Dryadic opens the door on their new single "Ghosts," and you immediately feel a change in the room’s pressure. The piano chords that introduce the piece, played by frontwoman Zora McDonald, don’t twinkle; they place stones, one by one, creating a path through a grey landscape. Her voice follows, not as a guide trying to cheer you on, but as a determined companion walking...

DBsock, the artistic moniker of Mingwei Gao, arrives not with a gentle announcement, but with a complex, shifting statement in her debut EP, "The Journey". The songs on this album do not really feel like easy music. Instead, they feel more like a complicated guide that shows the way through internal territories. Gao is a singer, musician, producer, and creator who works in Los Angeles and...