Eddie Cohn’s new single, "Get Back My Way," starts with the kind of intimate acoustic strumming that feels like overhearing a conversation someone is having with their own reflection. It’s an immediate plunge into that uniquely modern disquiet—the sense of being adrift in a sea of your own making, armed with a compass whose needle just spins and spins. The narrator’s battle for "sanity"...

Kent Owens, a name that sounds like it should be on a library card next to “Hemingway,” but instead it's on the digital shelf next to my slightly messy playlist. This Cambridge-based creator of soundscapes – I’m resisting calling them songs, but…well – just released “Fade Away,” a single that feels like an open window after a long winter. It’s a soft rock hum...