Listening to gnomes’ new EP, “Microclimbs,” feels less like hearing songs and more like stumbling upon a meticulously catalogued collection of internal weather systems. The Berlin artist has shed an acoustic skin, emerging with a sound that’s electric, nervy, and complex. This is music for feeling overwhelmed in a way that’s almost, dare I say it, cozy. https://open.spotify.com/album/6a9jnB0IcQDdP6BHLaHpdJ?si=1zS3355CRwe4oaDcdouNeA The warm, watery warble of a Wurli synth...

Southern Louisiana Creole visionary Zióna Maré-Laveaux introduces her new single, "FOLD ME LIKE SUNDAY", and honestly, my immediate physical reaction was a sudden urge to lay flat on the floor and cancel all appointments. She calls this entirely original sonic territory ZIONYX™. It is a staggering, humid fusion of Afrobeat, Global Black Sound, and Bayou Soul that flawlessly bridges her ancestral heritage with a...