Earl Patrick pivots sharply away from his usual indie-folk and guitar-driven comfort zones for his newest release, the wildly inventive album "Conditioned By Machines". The Portland, Oregon-based composer, singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist has spent over two decades building a dense, eight-album catalog. Here, however, he entirely flips the script. Feeling that classical flute music too often prioritizes gesture over pure melody, he set out...

Kobe-based solo project Garbage Garden has unleashed an absolute tempest of a single, "busy. being. Real." Drawing profoundly on Japan’s "Lost Generation" and the heavy psychological toll of navigating a rigidly hyper-efficient world, this new release is an abrasive jolt to the nervous system. https://open.spotify.com/track/68L3xHjofvZzyl1PT6gspO?si=64dd4dbb738f41f2 Garbage Garden continually wraps deep trauma exploring everything from emotional neglect to natural disasters in glaringly bright, video-game-esque textures. The result...