KING HANNAH Big Swimmer (City Slang) — The Liverpool duo King Hannah, comprised of Hannah Merrick and Craig Whittle, often sound like they’re in no particular hurry on their sophomore full-length, Big Swimmer. Many of their songs roll out with the airy spareness and careful pace of Laura Marling at her most defiantly contemplative, and Merrick tends to murmur lyrics like she’s recounting memories as a first step to shaping them into stories. Sharon Van Etten lends harmony vocals to the title cut and “This Wasn’t Intentional,” haunted folk songs similar to her earlier work, and it’s like she’s passing a wispy, brittle baton. While staying true to that foundation, the album meanders confidently into other sonic spaces. “New York, Let’s Do Nothing” is like Wet Leg if they listened to a lot of Laurie Anderson, and “Somewhere Near El Paso” starts with spare storytelling and expands into something like a Heartless Bastards or My Morning jacket earthy jam. The lyrics are so distinct and diverting that it provides strange pleasure when the short, downbeat instrumental “Scully” arrives, sounding like it was developed in a lab to be the ideal last song of the night. King Hannah don’t need to rush. Their pace is just fine. Take a dip with these cuts: “The Mattress,” “Davey Says,” and “John Prine on the Radio.”

AMANDA BERGMAN Your Hand Forever Checking On My Fever (Gamlestans Grammofon) — It’s been eight years since Swedish singer-songwriter Amanda Bergman released her acclaimed debut, Docks. If there hasn’t been a lot of music from her since then, there’s been a lot of living. Bergman effectively took a break from the nonstop hustle of showbiz to live a rural life. She lost a father and became a mother while maintaining her sustainable farm, and all of those experiences come to bear on her long-awaiting sophomore full-length, Your Hand Forever Checking on My Fever. That comes across less as plain testaments to what she’s gone through — Bergman’s writing is too oblique for that — and more bracing, vulnerable considerations of who she is now, how it feels to be her. Musically, Bergman positions herself amongst some of the other highly expressive women of artier pop: “Day 2000 Awake” is like a scaled-back Florence and the Machine, and piano-driven “Poor Symmetry” calls to mind both Joni Mitchell and Tori Amos. The comparisons need not be limited by gender, though. “The World Is Tired of You” has a sly saunter and loping, dying calliope melody that lights its cigarette from one of Tom Waits’s, just before he takes his last drag. Bergman brings the weight of her whole world to the album. Turns out all the heaviness is merely ballast to help steer her true. In addition to the tracks mentioned, check on the following: “Wild Geese, Wild Love,” “My Hands in the Water,” “Signs of a Past Life,” and “I Thought I Didn’t Wake You Up.”