SERAh's new single, "Favorite Game", which features female vocalist Summer Rona, is the kind of track that feels less like it was composed and more like it was captured—a distress signal from a beautiful, dying star. The sound here is a curious contradiction. It’s vast and cinematic, shimmering with the sort of synthesized light that promises galaxies, but its heart is small, cramped, and...

Ava Valianti represents something increasingly rare in contemporary music: genuine precocity without artifice. This Massachusetts artist, who is only fifteen years old, handles general themes with a level of emotional depth that is shocking. She shows that youth can bring out the best in complicated human experiences, rather than hiding them. "Distant," her sixth single, functions as a sonic archaeology of friendship's dissolution. The track excavates layers...