The urgent, innermost quake that first animated the work that would evolve into NIKI’s third studio album, Buzz, anchors every track on the record to the same foundational tension of becoming, of standing at the edge of one chapter and leaning into the unwritten promise of the next. That same tension carries through Lose, a pop work from the Philippines that fits seamlessly into the album’s throughline of intimate, unflinching songwriting, a throughline that has long defined NIKI’s discography, even as Buzz marks a distinct shift in the tone and scope of the wisdom she weaves into her music. Unlike earlier projects that traced the fumbling, bright uncertainty of first stepping into creative and personal autonomy, Buzz carries the hard-earned clarity of a young woman who has learned to charge dauntlessly toward the dreams she has spent years nurturing, without losing the ability to lean into warmth and laughter when she stumbles along the way.