The room smells faintly of old wood and candle wax. Outside, the Belgian night folds itself over the valley, heavy and slow. Inside, Ava Gratia sits at her piano, shoulders loose, eyes half-closed, like she’s conjuring something. Each note seems to come less from the keys than from somewhere under her ribs, rising into the air like breath warmed with memory.

She tells me she never planned to be here. Never thought she would call herself a singer, let alone a composer. But Perséphone, yes, the Greek goddess who spends half her time in the underworld and half in bloom, seems to have whispered her way into Ava’s story. Ava’s songs sound like they were written right there, in that space between dusk and dawn, grief and renewal.

And then, just as you’re sure you’ve slipped too deep into melancholy, her music brings you back, like a dessert that’s sweet but cut with sharp citrus zest, spiced enough to make you shiver before the warmth returns.

Namur doesn’t scream rock’n’roll. It hums softly, wrapped in its rivers and fortresses. But that’s where Ava’s songs first grew, almost in secret. She had always written, always sung in her own room, words spilling into notebooks, but she didn’t dare to imagine it was a future.

Until one birthday: a piano gifted by her partner. He saw what she didn’t yet believe. Years earlier, when they’d first met, he’d told her straight: “Tu es faite pour chanter tes textes.” At the time she had laughed it off. But now, years later, here was the proof, a piano gleaming in her living room, daring her to begin.

The first song came, then another. One of them, Feed My Soul written for him, became their shared leap of faith. He called a studio, gathered musicians, crafted the arrangement, even shot the video. That moment cracked open the door, and Ava walked through, carrying melodies she didn’t know she had.

When she talks about creating, her eyes flicker with something close to trance. Je suis dans l’émotion et non dans la réflexion quand j’écris. Words arrive like sparks, sometimes a single phrase, sometimes a line half-sung. The piano answers, and before she knows it, melody and text are twined together.

She laughs remembering how her family, her first audience, waits to hear each finished song, gathered like quiet conspirators in the living room. Then there are the late-night brainstorms with her partner: should that section get strings, or a second voice? Should the chorus be whispered or shouted? Music as dialogue, music as communion.

Performing, she tells me, is the cherry on the cake… The sweet final act, where the private trance becomes collective light.

Her latest release, Traffic Lights, began as a text scribbled long ago, born from her childhood paralysis at making choices. Choosing between two pencil cases could freeze her for ten whole minutes. Even now, she carries that ghost of hesitation, a sense of being perpetually at the crossroads.

But rather than drown in it, she decided to laugh at it. Traffic Lights dances in a lighter tone, poppy, almost cheeky. A wink at indecision, sung with the weight of someone who has learned resilience. She tells me her youngest son shows the same streak of overthinking, and she smiles like it’s both a curse and a strange gift.

Her record shelf is a map of contradictions: Jean-Jacques Goldman for the words, the Beatles for the melody, Aerosmith for teenage fury. She learned English by translating Steven Tyler’s lyrics line by line. Later, she fell under the spell of The Cranberries, Alanis Morissette, Radiohead, The Verve, Simon & Garfunkel, Lana Del Rey, Mumford & Sons. Around the edges: Johnny Cash’s grit, sixties rock’s velvet, chanson française’s old ghosts.

All of it pours into her sound without her ever trying. She doesn’t calculate… it’s instinct, inheritance, well, I ll say it again: trance.

If her music were a dish, Ava says, it would be a dessert spiced with cloves or cinnamon, tempered with citrus peel to keep it from becoming cloying. Something you taste slowly, letting the warmth and the sting dance together.

And Perséphone? Ava imagines the goddess stopping mid-stride between underworld and springtime, listening, nodding. “C’est une musique qui lui ressemble,” Ava says. A balance of shadow and light, of descent and rebirth. Songs for walking through grief and finding yourself on the other side.

Her dreams are modest yet burning: an album, intimate concerts, more time carved out of life’s rush to let songs arrive. She wants listeners to feel healed, to carry away a piece of dolce vita in a violent, too-fast world.

“On me dit parfois que mes chansons font du bien à l’âme. Ça me va”

Listening to Ava Gratia is like standing at the edge of a Belgian forest in late autumn, when the air cuts and soothes all at once. She carries Perséphone’s duality, shadow and bloom, but filters it through her own voice, her piano, her gentle stubbornness.

She’s one of those artists you stumble on and feel you’ve known forever. The kind you’ll want to follow into the crossroads, even if she’s still deciding whether to turn left or right. Because whichever way she goes, she’s bringing light with her.

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🎧 Beasty Fan Music Club – If You Don't Love Me
📅 2025-06-27 🇵🇱 Poland | R&B | Single (Indie) • ⏱️ 4:16 • Instrumental
Side-project by Stéphane Stefski Wlodarczyk (Stefski & Hutch), mastered in Paris and brought to life in Warsaw. With Kaja Kazmierczyk’s brilliant vocals, this track blends smooth R&B textures into the EP Welcome to the Bfmc.

🎧 Seems Like Tuesday – Holding On
📅 2025-09-02 🇺🇸 United States | Rock | Single (Indie) • ⏱️ 3:12
From Philadelphia and New Jersey, this 5-piece original rock band delivers a tight, energetic anthem rooted in pure indie-rock grit.

🎧 The Creeping Candies – Miles and Miles
📅 2025-08-25 🇩🇪 Germany | Album (Label) • ⏱️ 5:16
Closing track of the new album Invincible. A love song to the endless travel of musicians, unknown roads, new landscapes, and the quiet beauty of the journey between gigs.

🎧 CousinRay ft Drew Nold – Might
📅 2025-09-26 🇺🇸 USA | Alternative | Single (Indie) • ⏱️ 4:00
A heavy alt-rock collaboration between Cousin Ray, Drew Nold, and Steam Slicer. Aggressive and driving, “Might” is built on pure intensity.

🎧 Crowsilver – Remedy
📅 2025-09-26 🇬🇧 England | Rock | Single (Indie) • ⏱️ 4:46
In contrast to their darker release Forgive Me, this song is a luminous reminder to seek joy, gratitude, and connection. Uplifting rock about finding your “remedy” in the people who lift you up.

🎧 Histheory – The Ruler of Ancient Waters
📅 2025-10-03 🇫🇷 France | Single (Indie) • ⏱️ 5:06 • Instrumental
Part of the upcoming album High Seas Mysteries. An epic, instrumental journey where we meet the legendary Megalodon—majestic, cinematic, and deeply aquatic.

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On October 5, 1970, the United States witnessed the launch of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), a nonprofit network that would become a cornerstone of educational and cultural television. Created as a successor to National Educational Television (NET), PBS was born out of a vision to provide high-quality, noncommercial programming to the public, television that informed, inspired, and educated, rather than simply entertained.

From its earliest days, PBS championed content that commercial broadcasters often overlooked. Shows like Sesame Street (which premiered just before PBS officially began), Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and later Nova and Frontline defined a generation’s understanding of learning through media. The network’s mission was simple yet ambitious: to serve the public interest and give every household, regardless of income or geography, access to knowledge, culture, and the arts.

Over the decades, PBS became synonymous with thoughtful documentaries, groundbreaking children’s programming, and coverage of history and science that encouraged critical thinking. Unlike mainstream networks, it relied heavily on government funding and, crucially, on public donations and community support, creating a unique bond between the broadcaster and its audience.

Selected with precision by Nadine de Macedo

Do you like it groovy? Bluesy? Lo-Fi? Experimental? It is so hard put Entropy in Motion's music into a genre, because he's taking multiple influences for his own extravaganza. I'm a big fan of "Smoke in the Shape of You" (with Joe Booe), and also enjoyed "Hibiscus & Integer" and "Exit Wounds of the Mind".

Continue the discussion with Nadine here!