Listening to RIOT SON’s new single, “Loneliest at Best,” is a curious exercise in emotional time-travel. The sound pulls you back to the early 2000s, to a time of angular guitars and heartfelt, frayed-collar vocals. It has that nervous, shimmering energy of indie rock that always sounded best on a pair of wired headphones, the beat prodding you forward even as the lyrics confess...

Anacy's “Frosty” just landed, and honestly, it's like finding a lone, slightly melted candy cane in the back of the cupboard – a bit melancholic, oddly sweet, and intensely…there. This isn’t your standard jingle-bell affair. Anacy, who carves out these sonic spaces somewhere between indie-pop and, what? Festive electronica? It’s like wrapping Christmas lights around a synthesizer, I guess. They’re South African, too, which...