Listening to Afaq Art Production's new single "Bejamalen (With Beauty)" performed by Ziad Kamal feels a bit like stepping out of a chaotic, sun-baked street into the sudden, vaulted vastness of an ancient sanctuary. https://open.spotify.com/album/7GbecQZE3yVH6enRaALvLk?si=seoOwwjgS_SE3MsuPg-rxw Kamal is only twenty-four. He manages the rather fascinating trick of balancing his daily life as a Mechatronics engineer with a profound, academic mastery of Eastern Maqams, violin, and oud. Here,...

Guess Pre's "Clarity." The name itself feels like a punchline missing its joke, or maybe the setup to a philosophical riddle I'm not equipped to solve. Gregory Stanton, the Wisconsin-based artist behind the moniker, has served up a nine-track album that's… well, it's trying to be a lot of things, and surprisingly, mostly succeeding. https://open.spotify.com/album/2hV27eRxEJp08kML02uRW1 This isn't background music for folding laundry. It's more like the...