Chromatics
Into the Black (Italians Do It Better)
Bet you never knew this Neil Young classic was just begging to be reborn as a synth-fortified dirge sung by a slightly bored-sounding woman. Or at least that’s what Portland’s Chromatics seem to have thought, and they were right.

Sharon Van Etten
Give Out (Jagjaguwar)
This is one of those lying-on-the-floor slow-burners, the kind that you turn up to neighbour-enraging volumes while you stare at the ceiling and wonder how in the hell you got to be such a goddamn mess.

Violens
Unfolding Black Wings (Slumberland) It actually sounds like three different songs all playing at once—a dreamy pop number, an electric Kool-Aid acid rocker, and a stun- gun no-waver—but it works. Hell, why not throw a bluegrass breakdown in there, too?

Black Mountain
Mary Lou (Jagjaguwar)
Riff-tastic stoner drone set to a pulse-racing motorik beat and we owe it all to a post- apocalyptic surf movie, which seems pretty fucking weird and yet somehow totally right.

Santigold
Disparate Youth (Roc Nation)
A dub-inflected beat, ethereal synth washes, and just a bit of machine-gun guitar suggest that, "Big Mouth" notwithstanding, Santi’s long-awaited sophomore album might actually live up to her debut after all.

Colleen Green
Goldmine (Art Fag)
Over a buzz-saw chord progression so dead simple that it makes the Ramones sound like prog rock, Colleen Green layers an improbably sweet pop melody, slathered in reverb because that’s what the kids like.

The Men
Ex-Dreams (Sacred Bones)
Looking for a hard-charging, ’90s-indebted indie-rock song to put on that playlist between a Yuck track and, um, another Yuck track? Meet the Men and their many, many effects pedals.

Cadence Weapon
88 (Upper Class)
Over a track swiped from Grimes (who knows a thing or two about old-school hip-hop), Cadence Weapon opines that rap music has basically sucked since 1988, when he was the ripe old age of two.

Marriages
10 Tiny Fingers (Sargent House)
Ever listen to the awesomely epic atmospheric postrock of Red Sparowes and think, :I sure wish this band had a singer?" Well, Marriages is exactly that—a band made up of members of Red Sparowes, with vocals. And it’s awesome.

Crocodiles
Sunday (Psychic Conversation #9) (Souterrain Transmissions)
Damn it all to hell, Crocodiles. Why did you have to go and make a big sun-splashed pop song full of tone-bending shoegaze guitar and churning organ? Now we want it to be summer, and it’s not, and that’s a total drag.

Diplo
Express Yourself (Mad Decent)
With a particularly assaultive dancehall-meets-dubstep beat and a shouty vocal by Jamaica’s Nicky Da B, Diplo delivers what might be the most awesomely obnoxious thing you’ll hear this year that isn’t by Die Antwoord.