Texas sibling duo Brother and The Hayes strike a gorgeous balance between intimacy and reflective longing on their new single “Radio Waves.” With David Bingaman on guitar and Jennie Hayes Kurtz providing casually soulful vocals, this track buzzes with the sort of warmth that simultaneously feels intimate and classic, like finding a love letter that’s been stashed in a vinyl sleeve. A brother-sister act from Dallas, the siblings were marinated in a stew of musical idioms, from gospel-laced choirs to blues standards.

The diversity of that foundation shines through in “Radio Waves,” where David’s guitar work pays polite homage to the Texas blues legends he holds dear, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Lightnin’ Hopkins, while Jennie Hayes’ voice soars with the clarity and control of one who cut her teeth in choirs but didn’t shed the spirit of real feeling in the process. “Radio Waves” is a love song and a time capsule, evoking the magic of turning on a late-night station and hearing a song that hits you like a fist. There’s a sweet ache woven into the melody, an evocation of the unsaid connections and memories that music evokes unbidden. The production is minimal. Every note, every breath, feels intentional, feels organic, feels human. This is storytelling of the gentlest kind. The lyrics tend to stick to the simple and let the emotional texture do the heavy lifting.

For Brother and The Hayes, less is more, and in the emptiness is where listeners are encouraged to feel deeply, reflect, and remember. “Radio Waves” is simply too down to earth for that. It shoots for the heart, offering a song that is homey, that is, memory, the sound of something that has always been playing softly in the background of our lives. Brother and The Hayes are choosing to make their own with tunes that are steeped in family, feeling, and simply undeniable craft. “Radio Waves” shows they are transmitting something special.

On her new single, “Heartbeat Chemtrail,” Kayla Marque has given us a combination of intimacy and toxicity, forging a landscape as beautiful to the ear as it is bruising to the heart. This is a slow burn of a romantic demise. “Heartbeat Chemtrail” surges with an emotional electricity. Just the title conjures an image of love that lingers in the sky, beautiful and shining but deadly, perhaps. Marque blurs the boundaries between vulnerability and risk, matching heartbeats with fallout and close feelings with collateral.

This is a lush production, but never a florid one, allowing Marque’s vocal to ache and simmer. Her delivery is like a dark secret, whispered in the dark, delicately balanced between nothing and creeping doom. Each word feels selected, every pause is intentional, and each moment draws listeners further into a story that feels universal and achingly personal. The real tool here is emotion. You can hear the heft of each note bearing down on your chest, the push and pull of a relationship that sustains and corrodes in equal measure. It all feels cinematic, like watching a love story unfold slowly, knowing it’s heading toward an exquisite collapse. But that’s the genius of “Heartbeat Chemtrail.”

It doesn’t flinch from the turned-silver double-edged blade of love, the sweetness of it and the sting, the hope and the damage. Instead, it embraces them and dares to romanticize the wreckage without glamorizing the pain. It’s about the path to heartbreak, the chemical trail love leaves behind. Kayla Marque has created an experience. “Heartbeat Chemtrail” is a reminder that love goes as thick and heady, seductive, and suffocating. And at other times, the most intoxicating connections are those with a warning label. “Heartbeat Chemtrail” hangs in the air long after the last note, like smoke in the air or a thought you can’t quite stop.