Take Jack Horton, a Portland-based singer-songwriter whose path to folk-Americana included stops at Japanese law school, Tokyo piano bars, corporate boardrooms, and government offices. His latest EP, "Imperfections," feels like finding someone's private journal set to music. And that someone happens to write really, really well. The five-song collection opens with "Set Me Free," a piano-driven confession that might surprise anyone expecting typical breakup bitterness. Horton...

Listening to Jacre and Lucie Glang's collaborative single, “Holy,” is an act of calibration. The song doesn’t shout; it quietly rearranges the furniture in the room, asking you to find a new, more comfortable place to sit. In a world practically vibrating with manufactured urgency and digital anguish, this track proposes a radical alternative: turning away. It’s a slow, deliberate retreat into a sanctuary...