Okay, let's pretend the universe coughed up "All the Christmas Lights." Not literally, of course, though I did find a sparkly rock in my pocket this morning – probably unrelated. This single by Eric Harmsen, straight outta Alpine, manages to feel both like a familiar, cozy sweater and a strangely uncharted territory. https://open.spotify.com/album/422cieMEcXDGkGRXvKa058 The music… it’s less jingle bell rock and more like a snow globe...

Listening to John Keenan’s “Wreckage of the Past” feels like being handed the audio diary of a ghost who is not yet dead. This is an 18-song excavation of a psyche at war, made all the more intense by the knowledge that Keenan is the sole architect—producer, writer, mixer, and tormented protagonist. The whole project has the hermetically sealed, slightly feverish quality of a...