Near Death Experience's single, "Shake," arrived not so much as music, but as a sudden, urgent insistence. It’s London psych-rock-soul alright, but brewed with something fiercely immediate, demanding attention like a ringing telephone in an empty room. The core quartet – Ian Whiteling guiding the trip with vocals and guitar fuzz, Joshua Van Ness laying down a heartbeat that feels both frantic and locked-in,...

Martin Yates’s new single, “Now or Never”, doesn’t ask for your time; it issues a three-minute summons. This is the sound of someone pushing their chair back from the table, the scrape of the legs on the floor echoing a decision that’s been brewing for years. Channeling the wounded pride of 1960s soul legends, Yates builds a monument to the moment the heart finally...