The carousel on the album cover of Kyle Davis's "Jericho" spins with a blurred intensity, much like the emotional whirlwind captured within its grooves. This seventh studio effort from the Virginia-based singer-songwriter marks not just a reunion with the team behind his acclaimed 1999 Sony debut "Raising Heroes," but a successful artistic rebirth following personal upheaval. Davis plays these eleven songs with the experience of someone...

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...