Leon Blanchard, a name perhaps faintly echoing from the mid-noughties indie surge, returns not with fanfare, but with a solitary signal flare titled "Astronaut". Hailing from Grimsby, a town known more for its fishing heritage than its celestial aspirations, Blanchard's new song does not really feel like a return, but more like a personal gearbox picked up after years of chatter. In 2007, his old band,...

Listening to Nom De Plume’s new album, Circle the Dream, is like finding an old, intricate map for a place that doesn't exist on any globe. This is a record for the motionless traveler, the soul pacing the perimeter of its own skull. Aris Karabelas and Michael Magee have crafted a landscape not of highways and canyons, but of the vast, contradictory terrain behind...