Lazlo, founder of BlowUpRadio.com (an online radio station based around New Jersey artists), shines a light on some of the many new releases from NJ based musicians each week with this column. This week Lazlo takes a look at releases by Sam Tunkel, Ferocious Designs, and Strange Talking Animals.

Sam Tunkel - "Your Daily Dose". Sam Tunkel's debut EP, "Your Daily Dose", is a somber, deeply introspective collection of songs. It is quite powerful and moving.

Ferocious Designs - "Looking For The Light". Ferocious Design's debut full length album is not so much a retro 80's synth-prog-pop-rock album, as an album that is influenced by that sound. Some songs would easily pair well in a set with certain songs from the era & genre, but "Looking For The Light" would also easily pair well with certain current songs. The album is beautiful, gave me a warm feeling inside, and songs like the title track and "Years Go By" (as 2 examples), made me dance around awkwardly like David Byrne (I am not a good dancer).

Strange Talking Animals - "FAWM 2023 + Black Friday Connections EP". Every year I am amazed at the quality of music that comes out of people doing FAWM (February Album Writing Month), where people are challenged to write 14 songs in 28 days. Well Strange Talking Animals went one further, as the first 15 tracks of this collection were all written for FAWN 2023. The final four tracks are the Black Friday Connections EP part, an EP that work began on on Black Friday 2022. The 19 songs are a wonderful collection of progy-synth-chamber-pop/indie-rock, some leaning heavier on prog-synth, other on indie-rock.

That's all for this week. Remember BlowUpRadio.com, plays these and many other New Jersey based artists on our internet radio station, so please check us out. #SupportGoodMusic - If you like any of the above artists, please purchase their music from their site. And if you would like to part of BlowUpRadio.com's New & Notable, please send downloads or contact Lazlo at Lazlo-at-BlowUpRadio-dot-com. We're also on Mastodon at https://mstdn.social/@BlowUpRadio