Randy Newman once quipped that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, yet when confronted with 2002's latest offering, *The Wishing Well*, one finds the impulse to articulate its curious charm almost irresistible. This is New Age music at its most unapologetically earnest, a sonic sanctuary that makes no concessions to irony or postmodern detachment — and the album is all the better for it.

The recording of live albums has become a curious exercise in our streaming age—too often a contractual obligation or a cynical cash-in on touring momentum. Rarer still is the live document that justifies its existence not through spectacle or technical wizardry, but through the simple, radical act of listening: to room, to ensemble, to breath. Lawrence Udeigwe's *Live in Williamsburg* belongs to this latter, more honest category.

Portland's Alice Okada arrives with her debut EP having spent merely twelve months immersed in the intricate world of Intelligent Drum N' Bass, yet the assurance radiating from 'Liquid, or Jungle?' suggests an artist who has lived several lifetimes within the genre's sprawling architecture. The EP's title poses a question that mirrors the central tension of DnB itself—the perpetual negotiation between the genre's opposing poles of atmospheric drift and kinetic rupture.

There's something quietly defiant about Jake Vera's debut album *Lost*, released this past October—a record that arrives not with fanfare but with the hushed determination of someone who has something urgent to say. In an era where algorithms curate our playlists and artificial intelligence threatens to homogenize the very notion of artistic expression, this Dallas-based alt-rock artist has crafted a deliberately human document, warts and all.