Millie Mountain’s "Tools" arrives with its guard up and its windows open. This three-track EP puts mental overload, social violence, harmful relationship patterns and the hunt for happiness in the same small room, then allows each concern room to breathe. For a new music release working across experimental R&B, neo-soul, trap soul and Afrobeats, it is a direct and emotionally alert statement. Mountain has already shown...

“Hangin On” makes letting go feel like a workout for the hands. Julia Appleton’s new indie-folk single takes a familiar moment, packing up a place full of history, then refuses to tidy up the feelings around it. The song came from helping her boyfriend sell his childhood home. This is a release about memory, movement, and the bruising pause before a person admits that forward...