Vigatron’s “Hollow Apologies” refuses the idea that a hip-hop artist must stay in one lane. His Burner-produced album works from a simple rule: follow what feels right. This opens space for changed pitch, different flows, more singing and background singers, while Burner shapes the production around the vocals. It is a record rooted in traditional hip-hop but open to melody, harmony and R&B aesthetics. “Hollow Apologies” refocuses...

On his bracing new single “Jolie,” New York City songwriter and guitarist Owen Steib channels 1990s college-rock bite to reckon with a devastating story of lost innocence. The 18-year-old high school senior constructs a fragmented, out-of-order mystery around an exiled girl caught in the wreckage of an irreversible, violent incident. Instead of spelling out the tragedy cleanly, Steib drops cryptic, evocative breadcrumbs a denim...