There is a specific kind of magic that happens when an artist decides to strip away the noise and focus entirely on the core emotion of a track. Phoebe June, a rising indie pop talent based in Berlin, has managed to capture this elusive quality with her latest single, "Dead Sea". In a musical climate that frequently rewards the loudest voice in the room, she...

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...