Martin Lloyd Howard has engineered a peculiar but entirely hypnotic time-slip on his new solo single, "Hidden Andalucia". Here is a piece of acoustic fingerstyle that defies basic gravity, built upon delicately plucked arpeggios that float above a soft, rhythmic bassline. https://open.spotify.com/album/5N48ROhSDPPCQiy8IOydGs?si=HAir8cZET7y9cg5r36PJQw As a classically trained English guitarist, Howard knows exactly how to manipulate the negative space between notes. He anchors the outer edges of this...

Robin James Hurt’s “A Song, A Story Told” arrives with a sound you can almost run a thumb over, like worn corduroy. In an age of sterile, diamond-polished productions, this album is a defiantly handmade thing, tracked onto vintage cassette machines. The result is not a flaw, but an ingredient. A faint, persistent hiss breathes alongside the instruments, a ghost in the machine who...