Nothing Concrete’s new album, “The Imperfectionist”, is less a collection of songs and more a vessel that’s been around the world a few times, collecting scuffs and stories. It’s a beautifully unsteady thing, this record from the duo of Fergus McKay and Gaia Miato. They’ve crafted a dusty, globetrotting shuffle where bluesy resignation and the dramatic posture of tango are held together by the...

Some songs are protests. Others are warnings. But a rare few are something else entirely: they are stories that transport you to another place, another time, another possible future. Ted Stanley’s “Shoreline” is one of those songs. It’s a piece of music that feels less like a song and more like a modern myth, a folktale carried softly across a rising tide. It’s a story...