A record can move fast without chasing the obvious route. “EMA”, Sienná’s nine-track experimental electronic album, begins from that possibility. The Kyoto-born, Oslo-based artist builds its premise around ema, the Japanese tool used to communicate directly with the divine. From there, she turns images and impressions gathered in nature into songs. It is a high-concept frame, but it lands because the concept asks a practical question:...

Listening to Harry Kappen's "Be Brave If You Can" is like finding a note someone left for themselves on a foggy bathroom mirror. As the third single from his album “Four”, it’s a quiet turn inward, a personal reminder scrawled in the steam of a hot shower after a long, wearying day. It doesn't shout for revolution in the streets; it suggests one inside...