These modern, accessible and utterly lighthearted takes on cabaret songs offer the closest thing resembling companionship most of us have felt in months.

Billy Dean Thomas’ seven-track EP “For Better or Worse” is unapologetically left-leaning, intersectional and inclusive, even while addressing the 2020 election and racial justice.

Once Somerville has closed its doors permanently, the victim of Covid-19’s disastrous financial impact on independent venues, founder JJ Gonson said.

Housecat’s sunny debut single, “Disco D,” waxes poetic about the ways we lean on each other for relief from loneliness, a highly-caffeinated, mid-pandemic nod to the social interaction we all so dearly miss.  

The lineup of Boston Music Awards nominees for the year is rich with Cambridge and Somerville venues and performers.

Longy School of Music has capitalized on temperate fall weather to give students a socially distanced platform for performance at Harvard Square’s Sheraton Commander Hotel.

Philanthropic organization the Live Music Society distributed its first round of grants this week to 20 small music venues across the United States, part of $2 million projected to be given away to venues in need. Cambridge folk institution Club Passim was a grant recipient.

While Sheer Queer Fest, an annual music festival with Cambridge roots, was canceled for September due to Covid-19, its messaging is still particularly relevant: loud music that defies oppression, and anger as a step in the healing process for those who have been systemically wronged.

Independent Venue Week, running through Friday, shines a spotlight on programming from more than 100 independent venues in the United States, including Once Somerville and Harvard Square’s Club Passim. 

Daniel Sarver, director of operations for The Lilypad in Inman Square, spoke to the challenges Covid-19 poses to independent music venues and what passage of the Save Our Stages Act would mean to local arts spaces.