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...

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,...