Okay, let’s talk about Aynaz, shall we? They've dropped a single called “To My Angel Friend,” and it feels less like a tune and more like… a sudden breeze through a dusty attic window. You know, the kind where long-forgotten trinkets catch the light and make you blink? It’s a tribute, see, to a friend gone. A sort of musical memorial with Celtic undertones,...

Dylan Forshner's new EP, “Hopeless Optimism,” presents itself not so much as a collection of songs but as a series of candid diary entries set to intricately picked acoustic strings. This five-song journey from the Welland, Canada artist begins in a place of palpable internal wrestling, where the lyrics – and Forshner’s delivery – map out the grim territories of being overwhelmed, using substances...