(June 22, 2026) As the head anchor for Freedust, Italian producer and composer Daniele Carmosino is known for dropping music with bouncy beats, trippy synths, lush lo-fi pop and melodic tunes with throwback vibes. Even 2022’s “Heat” captured our ears at SoulTracks. He’s back with more of his female-fronted experimental music and with even more tricks up his sleeve.
On “Better Man,” the powerhouse lead vocals by Irish singer-songwriter Rebecca Houlihan carry the heavy weight of the song while supported by a cinematic gospel choir, neo-soul drifts and vintage Optigan lifts. It’s a song about moving on, kissing goodbye to a troubled lover with a memorable chant (“You could’ve been a much better man/Oh, such a better man”). While parting ways, she dances off into the moonlight, offering a bittersweet stanza: “Wait ‘til the tables start burnin’, I’ll be dancing in that sunrise/You could never tame the beast in me/Now you get to watch me fly.”
The song is lifted from the newly released LP Voyager, an ambitious fourteen track collection using a variety of samples and showcasing a wide variety of lead vocalists from across the globe. Ironically enough, the striking album cover of Voyager shows an astronaut with a gorilla reflection on the helmet. Maybe all of this feels like some homage or reference to the 2024 film “Better Man,” the crafty Robbie Williams biopic that also reimagined him as an anthropomorphic chimp. The same concept was also spotted on Freedust’s 2024 LP, Groove Chronicles. But best believe it: there’s absolutely no monkeying around inside the music.
By J Matthew Cobb
