Blind Man’s Daughter has constructed something peculiar with the single “Harbor Boulevard,” a song that feels less like a piece of music and more like discovering a perfectly preserved room from a house that no longer exists. Ashley Wolfe’s project here builds a world with the clean, approachable architecture of country-pop, yet there’s a strange dust mote shimmer in the air—those cinematic flourishes—that catches...

Ultan’s single, "The Tempest," erupts not so much into the room as it does through the floorboards, dragging with it the scent of wet wool and imminent confrontation. This Dublin solo musician, a cartographer of past agonies, presents an energetic rock piece that feels less like a song about history and more like a fragment of it, throbbing and urgent. The main riff careers...