French-Tunisian multidisciplinary artist Haifa Melliti channels raw intuition into breathtaking piano architecture on her stunning neoclassical album, "Mélodie de la Déesse". I find her approach fascinating. In an era where so many ambient instrumental records lean heavily into cautious, sparse minimalism, Melliti offers a deluge. Her music serves as a spiritual sanctuary honoring the sacred feminine, yet she completely refuses to equate tranquility with...

Some songs are like a time machine. You press play, and suddenly you’re somewhere else, some other time. Maybe it’s a smoky bar in the 1970s, a sweaty punk club in the 80s, or, in the case of “Oh Denise,” the new single from Ken Woods and The Old Blue Gang, a dusty dancehall on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, sometime in the not-too-distant past. The...