Dan Goldman / Snowblink

The nuance of sleepy anticipation (such as a child desperate to fall asleep on Christmas Eve) is a tired, electric torture that everyone knows — and one that songwriter Dan Goldman's music fully captures. His avant-garde strumming pop anesthetizes and inoculates like a two-part booster of morphine and crack: The music plays the lullaby, but the story stimulates. In a brilliant partnering, Goldman is on the road with lovely lark Snowblink. If he is the torturous night, she is the first glimpse of fateful morning. Her lilting voice is the perfect soundtrack for a stretch and first breath of coffee, while her gentle, revolving instrumentation is ripe with put-on-your-slippers optimism. Together, this duo will deliciously torment through the dark, but reward vigilance come the light.