There are songs that sound like a place, and then there’s Neil Potter’s "Música El Idioma Del Amor," which sounds like a specific time of day in a specific place you’ve never been. It’s a curious creation, a sonic postcard from a parallel-universe Seville where the flamenco guitarist and the local rock progressive have decided to build something new on a foundation of pure...

The single from Syracuse’s ORWAX, “Everything's Addictive,” doesn’t so much ask a question as it does state a grim, unblinking diagnosis for the modern soul. From its first notes, the track establishes itself not as a party anthem for self-destruction, but as the sound of the machine humming underneath our choices. The trio—a self-contained unit of Ryan and Jim Moran, with Jason Randall on...