The Broonies “Love’s Sanitarium”

(http://aaronfreifeld.bandcamp.com/) No-fi swoony teenage garage pop that is rough and raw and pretty and pretty strange. The Brooniest record I’ve heard this year.

Hotchacha/Summer People “Do it”

 (Exit Stencil) Hotchacha continue their hotness with a quartet of songs that includes the hard hitting  “Aorist,” their h-h-h-ottest yet, a better 90s song than the 90s songs it sounds like. Summer People add some weird math to the most demented Birthday Party murder songs sounds, and it’s frighteningly pleasant.

The Movements “Follow"

(Teen Sound) Old and recent, rare and unreleased, awesome and awesomer tracks of rollicking, rocking Swedish psyche that’s meant to move you. You don’t have to be drunk, blonde, on mushrooms, or of Viking blood to appreciate this. But it wouldn’t hurt.

Brontosaurus “Cold Comes to Claim”

(www.brontosaurusmusic.com) Cabaret grunge music that would take a pea-sized brain 230 million years to wrapped itself around, and it would likely involve some meat-eating to deliver these chops, so not the most accurate band name. But one of the coolest.

Thomas Comerford “Archive + Spiral”

(Spacesuit Records) If he didn’t cover Velvet Underground, Comerford’s moody, resonant flat-voiced story song heartwrenchers would have made me forget Lou Reed altogether.

Company “Holy City”

(Exit Stencil) Not bad at all, so it’s a good thing these South Carolinians are not called Bad Company, but these flatly sung yet emotionally wrought lo-fi tunes that evoke a maudlin Guided By Voices or even mid-career Wilco on downers suggest maybe they could be called Sad Company.

HB3 “Magic Circles”,” “Poseidon: Fantasia For Picolo Bass”

(www.hb3.com) “Magic Circles” is a thrillingly exhaustive, interstellar, electronic-exploratory prog workout that somehow shakes our all of prog rock’s douchiness (HB3 even magically maintains non-bullshit status while printing an accompanying chapbook of “Magic Circles” lyrics as poetry). More impressive is the moody “Poseidon” album, an epic instrumental soundtrack to a moody aquatic fable that sounds both sadly sub-aquatic and soaringly high at the same time.

Chris Ligon and the Problems “This is Your Night”

(Clang!) First of all: GENIUS! Second of all: I, historically, have a pretty low standard for genius (i.e: guy who did voiceovers in Morris the Cat commercials…genius! Rappin’ Duke…genius!). That said, I have forever been captivated with the specific way Ligon twangs it up, incorporating Opry/Hee Haw style humor, but then subverting country music’s clever wordplay tradition by injecting absurdity, jazz, cabaret aesthetics, and Spike Jones anarchy. Problems solved! Sidenote: I actually heard someone on NPR mispronounce “Grand Ole Opry” last week, using a long “O”, as if Oprah had something to do with it.

The Singleman Affair “Silhouettes at Dawn”

(www.cardboardsangria.com) I don’t hear a single, man. But you know what I do hear? Lushly melancholy deep emotional revelations…with hooks!

Robert Deeble “heart like feathers”

(www.robertdeeble.com) Deeble’s beautiful, pained, throbingly sincere music is not only heartfelt, but it also literally can be felt in your heart, as you’ll experience the heaviness in your chest slow your heartbeat and all the sad and sublime moments of your life will pass before your eyes. I should mention I have been drinking. But this made me increase my consumption, so Deeble shares the blame…