Lil’ Ashes had big plans for 2020. The indie folk-pop duo from Hong Kong was supposed to be on tour, but then the pandemic happened. With shows cancelled, singer-songwriters Pollie Tong and Jonathan Wut turned to live-streaming. “I used to be afraid that people wouldn’t know what I was feeling through a lens,” Tong tells Apple Music. “Now I feel okay. Even though it’s not face-to-face with an audience, we’ve put thought into how to better connect with people while facing a camera.” In the spirit of a positive new year, the pair have created an upbeat New Year’s playlist that features some of their own tracks alongside recent favourites, including hometown artist Merry Lamb Lamb’s cute and quirky “Cosmic World”, Cosmo Pyke’s feel-good “Chronic Sunshine” and Madison McFerrin’s “No Time to Lose”. “For the songs of ours, we had a lot of hope for them when we wrote them,” Tong says. “As for the others, we listen to them to cheer up and make us feel genki [a Japanese word roughly translating to mean ‘energetic’]. I think music can change a person’s mood. These songs give us a boost and encourage us.”