Shawn Brown’s EP, "Into the Furious Light," doesn’t slip quietly into the stream of modern indie-folk releases; it instead cups its hands around your soul like you’re a candle in danger of flickering out. The Portland troubadour crafts songs that feel like fragments of conversations—maybe ones you walked in on too late or letters unsent to someone dear but no longer near. You’re never...

This single. This single. Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter and producer Omar has dropped "Better Be Lucky," and, well, I'm wrestling with a sonic octopus here. It's electric pop, sure, but it feels like pop that’s been put through a taffy puller of conflicting emotions. Did I just think about taffy? Why? Moving on. https://open.spotify.com/album/4qPGja59tO2IVMi2V2J79p?si=k7evvjeMSzKSkyfPV0m9AA The central theme – that brain-scrambling push-pull of a toxic relationship fueled by...