Listening to Bloomfield Machine's new seventeen-track instrumental album, “Copium,” feels a bit like stepping into a terrarium during a quiet downpour. The title itself suggests a kind of modern, knowing self-delusion, the balm we apply just to get by. Yet, the music crafted by Huntington Beach’s Brian Kassan is far too sincere for pure cynicism. This isn’t the sound of giving up; it’s the...

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...