Katie Noir drops a wildly entertaining dose of affectionate satire on her new single, "I Prefer Jason". The 21-year-old student, songwriter, and producer constructs an excessively glamorous, fictionalized celebrity wedding here. Our narrator ignores the glossy, high-profile mega-star groom completely. Her attention drifts sideways instead, locking onto the best man: the groom’s relaxed, beautifully unpretentious brother, Jason. https://open.spotify.com/track/4UT6n18SpY9I0e1xPFprVY?si=b879f9126c574414 The sheer absurdity of this misdirected crush dictates...

A rubber band ball, meticulously constructed and then unceremoniously dropped, that's what Outside Pedestrian's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" feels like. Not the ball itself, mind you, but the brief, elastic snap of unexpected order being momentarily... let go. We know the Bach tune. It’s a holiday staple, often served up with a side of polite reverence. But here, Anthony Fesmire’s guitar, David Lockeretz’s...