Started by former Whigs and current MGMT guitarist Hank Sullivant in 2008, NYC Indie pop band Kuroma has gone through various inceptions before finally settling on their current one, the line-up rounded out by James Richardson and Will Berman of MGMT and Simon O’Connor of Amazing Baby. Considering the incredible background of all musicians involved in this project (who also work as producers), we thought it would be interesting to know a thing or two about their favorite gear and how they tackle the creative and recording processes. We asked Hank a few questions in this regard here.

If you dig the band, you shouldn’t miss their upcoming show at Les Poisson Rouge on April 23.

This past October Fancy Colors, a band featuring Zac Colwell (Chappo, Big Data) & Dave Heilman (Sondre Lerche, Regina Specktor) treated us to a beautiful live performance at our CMJ 2014 Pop Stage at Spike Hill. We are now happy to premiere their new video for single "History of Civilization." Here’s a note they sent us about how it came to life: "This time last year, we found ourselves in Panama City to play "Festival Abierto" with our friends Naked Hearts.  After the show, Dave stuck around for a few weeks to explore different regions of the country and Zac encouraged him to bring a video camera along to shoot some footage for a music video.  The images span a few days spent traveling to, and living on, the San Blas Islands along the Caribbean coast of Panama — a paradisiacal archipelago and home to the Kuna Tribe."

Bushwick’s reclusive Billy Woods has once again tossed out one of his cryptic introspective message-in-a-bottle albums. Following 2013’s highly-praised Dour Candy produced by indie-rap super producer Blockhead, it maintains Billy’s acerbic assessment of life and struggle. In contrast to his highly political work in side project Armand Hammer, this album feels more like a stack of random diary pages ripped out and read before being doused in kerosene and ignited. But with track names like “Zulu Tolstoy” and “U-boats” and lines like “That great escape – tree of knowledge, bagged and sold by the eighth – it only took one snake,” it’s not without its social commentaries. It moves quickly with few tracks even reaching the three-minute mark, but, knowing Billy, this is probably just a clandestine jab at audiences’ diminishing attention spans. For an artist as prolific as Woods, one can only wonder what would happen on the day he truly “wrote nothing.” Billy will be performing alongside Open Mike Eagle and The Karma Kids at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn on Sunday 4/19. – BrokeMc

Brooklyn via Boston duo Sonnymoon is a band criminally under-covered by many "cutting edge" music blogs – we wonder why. They just released their third album "The Courage of Present Times," follow up to their self-titled 2012 sophomore, which became a cult record for the rather small layer of music fans interested in that paradoxical genre known as "experimental pop." Since producer Dane Orr likes to keep hist mostly electronic arrangement at a minimum that borders on the "barely there," at least 75% of what happens in Sonnymoon’s music is centered around Anna Wise’s vocal experimentations, which constantly fluctuate between unpredictable improvisations and repeated melodic hooks, therefore creating a new interesting incarnation of pop’s proverbial "tension and release" dynamic. Check out "Grains of Friends from the latest release, streaming below.

With the spring comes the longing for travel, and, with it, the need for good soundtrack for the road. Notwithstanding the title, Brooklyn’s Such Hounds new 7" "Drink to Sleep" helps us fill that need. The track walks the line between Americana and Dinosaur Jr. style wall of distorted guitars. We encourage you to travel to The Shop on May 06 for their upcoming live show.

We can’t find much info on the internet about NYC based folk duo Beau, formed by two very young ladies named Heather Boo and Emma Rose. But we can find a lot of info about their label which is about to release their self-titled debut: it appears to be to be a (French) fashion brand on a mission to support the creative efforts of musicians – it also released Buscabulla’s debut EP, recently NYC record of the month on this same blog. The involvement of fashion related companies in the record industry cannot be unwelcome, considering the scarcity of funds afflicting the latter. Preview single "One Wing" and this other song "Karma" are reminiscent of a folkier, sparser and less pretentious Lana Del Rey – we are curious to hear the rest of the record to form a more complete opinion. Beau will be performing live at Baby’s All Right on April 27th with Buscabulla and Mothxr.

Active since the late aughts, avant-soul collective Ava Luna has been coherently following a peculiar musical path that largely predated NYC’s soul revival of the mid ’10s, while embedding itself in the Brooklyn scene through that hub of creativity that is Bushwick’s DIY institution Silent Barn, a space they help running which hosts live shows, art installations, a barber, and also a recording studio. That’s where Ava Luna mostly self-produced their fourth album "Infinite House" which is released today on Western Vynil, and showcases a band at the peak of their creativity and maturity. Its eleven tracks are a homage to variety and experimentation, where beautiful melodies are juxtaposed to thunderous – but still soulful – sonic exposions, and doo wop harmonies learn to coexist with atonal guitars vaguely reminiscent of Arto Lindsey from the Modern Lovers years. Occasional hints of Bossanova, Funk, Noise Rock, Folk and Lounge music contribute to make this musical puzzle so mesmerizingly unconceivable that it borders on sublime. Check out single "Billz" below, and don’t miss the band’s release parties at Baby’s All Right on April 17 and Silent Barn the following day.

Drown in sound or dance in sound, take your pick – whichever way you fly, you can choose Nightmare Air. This LA trio was formed by ex-Film School guitarist Dave Dupuis and goth-folk bassist/singer Swaan Miller, later joined by Noise by Numbers drummer Jimmy Lucido. Together, they raise hell pairing self-oscillating feedback and driving rhythms with fuzz bass lines and dreamy vocal melodies. In 2010 the band released their debut EP and have embarked on transatlantic tours, opening for Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Ice Age, No Joy, Smashing Pumpkins, and The Jesus and Mary Chain. After sharing a stage with Ringo Deathstarr and Dead Leaf Echo at SXSW and finishing their 2015 Europe tour, Nightmare Air are finally home and working on a follow-up album to 2013’s "High In The Lasers." – Ryan Mo

Brian Eno says that sequencers, because of the way they function, push electronic musicians to work "vertically" on music, i.e. by adding layer upon layer of sounds to a looped bar or two, and then slowly move horizontally to the next section of the arrangement. This is fundamentally different from the typical way songwriters work, consisting in creating first the "horizontal" structure of the song (verse, chrous, etc), and then focusing on the arrangement. From this perspective, NYC electronic artist Gracie sounds actually like a singer-songwriter, his songs flowing effortlessly from verse to chorus, and featuring several chord changes, which are often limited in electronic music. His music is a little reminiscent of legendary British apocalyptic pop project The The, although much more mellow both in attitude and sound. Gracie has a few shows coming up in NYC, the first one of which is at Union Pool on April 30th with Nicholas Nicholas.

Psychedelia is having a huge influence on today’s NYC rock scene, but there aren’t that many bands able to recreate the genre’s original mistical aura and semi-virtuoso performances. Enter Brooklyn’s own IYEZ, a band we just found out about, even though they’ve been actively releasing records since 2011. Their lates creation is the full length Psychic Jungle, a multi dimensional psych rock record featuring this incredible tune "Purity" (streaming below), which is bound to console those of you disappointed with Tame Impala’s rather… tame latest single.

We added this song to The Deli’s playlist of Best Psych/Dream Pop songs by emerging NYC artists – check it out!

They’re a Korn cover band and they like to thank Riff Raff for everything. But when the cheeky quartet SHEER aren’t making puns and nu metal references or praising the Mad Decent rapper, they’re burying audiences with songs that effortlessly blend dreampop, shoegaze, and doom metal. Formed from a diverse group of musicians in Simi Valley, SHEER released their first pair of singles “Uneasy” and “2014” early this year, gaining buzz on the Internet and in the LA scene by playing at The Smell and White Oak Music and Arts, with veterans like San Fernando experimental group The Unending Thread, Hemet’s resident shoegazing cat lovers Crisis Arm, and Los Angeles punkgazing trio Tennis System. SHEER are putting the finishing touches to their debut album, which is up for release later this year. Check out their 2014 single "Skin," streaming below. – Ryan Mo

Led by confident and charismatic Brooklyn chanteuse Lily Cato, Parlour Tricks (previously known as Lily & the Parlour Tricks) play a sophisticated brand of indie pop centered around Lily’s magnetic presence and sultry vocals, and enriched by tasteful atmospheric arrangements. After years spent striving in the NYC underground (our earliest coverage dates back to 2010), the band recently signed with Bar None, which will release their upcoming album “Broken Hearts/Bones.” We asked them a few questions about their creative and recording process, read the interview on our sister blog for creative musical minds on Delicious Audio.