DJ Momotaro’s new single "Neon Heat (feat. Vessa) " is less a track you listen to and more a space you occupy for three and a half minutes. The official description promises “optimistic melancholy,” a phrase that sounds like an exquisite paradox until the first synth pad washes over you. This is the sound of a midnight drive through a city that exists only...

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...