Listening to lumin's "On My Own" feels a bit like finding a thoughtfully folded note tucked into the spine of a library book you weren’t looking for. It unfolds a specific kind of disorientation, that modern ache of feeling adrift while supposedly surrounded by connection points. Lumin, a solo creator working out of Hurst, crafts this sentiment not with grand despair, but with a...

Take Jack Horton, a Portland-based singer-songwriter whose path to folk-Americana included stops at Japanese law school, Tokyo piano bars, corporate boardrooms, and government offices. His latest EP, "Imperfections," feels like finding someone's private journal set to music. And that someone happens to write really, really well. The five-song collection opens with "Set Me Free," a piano-driven confession that might surprise anyone expecting typical breakup bitterness. Horton...