From the German city of Delmenhorst, DJ Snudi has dispatched "Sugar Daddy," a single that lands with the curious thud of a velvet-wrapped brick. The track presents itself as a straightforward club banger, but listening to it is like trying to have a serious conversation in a room where someone keeps changing the lighting from sterile white to a pulsing, humid red. It’s disorienting,...

Before listening to a single note of Suris’ new album, “Pertinax”, I spent a few minutes just looking at the word. Pertinax. It has the distinct ring of a Stoic philosopher’s last defiant utterance or maybe a type of beetle known for its unusually stubborn shell. What a curious flag to fly for a collection of songs in an age of fleeting distraction. But...