Let me tell you something—listening to "Falling From The Floor" feels a bit like slipping through the cracks of your own memories. It's not about soaring or plummeting. No. MJ Lake and his Salt Lake-based cohort (Dylan Schorer, M. Horton Smith, Travis Mickelson, and the enigmatic touch of Joshy Soul) have crafted something that doesn't rise or fall. It levitates in that strange, almost...

Shawn Brown’s EP, "Into the Furious Light," doesn’t slip quietly into the stream of modern indie-folk releases; it instead cups its hands around your soul like you’re a candle in danger of flickering out. The Portland troubadour crafts songs that feel like fragments of conversations—maybe ones you walked in on too late or letters unsent to someone dear but no longer near. You’re never...