With LunaRover and their latest single "Little Things", I found myself suspended in that strange, gelatinous space between being fully awake and drifting into a fever dream. It’s a curious offering from Kevin Rieth and Ben Pelletier, a duo who build their soundscapes asynchronously, sending digital ghosts back and forth across Silver Spring, Maryland. https://open.spotify.com/track/56VUMjvZZsw6hI8geeg7CH?si=8fbf469199984b3e The track operates like a malfunctioning calmness machine. There is a...

Listening to Shotgun Driver’s new EP, “Jester Privileges”, is like finding a glitter bomb in a padded cell. The four songs present a disorienting, strangely compelling contradiction. On the surface, the alt-pop framework pulses with an upbeat, almost defiant energy; this is the slick, rock-tinged anxiety of a Machine Gun Kelly track built for open-road brooding. But beneath it, the narrative, carried by those...