After years spent (like most bands out there) devoting too much time to finalize their songs, Brooklyn based electronic duo Sophie Weiner and Russ Marshalek (aka Silent Drape Runners) decided it was time to try to make the process less time consuming – adopting a system which could be described as the musical equivalent of "espresso" coffee: the duo gave itself a six hour limit to finish one track – and while at it also shoot a documentary about it and have a banh mi meal. Inspired by 80s TV documentary "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage," the resulting track "Starstuff" is a laid back, ambient influenced collage of vocal samples from the show, electronic sounds, and eastern-style chants (inspired by the banh mi, we guess). With this new formula we can now expect a gazillion songs from these guys in the next year. See them live at Cameo on March 28 within the Aputimpu Fest – a four day festival featuring Brooklyn bands only.

Brooklyn noise devotees Hunters have been pulling out the big guns as of late. The duo is slated to release a debut LP via Mom + Pop this summer and will be touring with Bleached and Jeff the Brotherhood in the meantime. Guitarist/vocalist Derek Watson and cotton candy pink-coiffed vocalist Izzy Almeida feed off each other, growing intensity with fierce, instinctive on-stage rapport. And they go all out – there’s uncensored drama in every wave of distortion and punchy yowl. This hasn’t gone unnoticed; these press sweethearts recently graced the cover of the Village Voice and have been featured in Spin and The New York Times. You could say The Deli was an early convert; we awarded Hunters’ debut EP (mixed by mixed by Yeah Yeah Yeah’s guitarist Nick Zinner) album of the month in February 2012. – Check out a live video of "Deadbeat" below, and read a Deli interview with the band from early 2012 here. – Corinne Bagish

Four-piece Brooklyn band Vinyette is set to play some shows around town as they gear up to release their debut album, "Every Little Mouse Run," on May 7th. The alt rock band has four upcoming shows in New York City, including two this weekend: March 29th at The Paper Box, and March 30th at SPiN Galactic. Devised so that each song contributes to the album collection as a series of vignettes in a story, the upcoming album features at once classic and atmospheric rock undertones and contemporary art references ranging from Dalí to Kubrick. Check out the video for single "Meatball Love Tone" here.

It’s sometimes quite comical how bands grossly miscategorize themselves when they subscribe to our charts or when they submit a record for review. The most common example is singer-songwriters who want to be perceived as "indie rock," even though they sound nothing like that… without mentioning all the artists who think that they are "experimental" or "avant-garde" – which is why we decided to remove those genres from the list in the first place. If on one hand it’s true that we can all be experimental in our little world ("I experimented with a new awesome chord I never tried before, it was an E major!"), on the other hand, it can’t be denied that the label requires some serious musical adventurousness. 

We found that adventurousness when we stumbled upon Placerville based band Pregnant‘s new single "Strangers" – streaming below – which sounds like a beautifully organized but still rather sparse form of musical… chaos. A snare drum, a blip, a few random cymbal sounds, and 3 recurring mellowtron notes keep an irregular, fluctuating tempo plodding along, while a captivating chanting melody and a subdued guitar bring the song together.

The musical pipe of once described hillbilly savant (and producer and visual artist) Daniel Trudeau, Pregnant will be releasing new album "Pottery Mill" on April 30. Check out also the video for Crush On here.

Aaron Lee Tasjan is a dangerous man. With his pulse equally on electric blues, folk and rock jams, he’s already been involved in some NYC bands The Deli celebrated not that long ago. As co-founder of Semi Precious Weapons and The Madison Square Gardeners, he’s been bringing his mission for rock n’ roll’s original soul to the masses for the greater part of a decade. Now he’s doing it solo. New record ‘The Thinking Man’s Filth’ keeps the blues humming in fave track ‘Junk Food & Drugs,’ a song extolling new corners turned in life, and how much fun bad habits can be. Check it out below and see him live when he plays Rockwood Music Hall, May 7th. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

This song was added to our SoundCloud playlist of emerging NYC Folk artists here.