There is a specific kind of quiet you find in the Midwest, and listening to Derby Hill and his self-titled release, "Derby Hill", feels like stumbling into that quiet after a long, noisy shift. It’s not the silence of emptiness; it’s the silence of after. After the argument, after the paycheck clears, after the sun goes down over the Detroit skyline or a Chicago...

Listening to the opening of Michellar’s "Truth Over Lies" is like being dropped mid-sentence into a conversation you desperately need to hear. This track, which features Frankie El, doesn't ease you in; it puts you on the "shaky ground" it sings about, a state of profound vertigo that reminds me of the low, anxious hum an old CRT television used to make just before...