Amy-Lin Slezak’s “Known 3 Yrs. Seen 24 Hrs” opens with the bright, optimistic twang of country pop, a sound so sun-drenched you can almost feel the heat coming off the asphalt. The fiddle weaves itself through clean acoustic strums and soaring electric guitars, a musical language we all know. But the story it tells is something wonderfully specific, a peculiar ache you didn't know...

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...