Amara-Fe has definitively shifted from the messy business of becoming into the absolute certainty of claiming with her new album, "A Queen’s Ambition". The rising solo artist, tethered to deep musical roots extending through Mission and Dallas, Texas, arrives fully formed here. There is a palpable weight to her cinematic R&B and electropop arrangements. You can almost feel her surveying her territory, setting borders,...

Myles Sky’s new single, "Goodbye Letter", plays like a document found in a time capsule you buried for yourself only yesterday. It’s the sound of a very specific, solitary ritual: the final message written not to be sent, but to be known. It’s an act of emotional carbon dating, a way of proving to yourself that you were here, that you felt this, and...