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...

Ben Gage and "Lookin' For A Devil" arrive at a moment when the American dream feels particularly elusive. The Akron-born songwriter has spent years chronicling the rust belt experience, and his latest single captures something both specific and universal: the peculiar frustration of being too broke even for damnation. Released on July 18, this track emerges from Gage's upcoming album like smoke from a dying campfire....