Inal Bilsel, "Once Upon a Cloudtop Meadow". Honestly, the title alone conjures... well, precisely what the music delivers. It's an album that sounds like the background music for a Studio Ghibli film that doesn't exist yet, but absolutely should. Have you ever seen a cat yawn so widely it looks like it's trying to swallow the sun? That level of surprising delight – that's...

Julia Faulks’ new EP, “Colours”, doesn’t so much present a palette as it does the messy, satisfying work of mixing the paints yourself. It's a six-song study in emotional reciprocity, a sonic accounting of what it costs to love and what it means to be loved in return. https://open.spotify.com/album/6o7E8t0HKQCUiu9uINpATo?si=612B0YA9TJCuKfH-ndCupg Faulks operates in that murky, humid space she calls the “in-between,” where affection curdles into obligation and...