Listening to aktenzeichen_T’s new EP, "Midnight Between Lagrange Points", feels less like putting on a record and more like unsealing a classified file. The artist's name, German for "case file number," seems to promise a kind of cold, bureaucratic evidence, and the Leipzig producer delivers—but the subject of this file is the messy, beating heart of human conflict. A case file rendered in kick...

Vie Jester’s new EP, ‘Masquerade’, presents itself like a costume box found in an attic that smells faintly of ozone and old, ambitious blueprints. This Los Angeles trio, typically weavers of their own heavy, harmonious rock tapestries laced with esoteric concerns, have opted for a different kind of unveiling: they’re trying on other people's clothes. https://open.spotify.com/album/0grUBCwpcgdKF29lBxWmLR?si=RTUUi7H3SC2oUUHu0TdHig A covers EP can be a curious beast. Here, Vie...