Take Jack Horton, a Portland-based singer-songwriter whose path to folk-Americana included stops at Japanese law school, Tokyo piano bars, corporate boardrooms, and government offices. His latest EP, "Imperfections," feels like finding someone's private journal set to music. And that someone happens to write really, really well. The five-song collection opens with "Set Me Free," a piano-driven confession that might surprise anyone expecting typical breakup bitterness. Horton...

Tony Frissore has constructed something strikingly paradoxical with his latest instrumental release, the single "Four Walls". Listening to this track feels like watching a time-lapse of a foreign city skyline while sitting perfectly still in a high-thread-count bedsheet cocoon. It is motion and stasis arguing over who gets to drive the car. https://open.spotify.com/album/0qYskPaNcyO9PfVf4gM2RT?si=mSBJReRaT3yTkTzemACK_w The genre descriptors might label this Chill EDM or Deep House, but those...