Earl Patrick pivots sharply away from his usual indie-folk and guitar-driven comfort zones for his newest release, the wildly inventive album "Conditioned By Machines". The Portland, Oregon-based composer, singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist has spent over two decades building a dense, eight-album catalog. Here, however, he entirely flips the script. Feeling that classical flute music too often prioritizes gesture over pure melody, he set out...

With The Widows and their jagged new single "Bardo Blues", the speakers don't just output sound; they seem to physically sweat. From the opening seconds, this track captures the exact frequency of a nervous breakdown occurring in a dimly lit restroom of a venue that definitely violates several health codes. https://open.spotify.com/track/4U7900swNQAaAj2T5MxrqY?si=0f2168babd504508 This London quartet, Kim Le Tan, Francesco Manzi, Roger Salsas, and Vince Johnson, has been...