On his bracing new single “Jolie,” New York City songwriter and guitarist Owen Steib channels 1990s college-rock bite to reckon with a devastating story of lost innocence. The 18-year-old high school senior constructs a fragmented, out-of-order mystery around an exiled girl caught in the wreckage of an irreversible, violent incident. Instead of spelling out the tragedy cleanly, Steib drops cryptic, evocative breadcrumbs a denim...

San Francisco’s queer honky-tonk institution Country Risqué returns to announce their forthcoming sophomore album "As the Crow Flies", leading the charge with an irresistibly bouncy single called "Motorcycle Johnny". https://open.spotify.com/track/09mrnJCwv6Rf3ZNjlEazVv?si=b3b7ec5d8e08487a There is a strange, captivating alchemy to this band. The vocal friction alone is brilliant: Miles Gordon provides a rich, formally trained warmth, while Daniel Bromfield leans hard into a languid, almost defiant deadpan. Supported by...