The latest from Jacob and the Starry Eyed Shadows, “Racing on the Back Straight,” performs a fantastic trick: it dresses up a full-blown existential crisis in its summer best and sends it to the beach. This Glasgow solo architect, Jacob, has constructed a Trojan horse of a track, all propulsive indie rock guitars and a pop-punk chorus so immediate it feels like you’ve known...

The Canadian singer-songwriter turns early romance into an intimate acoustic single from her forthcoming album "A Thousand Stars". Some feelings arrive before language is ready for them. They hover at the edge of a room, glow across a lake after sunset, or sit in the small pause between a glance and a decision. Love, in its first bright stage, often has that strange outline: visible, but...