With “Island Lantern Festival”, Tony Frissore manages to soundtrack a specific kind of mental vacation I didn’t realize I was overdue for taking. Ostensibly an instrumental nod to the Lunar New Year and the hopefulness of renewal, this piece operates less like a celebration and more like a gentle exhalation. https://open.spotify.com/album/3n43BcxSnavYKC0wt28GNu?si=E_50eQ_lQomyHT1RsD2Jrg It starts wet with the actual crash of ocean waves before slowly drifting inland. I...

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...