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...

TC TENET’s new single, “Animals,” arrives with the sort of confident thud you’d expect from a well-aimed Doc Marten hitting a hollow stage. This isn't background music for tidying your sock drawer, unless your sock drawer is a portal to a field at 3 AM where everyone’s forgotten their own name but remembers every chord. It’s a full-throated roar into the now, a soundtrack...