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...

Where R&B Meets Cinéma Vérité: Rising Artist Trav Torch Crafts a Steamy Director's Cut of Modern Romance In "Sex Scene" There's something deliciously meta about recording a song about recording a scene about sex. It's the kind of recursive romance that could easily spiral into self-parody, like pointing two mirrors at each other and watching infinity fragment into meaninglessness. But Trav Torch, with his latest single...