Listening to Nom De Plume’s new album, Circle the Dream, is like finding an old, intricate map for a place that doesn't exist on any globe. This is a record for the motionless traveler, the soul pacing the perimeter of its own skull. Aris Karabelas and Michael Magee have crafted a landscape not of highways and canyons, but of the vast, contradictory terrain behind...

With Oli Ng and his latest release, "Steadfast," I found myself suddenly transported away from my cluttered desk and into a passenger seat, watching telephone wires loop and dip against a setting sun. You know that specific physical sensation when you stop checking the speedometer because you trust the driver with your life? This track bottles that. It’s the sonic equivalent of finally unclenched...