Independent power pop band Chandra has dropped their latest digital single, "Boom," a track that effectively scores the precise fraction of a second when a quiet cosmos collapses to form a brand new universe. Frontman and guitarist Chandra Nair frames true connection as a spiritual, highly reactive ambush. We all know the experience. You go about your week with a perfectly unassuming, guarded exterior,...

Robin James Hurt’s “A Song, A Story Told” arrives with a sound you can almost run a thumb over, like worn corduroy. In an age of sterile, diamond-polished productions, this album is a defiantly handmade thing, tracked onto vintage cassette machines. The result is not a flaw, but an ingredient. A faint, persistent hiss breathes alongside the instruments, a ghost in the machine who...