I spent a solid hour this morning watching dust motes suspended in a single shaft of sunlight, my entire nervous system held absolutely captive by Magdi Aboul-Kheir and his devastatingly immersive new album, "Slow Heat". The Germany-based journalist and classically trained pianist usually writes across a massive spectrum of genres, pivoting wildly from trance to late romanticism. Today, he has dropped an ambient, contemporary...

Caitlin Mae's single "House Sitting" slid into earshot less like a shiny Nashville calling card and more like finding a faded letter tucked inside a secondhand book. It’s labelled country, and the soft rock structure gives it shape, but the atmosphere? That’s pure, unadulterated heartache, distilled. Mae possesses one of those voices – technically brilliant, sure, but more importantly, emotionally transparent. You hear the...