There's a specific kind of night drive baked into Bromsen's new single, "Data Highway," the sort where the headlights of oncoming traffic begin to hypnotize, and you forget if you’re running from something or just running. The Berlin trio—Richard and Karlo Bromsen, now propelled by the engine of Bon Schmelke's drums—has crafted a track that moves at a hundred miles per hour yet somehow...

Shawn Brown’s EP, "Into the Furious Light," doesn’t slip quietly into the stream of modern indie-folk releases; it instead cups its hands around your soul like you’re a candle in danger of flickering out. The Portland troubadour crafts songs that feel like fragments of conversations—maybe ones you walked in on too late or letters unsent to someone dear but no longer near. You’re never...