With Deptford Sound Collective dropping "Give Me . Give Me . Give Me, I want it all", I found myself suspended somewhere between a Studio 54 dancefloor and a gritty picket line. It’s a jarring, delightful confusion. You expect the somber acoustic strumming of 1960s activism given the collective’s mission but instead, you are slapped awake by a wall of 1980s synth-pop. https://open.spotify.com/album/6ULaYdVEhxN7eK0w9AmHtL?si=qiJmIM0oR2GlZ7uC8idmyw The track hits...

I spent a solid hour this morning watching dust motes suspended in a single shaft of sunlight, my entire nervous system held absolutely captive by Magdi Aboul-Kheir and his devastatingly immersive new album, "Slow Heat". The Germany-based journalist and classically trained pianist usually writes across a massive spectrum of genres, pivoting wildly from trance to late romanticism. Today, he has dropped an ambient, contemporary...