Mike Stewart Theory’s new single, “It Reaches Us,” feels less like a piece of music and more like a strange meteorological event happening inside your head. You’re immediately dropped into a groove that has the smooth, shoulder-rolling confidence of 80s soul, but something is off in the atmosphere. The air is thick with a psychedelic haze, a sense of temporal displacement that is both...

Silja Rós sends us “Letters from my past,” and it’s as if one has been handed a velvet pouch of smoothed sea glass, each piece a shard of memory polished by time. Listening feels like sorting through them, the Icelandic musician’s neo-soul and pop songwriting unfurling narratives from what must be deeply personal old diaries. There’s an intimacy here akin to deciphering faded ink...