On "Mr. Know It All", the loudest person in the room may have the least to teach us. That thought gives Jack Raymond’s second album its bite. This Australian folk, roots and blues album review puts people at its centre. They carry family stories, dodge hard truths and live with choices that arrived before them. Raymond gives no heroic status to the title figure. Instead, he...

Silja Rós sends us “Letters from my past,” and it’s as if one has been handed a velvet pouch of smoothed sea glass, each piece a shard of memory polished by time. Listening feels like sorting through them, the Icelandic musician’s neo-soul and pop songwriting unfurling narratives from what must be deeply personal old diaries. There’s an intimacy here akin to deciphering faded ink...