Owen Young, a mind steeped in the harmonies of law and fine art, unfurls “These Painted Flowers,” an EP blooming with the thorny beauty of the heart after the pandemic. It’s Americana, but not the porch swing kind—more like the kind where you stumble on a forgotten well, and peer in, seeing your reflection ripple back at you with new, confusing angles. These Painted Flowers...

After the calls stop, the hardest part of a breakup is rarely being alone. It is the administrative problem of feeling: how does someone proceed after an old future disappears? Astian’s new single “How” holds that question there. It does not rush to fill it with a lesson, confession, or the sort of gleaming finality pop often prefers. Astian approaches the aftermath through a playful, stripped-back...