Listening to Afaq Art Production's new single "Bejamalen (With Beauty)" performed by Ziad Kamal feels a bit like stepping out of a chaotic, sun-baked street into the sudden, vaulted vastness of an ancient sanctuary. https://open.spotify.com/album/7GbecQZE3yVH6enRaALvLk?si=seoOwwjgS_SE3MsuPg-rxw Kamal is only twenty-four. He manages the rather fascinating trick of balancing his daily life as a Mechatronics engineer with a profound, academic mastery of Eastern Maqams, violin, and oud. Here,...

Adam Brice's "Never Is Too Late" landed on my desk – or, rather, materialized in my digital ether – and I've been wrestling with its echoes ever since. It's a curious beast, this album. Part rock anthem, part campfire confessional, with a splash of country twang that somehow doesn't feel out of place, which has themes running circles like wild horses, settling down around...