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...

Roizys’ “All-night-alone” feels made for the moment when a bad day has run out of arguments. The independent artist from Busto Arsizio, Italy, takes a home-built electronic instrumental and gives it a steady forward push, turning solitude into a practical kind of release. It is a short record, but it knows its job: make room, set a pulse, and keep moving. Roizys, whose birth name is Ioana...