There’s a peculiar ache that settles in when listening to Maddy Low’s new single, "Dragons." It isn't a dramatic wound, but a slow, persistent pressure, the kind you feel behind your eyes after staring at a blank page for too long, convinced that whatever you create will be a monumental failure. For an artist of eighteen to articulate this specific brand of self-imposed paralysis...

For their fifth studio album, the Geneva-based indie rock outfit Sonic Rade shares "Berlin", an intensely resonant record heavily steeped in the aura of its namesake city. Relocating to the legendary Meistersaal the former Hansa Studios where acts like Bowie and Depeche Mode once operated the band allowed the physical walls of the room to hijack their live tracking. You feel those historical reverberations...