds for her own personal growth. At this time, Violet is establishing herself and creating her own unique sounds within the glowing walls of her home music production studio located in Grand Rapids, MI.

Destined To Fail is more than an EP; it is the artist's confession to her audience. Over the past year, Violet has taken her pain, self-doubt, and desire and mapped out their contours with a scalpel and flashlight. The tracks on the record create an atmosphere of being in a dark bar, where the lyrics flow out of Violet like a conversation, with a raw and vulnerable feel.

When you listen to a track like Serpent, you don't just hear Violet singing about failure — you are hearing someone who is living inside of failure, who is digging through the ash and concrete that are the remnants of failure, and, from that, has emerged with some fragile clarity. The music moves in waves; sometimes it sounds abrasive, sometimes it sounds gentle, but it is always honest.

Where Violet's artistry emerges from is the contrast between chaos and order. Although Violet recorded the music primarily by herself, mixing and mastering too, she used her bedroom as a laboratory for her own self-discovery. So, while there is a polished quality to the music once it has been mastered professionally, it is the fingerprints, uneven breaths and static of the human experience that give the music of Destined To Fail its authenticity and vitality. The tracks have a texture to them and an almost-living quality that creates a sense of conversation, rather than performance.

The music of Violet contains two heartbeats. One is the heartbeat of her identity, as a proud queer, Latin American artist. She will not sacrifice or compromise her identity to fit the narrow mold of comfort or convention. Violet's music is layered with stories of truth, honesty and perspective, often overlooked in mainstream conversation. The themes of her songs—love, desire, betrayal and self-discovery—are represented by both the lyrical content and the music—specifically, the pulling of the strings on the guitar, the deep inhale prior to singing the chorus and the sound of the last note resonating into silence.

Violet’s connection with her audience, far from being an afterthought, is an integral part of what she does. Her desire is that the music she creates for her audience will resonate with them, serve as a mirror and guidepost during their own life journey. Violet writes her songs to create a long-term relationship with her audience; the listener will have enough time with her music to feel the impact of the song from their spine; they may even hear themselves in the lyrics or may want to revisit the lyrics because they represent something they were unable to express themselves. Destined to Fail is not polished; it is an experience shared with others and a demonstration of how incredible vulnerability can be and how powerful honesty can be.

When you finish listening to the album Destined to Fail, you will be confronted with a fact that is both empowering and uncomfortable: Violet Love's journey was never meant to be perfect; it is about surviving, revealing oneself, and finding the strength to continue moving forward despite any external obstacles that may arise. Destined to Fail is an invitation to accompany Violet Love on her journey through the sometimes peaceful, but often chaotic nature of living in an imperfect world and discovering your own identity in that journey. By accepting this invitation, you will not only find your own struggles reflected back to you, but you will also grow in knowledge and strength, enabling you to listen again.

Seven Nation Army – Electro Time | 80s ghosts, Polish heart, zero dust)

In the vibrant neon nights of Cracow, Jarek Balsamski finally realizes a dream that began in the shadows of Poland's gray, communist-era streets. He tells you almost shyly that he had imagined recording this album in the mid-1980s, when the thought of a band or a personal musical journey was dressed in the garb of rebellion, even in a dream. Only four decades later, Electro Time emerges not as a relic of the past but as a living, pulsating, unapologetic source of pure energy—80's synths colliding with raw rock instincts. You can feel it in the static— the hum of the concrete underneath your feet, the music absolutely alive and seeping into your veins.

Seven Nation Army has always been about evolution. From MySpace posts that confounded American listeners in 2007 to the beginning EP Heavy Guitars & Sexy Vocals, Balsamski has navigated line-up changes, production experimentalism, and an ever-shifting global music culture. However, Balsamski has remained the constant, the master of a sound that weaves rock energy with striking and catchy melodies. The recent collaboration with vocalist Olga Ostrowska breathes a vocal tension that is at once intimate and cinematic. Ostrowska's voice threads through the synths like ash floating through a dusky room.

Electro Time is not only an homage to the past but a form of emotional archeology. Each song has the heartbeat of nostalgia: analog synths, shimmering arpeggios, and drum machines that are almost human-like, including their small blips of inaccuracies that keep them alive. The listener does feel the bravery necessary to drag decades of unrealized dreams and turn it into music. There is also an honest nature to this music that strikes to the heart of the unevenness of time and life itself: beer-stained nights; static from an old radio; moments of absent-minded clarity that arrive as echoes of memory.

Lyrically, we are taking a journey through Balsamski’s lyrics which jump from self-reflection to more audacious proclamations to suit the pacing of memory itself. Songs like “Foolish Game” and more recent singles linearly discuss the struggles and victories of a lifetime of making art when making art has been stacked against it. The interplay of Olga’s vocal affects will fit a counterpoint of warmth to the hardened edges of Jarek’s rock-focused exuberance. Together they will make Electro Time a conversation: past, present; longing, fulfillment; personal, universal.

The band's visual representation is aligned with their sonic vision. Neon textures, moody lighting, and vintage synths bring a feeling of a world that is lived in, tactile, and just a bit haunted. Even their music videos on YouTube have an evocative, cinematic quality to them, where static and ash seem to linger in the screen space, reminding the viewer/listener that these songs are meant to be experienced, not just heard. The album takes on a space where nostalgia doesn't mean kitsch but something you can almost touch, smell, and taste.

Maybe what captures your attention to Electro Time is the humanity woven into its production. The album does feel polished, although not antiseptic. You hear the slight hesitation in the vocal phrasing, the slight imbalance layered in the analog synths, and the way a chord lingers just a hair longer. It is not perfection; it feels real. The music invites you into Balsamski's world, where forty years of dreams, failures, and victories shimmer together in a contemporary synth world.

Ultimately, Electro Time is more than a record. It’s a testament to persistence, to the refusal to let decades of aspiration fade into the background. Seven Nation Army has created an album that is at once a personal confession and a communal celebration—an invitation to feel alongside them, to remember the ghosts of your own ambitions, and to revel in the electrified joy of seeing them finally realized. In the flickering glow of synth and guitar, you can hear history, heart, and hope all entwined—and you can’t help but be pulled along.

King Cherry – Coo Coo | Beer, ash, and a bassline that bruises)

The first time you hear Coo Coo, it slaps. Arizona sun through a cracked windshield, heat shaking the dashboard, the air thick with beer and ash. Brian Jennings spits the vocals like static through a broken amp, while Rachel Bello’s bass rumbles underfoot, low and heavy, like concrete shifting. It’s immediate. It’s alive.

This isn’t clean. It doesn’t need to be. Hooks coil, riffs snap, choruses hit like sparks on dry wood. Jennings carries decades of burn—from Shake The Faith to Hollywood Gods N’ Monsters—touring with Thirty Seconds to Mars, Sevendust. Bello? She owns every stage she steps on, from Jazz clubs to Horror Punk ragers, sharing lineups with Robert Plant, Imagine Dragons, The Foo Fighters. Together, they collide.

’Coo Coo’ feels like a story told out loud, shouted over rumbling amps, a little rough, a little jagged. The pauses, the tension before the chorus, the way their voices lock—it’s not just music. It’s a pulse. A heartbeat that grabs you and won’t let go.

King Cherry isn’t here for casual listens. They want you in it. Every thump, every riff, every scream of Coo Coo is an invitation: ride the sound, feel the grit, taste the ash. Drop your earbuds, turn it loud. This isn’t just a debut—it’s the start of the chase.

IamBlacktraxx: Building Bridges Through Sound with “We Are One”

There’s a sense of unease in the atmosphere lately; the tension, division, and intermittent quiet tension-of-restlessness seeps into the music we listen to each day. Then comes a song like IamBlacktraxx’s “We Are One,” released October 20, 2025 that breaks through the concrete, allowing a little warmth to come through....it’s neo-soul, it’s Caribbean tempo, it’s tempered R&B but it’s also a declaration, not a political sermon, not just a trend, but rather a pulse: to remind us that while the world may feel fragmented, connections exist, they are real, and damn it, we need them.

IamBlacktraxx’s Edward Hoyte was born in Nassau, Bahamas with a drum in one hand and a trumpet in the other. His story is adorned with platinum plaques and collaborations with Pitbull, Jahlil and Sean Kingston; there is nothing superficial about Hoyte's experience: every beat he creates contains the weight of a musician who has earned their groove through decades of practice, experimentation and cultural experience. Hoyte is the CEO of Islandmindrecordings, and the founder of Ehmg where his fingerprints are not only on his own music, but on a collective of artists of both, new and emerging generations merging islands, city and genres through experience.

“We Are One” didn’t originate at just one studio. Its heartbeat oscillates through Nassau's sun-drenched spaces, Los Angeles's busy spots of creativity, the rich traditions of Detroit, and the more contemporary R&B vibe of Atlanta. Hoyte’s practice is communal and spontaneous: musicians performing in real time before layering on digital sounds, recording it with vintage microphones to capture the inherent qualities of a human breath, and samples from Bahamian vendors and the waves sliding into the mix. There’s texture everywhere: ash, concrete, static, beer—sounds you can taste. This music does not sit flat; it moves, breathes, and talks to you.

To listen to the tune is like walking through a city in micro-beats: the gentle Caribbean pulse in one ear and a swell in neo-soul in the other. Hoyte's words slip in and out of resilience and togetherness without feeling corralled by meaning. “America is crazy right now, and all we need is to come together and celebrate each other and not tear each other apart,” he says. It is a simple declaration, but the way it is delivered—so full of groove, tension, and release—sounds revolutionary. Each verse, and each additional moment of voice, is a reminder that music can be a mirror and a map.

The distinguishing feature of "We Are One" is its steadfast reliance on authenticity. It doesn’t sound painstakingly polished; it’s painstakingly polished for a reason. The digital crispness meets analog warmth head-on. Steel drums peak out through pads of airiness and atmosphere. The rhythm sections are alive because they were played live. Every sound signified a moment of collaboration, an experiment, and the joy of making music. In a seemingly endless world of streaming singles, this project feels like a home. A place for the listener to share the same airspace as the artist.

But there is an aspect of personal journey woven into the sound. Hoyte’s story—emerging from Bahamian pavement, enriched by worldly experience—solidifies music to lived experience. "We are One was born from some moments when the world felt disconnected, hopeless. I wanted to create something that would remind people that love, music, and faith still connect us, regardless of where they come from," he says. Upon closer listening, you can almost hear the markets, the drums, the laughter, and the late-night jam sessions that informed the record. The music is personal, even while speaking to the collective.

While we look forward to future performances and the subsequent chapters in the journey of IamBlacktraxx, "We Are One" is more than a singular piece of music—it is a cultural connector, and testimony of music's incredible gift to heal, bridge, unite, and uplift. Its grooves echo long after, its rhythmic patterns resonate, and the message is clear: in all the noise that comes from life, and the chaos separating us, there exists a song that is waiting to remind us that - we are together one.