Listening to Arnold J.’s new single, "Muddy Waters," isn't quite like anything else swirling around right now. It arrives with the gentle insistence of incoming tide, pulling you into its specific gravity. Arnold J., Ghanaian-born and now Canada-based, weaves a sound tagged as alt-country and folk, but those labels feel thin, like trying to contain smoke. There’s earthiness, sure, but his soulful vocal lines...

There are songs that sound like a place, and then there’s Neil Potter’s "Música El Idioma Del Amor," which sounds like a specific time of day in a specific place you’ve never been. It’s a curious creation, a sonic postcard from a parallel-universe Seville where the flamenco guitarist and the local rock progressive have decided to build something new on a foundation of pure...