Anastasia Rydlevskaya makes rage feel methodical on Alchemia. Her fourth full-length album takes the four classical stages of alchemy and turns them into a hard-edged account of betrayal, trauma and feminine power. Nigredo, Albedo and Calcinatio, Citrinitas, then Rubedo each push the heroine into a new state. The result sits firmly in dark electronic music, but it also carries experimental pop and pagan motifs. That framing...

A house can be made from wood, stone, tin, red soil, or memory. In music, it can also be made from strings, shared breath, and the small pauses that let one culture listen to another without rushing to answer. Karoo's debut EP, "Casa", carries that feeling with quiet confidence. The title points toward home, but the record treats home as a living idea rather than...