Some songs are like a time machine. You press play, and suddenly you’re somewhere else, some other time. Maybe it’s a smoky bar in the 1970s, a sweaty punk club in the 80s, or, in the case of “Oh Denise,” the new single from Ken Woods and The Old Blue Gang, a dusty dancehall on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, sometime in the not-too-distant past. The...

There is a precise sort of chaos within the architecture of Cries of Redemption and the new release "Abstract" that feels entirely purposeful, like a storm trapped inside a glass bottle. Ed Silva, the Savannah-based mastermind behind this project, isn’t merely writing songs; he seems to be conducting experiments on how much tension a melody can hold before it snaps. https://open.spotify.com/album/4jjLaAirbw3BMrPXXFvgSq?si=m44bJJwWROeEHVSVJqoZoQ Listening to tracks like "The...