The first encounter with Asta Bria’s new single, “Dragonfly,” is a calculated disorientation. For an artist who once cozied up to funk’s leisurely sway, this is a sharp turn onto a rain-slicked digital highway. The song’s intent for the dance floor is immediately apparent; a commanding, four-to-the-floor beat acts as a gravitational field, pinning you to the present moment. But hovering just above it...

Patrick Hynes’ new single, "Baby’s High Again," doesn't so much arrive as materialize, like a half-remembered scent of bourbon and regret clinging to a velvet curtain. This “Midnight Country” he’s cultivating, it’s less dusty plains, more the blue, flickering light of a motel television at 3 AM, illuminating a room where decisions have been made, then unmade, then made again. Hynes, a Scot with...