Listening to aktenzeichen_T’s new EP, "Midnight Between Lagrange Points", feels less like putting on a record and more like unsealing a classified file. The artist's name, German for "case file number," seems to promise a kind of cold, bureaucratic evidence, and the Leipzig producer delivers—but the subject of this file is the messy, beating heart of human conflict. A case file rendered in kick...

Well now, here’s The Flying Beets with their single "I See Through You," and it lands with the distinct thud of knowing something you almost wish you didn't. Singer/guitarist Nathan Waller, flanked by David Cross on bass and Steven Clements on drums, crafts an alt-rock sound here that feels less like soaring rebellion and more like pacing anxiously in a beautifully furnished, yet soundproof,...