Angelo Ceriani's new album, "Lofi Weather," arrives not with a bang, but like a slow-moving front rolling in off Lake Maggiore, where I imagine his Somma Lombardo studio might catch the changing light. These ten instrumental pieces, curated from two decades of Ceriani simply making music (1995-2015, no less!), feel less like a planned collection and more like leafing through someone’s sonic sketchbook, found...

Farbod Biglari’s new single, "Waltz for Baran (The Rain Waltz)," arrived like a polite invitation to a forgotten ballroom, where the chandeliers are lit but the guests are all pleasingly melancholic figments of memory. It doesn't swagger; it glides, a full orchestral sway that clearly tips its hat to the spirit of composers like Stelvio Cipriani, not by mimicry, but by sharing a certain...