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...

Hearing Max Mayer’s single “Someday I’ll Fly” feels a bit like eavesdropping on a very specific, very modern kind of prayer whispered over a crackling phone line. Here we have this London-based musician, grappling with the magnetic pull of ambition against the equally strong tether of a heart miles away. The song lives squarely in that awkward, stretching space between here and there. https://open.spotify.com/track/6Gupo1O4sJok4Ku6qcTQOz?si=4Eu-s9UUTZiZH4Qo8piuUQ It’s country-inspired...