Year-end feels different when artists refuse to wrap things up neatly. Instead of polished retrospectives, this week delivers music that sits with discomfort and questions left unanswered.
Ady Suleiman processes emotional uncertainty over jazz piano whilst Sondae wrestles with depression through prayer.
ilham reduces intimacy to a transaction and JOURNEYGLO watches feelings change like tides. These four releases share a refusal to pretend everything resolves.
They document the space between wanting answers and accepting you might not get them. Right before the calendar turns, sometimes the most honest thing you can do is admit you’re still figuring it out.
Ady Suleiman
Nottingham-raised, London-based Ady Suleiman spent six months immersing himself in his Swahili ancestry across Zanzibar and Kenya before returning to complete his upcoming album Chasing.
What If, produced by Miles Clinton James (Little Simz, KOKOROKO), arrives as one of the album’s most vulnerable moments.
The track explores that specific discomfort of feeling out of place, whether in social situations or trying to meet a partner’s expectations.
Over smoky, jazz-infused production built on deft piano runs and atmospheric trumpet flourishes, Suleiman’s assertive vocal confronts the clash between self-perception and reality. This isn’t casual introspection.
It’s the sound of someone using music to process complex emotions that refuse simple resolution. After seven years since his Memories debut, Suleiman returns sharper and more self-aware, ready to release Chasing on 16th January.
Start with: “What If”
ilham
Alternative R&B artist ilham strips intimacy down to its transactional bones on company. The track, lifted from her EP uhm…ok?, executive produced by herself alongside Fridayy and GRAMMY-nominated MOMBRU, makes no apologies for its directness.
Over production that blends house elements with R&B’s smoother textures, ilham lays out expectations with zero ambiguity: come through, see about me, then leave.
The entire exchange condensed into under two minutes. What makes company land isn’t shock value but ilham’s refusal to dress up casual intimacy as something deeper.
She’s not claiming emotional complexity where none exists. The EP itself explores protecting your peace and letting go without being shaken, built around an “uhm…ok?” mentality that acknowledges when things simply don’t make sense.
company captures that philosophy perfectly, accepting situationships for exactly what they are.
Start with: “company”
JOURNEYGLO
American artist JOURNEYGLO constructs quiet devastation on Wave After Wave, a track from her October album Limp By Your Side.
The song meditates on loving without certainty, watching someone’s feelings shift and return like ocean patterns.
Producer Oscar Gamboa builds minimalist arrangements that privilege space and emotional texture over density, creating atmospheric indie folk that sits somewhere between AURORA’s ethereal qualities and Daughter’s aching restraint.
JOURNEYGLO’s delicate lyricism captures the specific discomfort of waiting for something that may never stabilise: “Your feelings are like / Wave after wave”.
Rather than demanding resolution, the track proposes acceptance. Patience becomes survival when you’re loving someone whose emotions operate on tidal patterns rather than linear logic.
The cinematic folk production gives every word room to breathe, making the uncertainty feel both intimate and expansive.
Start with: “Wave After Wave”
Sondae
Brighton’s Sondae returns with Every Night from his June album Northstar, and it’s the most direct expression yet of his ongoing battle with depression.
The track documents prayer as survival mechanism, built around the repeated ritual of getting down on his knees seeking divine intervention.
Produced by Sondae and Moflo, Every Night balances vulnerability with determination across its three minutes.
His vocals carry both desperation and resolve as he admits days and nights blur together, depression threatening to flatten everything.
But the chorus insists on holding on: “Long as I keep on holding on / To You, oh God / I live fully”. This isn’t triumphant worship music. It’s someone documenting the active work of staying present when everything feels the same.
Sondae’s ability to blend faith-based themes with contemporary R&B production continues to set him apart, refusing to make spiritual struggle sound easy or sanitised.
Start with: “Every Night”
Check previous weeks or follow the Neon Music New Music playlist for more.