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...

Sean at the Hotel’s latest single, "I Didn’t Think About Noah," doesn't so much start as erupt, a frantic confetti cannon of art pop anxieties. It’s the sound of a mind racing, or perhaps the collective consciousness of every thirty-something who’s ever stared into the blue light of a screen and wondered if they’ve irreparably broken their brain. The track’s skittering rhythms and overlapping...