Robin James Hurt’s “A Song, A Story Told” arrives with a sound you can almost run a thumb over, like worn corduroy. In an age of sterile, diamond-polished productions, this album is a defiantly handmade thing, tracked onto vintage cassette machines. The result is not a flaw, but an ingredient. A faint, persistent hiss breathes alongside the instruments, a ghost in the machine who...

Listening to Jean-Philippe Ruelle’s new single, “Switeesoul,” is a peculiar kind of eavesdropping. You’re not hearing a sunrise, exactly, but the slow, internal thought process of one coming into being. The track’s layered electronic pianos don't crash into your morning; they seep under the door, a cool wash of ambient sound that feels both deliberate and entirely accidental. It’s music that seems to have...