Maraad’s new album, “BUFF”, is a strange and beautiful paradox, an object forged in the very fire it’s meant to protect you from. Each track is presented as a "buff," a bit of protective magic for the spirit, but the energy humming underneath feels less like a polished shield and more like the faint, determined glow around a figure in a centuries-old altarpiece—somehow both...

On his expansive new single “Pieces,” Vancouver Island songwriter WiL confronts the quiet clutter of a fractured life and turns the debris into gold. Anchored by his deep, velvety vocals and fiercely idiosyncratic guitar work, the track begins in a state of brooding contemplation, moving with the cautious gravity of someone testing thin ice after a hard winter. https://open.spotify.com/track/1Ad1WMvlke4vTKEkSO8AfE?si=4fd67168e9a94a63 What begins as an insular alt-folk meditation...