"Who the fuck is Lauren Ruth Ward?” reads the descriptive text teasing the 31-year-old American singer and guitarist’s website. Ward is a firecracker, a Scorpio, a water sign. What do Maggie Rogers, Father John Misty, and Lauren Ruth Ward have in common? Their voices read like anachronisms, under-processed, floral, not limited to modernity or copying what came before. They make music that’s difficult to place but electric to absorb. What’s more, all three artists hail from Maryland, a state that isn’t classically associated with rock music, and one that also happens to be where I grew up. On the Mason-Dixon line, this is a place where country music is charred with a rock sensibility, or in the case of Ward, rock is infused with a smokey folk flavor. Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Ward, who rocks Angel Olsen bangs and tie-dye hair, worked as a hairdresser in her native town of Baltimore. “Water Sign” is a song that you feel throughout your whole body. “I'm living in my personal hell / I don't need your ammunition / Everybody say ‘Oh, I can tell’ / Can only see my own vision,” drawing out the last syllables into a growl. Ward sings of emotional volatility: being vulnerable to the moods and actions of people trying to swerve into her left lane. Single lines speak volumes, with punctuated pauses and Ward’s sharp tongue (“I did it my sentence it was cruel but I finished it”). If you’re in New York, don’t miss Ward’s upcoming show at Rough Trade in April.

King Princess craves commitment and certainty with her partner on "Ain't Together," the latest in a string of singles preceding her debut album, Cheap Queen. A listless sense of longing permeates the song as King Princess, aka Mikaela Straus, finds herself stuck with someone who will say "I love you," yet deny to others that they're in a relationship. Self-consciously, she ponders, "Do you think labels make it taste much better?" desperate to sound nonchalant. "Baby you ain't gotta worry about nothing," Straus assures her partner, though it's clear that it's herself she needs to convince. With a breezy choir humming casual "Ah's" and "Do-do-do's" throughout the track, you almost start to believe she's comfortable in the in-between, until she admits, "Oh it kills / I ain't chill at all, at all." The song features a drumbeat from Father John Misty that's as effortlessly compelling as her hazy, psychedelic rock guitar. Alongside previous rock-driven single "Prophet," "Ain't Together" has Straus traversing genre without losing her delightfully unique melancholy-tinged pop essence. Cheap Queen is due out on October 25, marking the first full-length album to be released on Mark Ronson's Zelig Records.

Timeless and emotional, “Short and Sweet” is an entrancing acoustic ballad from Brittany Howard’s debut solo album, Jaime. The stripped arrangement, inspired by blues and old soul, is soft and intimate, like walking peacefully into a dream. Singing with just a guitar and a wash of white noise, the track finds Howard, the lead singer and guitarist of Alabama Shakes, at her most vulnerable. Channeling the likes of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone,Howard’s vocals are close, raw, and so gorgeous. The lo-fi production emphasizes the track’s timeless feel, giving Howard’s voice a velvety, hypnotic sort of appeal. The lyrics, much like the song title, are simple and powerful, and Howard’s easy croon makes them feel effortless. “I may be a fool to dream of you,” she sings, “But god it feels so good to dream at all.” “Short and Sweet” proves that the queen of modern soul does quiet just as well.

"Don't you know that all my dreams come true when I'm walkin' down the street with you?" Corinne Bailey Rae's dreamy revamp of Tom Waits' "Jersey Girl" is made of the same stuff Old Hollywood love was built on. The British soul singer is part of the upcoming Come On Up To The House: Women Sing Waits, a Tom Waits cover album featuring names like Aimee Mann, Phoebe Bridgers and The Wild Reeds. For her part, Bailey Rae picked the 1980 hit that was on Waits' Heartattack And Vine album. In an interview, she explained that she loves how the song expresses so clearly "the rush of first love" and "the thrill of finding the one in a crowd of many.” The song, which was already memorable to those of us who have been in love with our own Jersey girl, gains a new life with Bailey Rae's sweet and captivating voice and allows a whole new set of feelings to settle in the hearts of the listeners. After all, "Nothin' else matters in this whole wide world, when you're in love with a jersey girl." Come On Up To The House: Women Sing Waits comes out on November 22.

Today, Brooklyn-based indie duo Painted On premieres their second single, “Passed Forward.” The melancholy song is somewhat of a more austere ballad in comparison to the band’s first release, “Fall,” which creeps through an electronic ascension of slow, ambient percussion. In “Passed Forward,” Painted On’s comprising members Hillary Capps and Anthony Farina explore their signature cinematic crescendos alongside something folksier and more stripped down. Sounding not entirely unlike Of Monsters and Men’s 2012 sensation “Little Talks,” Capps and Farina find a vocal meeting place amid layered echoes and exultant chants with the refrain’s grounding hook: “You’re my home.”

Angel Olsen wrestles with the past and tries to locate some level of clarity in her recently released track “Lark," the second single off her forthcoming record Full Mirrors. Olsen paints a poignant picture of trying to navigate the idea that change is actually not something to run from but to accept and understand in order to push you toward who you’re meant to be. Her singular, concise voice flows through the fragmented arrangements focusing in on more tender, intimate moments before exploding alongside a set of complementary strings. The six-minute and eighteen-second offering acts as an anthem of self-realization, where Olsen decides that you can’t compromise what you want in order to please someone who only loves a certain version of you. She progressively radiates a darker tone as she makes her dynamic stance, “You say you love every single part / What about my dreams? / What about my heart? / Trouble from the start / Trouble with the heart.” As the heightened instrumentations slowly scale down, Olsen departs from the idea that her goals aren’t worthy enough to pursue and recognizes that the only way to move forward is to be true to herself. Full Mirrors is officially out on October 4 via Jagjaguwar.

Lana Del Rey released her sixth album Norman Fucking Rockwell! at the end of August via Interscope Records and has once again proven herself to be an insightful, eloquent songwriter. Del Rey offers up her unapologetic observations on love, the maze that is human emotion and the communication breakdown that everyone seems to have on a daily basis. One track in particular that grabs your attention is “Cinnamon Girl”, which details the cycle of a caring, but unhealthy relationship. The delicate piano kicks things off and softly rings as Lana’s melodic, longing voice begins to build before you’re engulfed in pools of light, cinematic layers of synth. She poignantly recaps her desire to connect, “All the pills that you did / Violet, blue, green, red to keep me / At arm's length don't work / You try to push me out / But I just find my way back in.” As the song comes to an end, we get a dose of swirling instrumentation—leaving room to conclude that maybe Del Rey has found some sort of closure. There’s no sugarcoating or beating around the bush, which is a consistent element of the album as a whole.

Okay Kaya’s newest single, “Ascend And Try Again,” is intimate and ethereal. Like lounging on a cloud or floating underwater, the weightless, jazz-inspired arrangement is lush with reverb and rich instrumentation. A steady, intricate guitar line along with Norwegian-born Kaya Wilkins’ breathy, dreamy vocal are the moody center of the song. The light plucking and repetitive lyrics, “ascend and try again,” reflect the emotional power of the minimalist melody, and the added harmonies serve to further emphasize that theme. The arresting lyrics, simple and straightforward, were adapted from a scuba diving manual and double as a meditation on life. “Ascend And Try Again” is a hauntingly smooth, sonically rich slow jam.