Take Jack Horton, a Portland-based singer-songwriter whose path to folk-Americana included stops at Japanese law school, Tokyo piano bars, corporate boardrooms, and government offices. His latest EP, "Imperfections," feels like finding someone's private journal set to music. And that someone happens to write really, really well. The five-song collection opens with "Set Me Free," a piano-driven confession that might surprise anyone expecting typical breakup bitterness. Horton...

Some records politely ask for your attention; the "Moss E.P" from MOSS just sets a small, contained fire on your coffee table and waits for you to feel the heat. It is an immediate and strangely familiar atmosphere, like a half-remembered David Lynch dream scored with the staticky pulse of 90s trip-hop. Bee Davison's voice cuts through this hypnotic haze, not as a lament,...