A rubber band ball, meticulously constructed and then unceremoniously dropped, that's what Outside Pedestrian's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" feels like. Not the ball itself, mind you, but the brief, elastic snap of unexpected order being momentarily... let go. We know the Bach tune. It’s a holiday staple, often served up with a side of polite reverence. But here, Anthony Fesmire’s guitar, David Lockeretz’s...

Wolfgang Webb's "The Lost Boy" arrived not so much as a collection of tracks, but as a sonic correspondence from a place where streetlights hum with Kraftwerk’s ghost and the shadows dance to a trip-hop beat. This is music conceived in the wee small hours, carrying that particular clarity – or perhaps, exquisite exhaustion – of a world stripped bare by moonlight. His past...