Listening to 37 Houses and their new EP "Strangers" feels entirely like stumbling into an intensely intimate therapy session that miraculously transforms into a sweat-soaked 90s indie rock show. https://open.spotify.com/album/62NSIkN8J6ijONhErDTwtA?si=izu4NevqSeyI1vEjS9eAxg The San Francisco quartet operates as an open diary for lead singer Erin Sydney and guitarist Jeremy Rosenblum. Trapped in lockdown a mere four months after their wedding, their music processes the bewildering grief, angst, and...

Robin James Hurt’s “A Song, A Story Told” arrives with a sound you can almost run a thumb over, like worn corduroy. In an age of sterile, diamond-polished productions, this album is a defiantly handmade thing, tracked onto vintage cassette machines. The result is not a flaw, but an ingredient. A faint, persistent hiss breathes alongside the instruments, a ghost in the machine who...