First off y’all, sorry for the slowness on the music drip the last couple weeks; your editor here was in the midst of a move and shit got wacky.

Now, back to the grind. In the interval here, we received a tip-top hip-hop submission from budding Austin musician Plato III that we are full throttle diggin’. It’s a music video and, as far as we can tell, the only track available online from this young guy whose intensely polished composition belies both his age and his small amount of material (at least, online material).

The track, called “Natalie Portman,” is all about fame- how it affects the hip-hop thing and the people that are going for it. Plato lays out his view of this monster force in the genre and how it’s a weird thing to balance his own aspirations to musical success with a personal tendency to shy away from the Sisyphean acquisition of fame and stardom. “Yeah i’m tryin to be well known/but with knowledge of self/like everyone else/I’m gonna end up a book on the top of the shelf/collectin’ dust/it’s embedded in us,” says Plato.

Thoughtful is an overused word in criticism of hip-hop like this, and it’s really an undervaluation of the craft at play here, especially when you add in the detailing on the video. The thing, directed by Aidan Myles Green, is a lesson in not wasting a second on anything that doesn’t serve the track, and it does what few music videos do in actually adding further dimensions to the concept that the track is based around.

It starts with constant flashes of the fame world that Plato is discussing, shots of Jordan and Monroe and rappers and Joaquin Phoenix in his crazy fake star phase and others living the big public life, all in blurry black and white with quick cuts and no long shots. These are contrasted with what are obviously real-world images from Plato’s life- little, relatable things like Polaroids with a girlfriend and walking into an apartment building. When he steps in that apartment, out of the public eye and into his own private world, the thing goes color and takes the first extended shot of Plato.

The transition is us seeing him in his day-to-day, giving a warm casual kiss to his girl and sitting at a spartan bedroom musician set-up, and this switch-over from big and chaotic and nearly imaginary to intimate (small is the wrong word) and warm and approachable is almost felt physically when you see it. She gets ready for bed in the mirror, he fiddles with a track, stops to come give her an intimate touch on the hips and they laugh together before he brushes his teeth alone, and then they both go to bed where it’s all cute love shit and not the fantasy world of beyond perfect, unreal sex that we usually see when a rapper goes to the sheets with a beautiful woman.

It’s great, authentic and impeccably done, as is the track with its 80s synths and melding of melody and rapping, of big picture commentary and personal revelation, and it gives us at The Deli a pretty fierce desire to see more of this kid, though with the understanding that we’ll probably see more when he’s good and ready to put it out and not before. “Natalie Portman,” both track and video, are just what you want to see from talented up and comers in the hip-hop scene in 2015, giving you the brain and the heart at once, and not sacrificing one bit of power in the head-noddin’ department. Thanks for submitting Plato III, and the rest of y’all, watch below. We’ll leave ya with a quote from the man’s Facebook, where he talked a bit about coverage on the track from another Austin music outlet:

‘“Natalie Portman" is an analysis of fame’s consequences, not just lyrically, but also stylistically. The trendy title, the blatant use of auto-tune, and the syrupy synth-driven music are all used ironically to emphasize how originality is often sacrificed when popularity is the only objective. The song couldn’t be more hip-hop in spirit.’

We agree without reservation.

If you haven’t yet, take a quick gander to the left of this here text and you’ll see somethin’ The Deli has been workin’ on for a goodly bit. Not only have we finally fixed our damn pesky top artists list, we’ve gone and improved the thing in some major ways. In particular, you now have all sorts of neat-ass options to sort the top bands in Austin, which we’ve added what for to get you more new musics to listen to. Mess around with it a bit, it’s some pretty cool new shit.

As an example of both said cool new shit and the kind of thing the list can show ya, take electronic artist/producer Corduroi who has been crackin’ into a few of the top artists lists now that we’ve gone and tweaked it. It’s no surprise to us whatsoever that Corduroi is showin’ up on there, because this guy, a born-n-bred Austinite whose real name is Cody Wilson, has been making quite a buzz about town this week with his fresh-ass debut album Oceanarium.

The ocean-themed, light-drenched Oceanarium was released by Raw Paw Records on 4/20, which is just too appropriate for this high-ready LP. That this album was born from water is not just apparent from the its name and its beached-up song titles, it’s also absolutely saturated with lovely sounds (many pulled straight from the ocean) that pair to perfection with images of impeccably lazy days by the sea. It’s an album you float through as if you were be-sunglassed, half-buzzed and half-asleep on an inner-tube surrounded by a never-ending series of waves which march off to the horizon as bright, warm daylight plays all around the ocean that is this music, making you feel like the world maybe really is a quite lovely place indeed.

In fact, the tone of this thing, and aiming for a specific tone is what this album is all about, reminds me of the first time I went to LA in the summer and got mild hypothermia from the ocean. I ended up sitting in a hot tub, burning and freezing at the same time and watching the sunset over the beach through eyes that were seeing everything like a cliche 60s film acid trip, all swirling technicolor and warped. It was, weirdly, a thoroughly pleasant, quirky feeling inspired by the sea that went all the way through to my bones, and that’s about as good as a description of Oceanarium as any I can think of.

You can get yer own float goin’ by streaming the whole thing here and gorgeous synth-laden single "Overboard" below, and if you dig it, there’s just ever so much more discoverin’ to do over to the left in our newfangled, fancypants top artist lists. Get t’listenin’ y’all, there’s a lot of ATX goodness over there just waiting for your ears.

It’s been a while since a song happily shocked me with a good screaming section, but local band Breathtaker just did it. This group, of which I had been previously ignorant, submitted their music to us this week, and I put on their newest album Revelations without knowing what to expect. The submission was listed as Indie, the album art suggested maybe something a little avant-garde; only the name seemed a bit more dramatic than most indie groups, but even that, I thought, I could see from some indie groups.

Partway through opener track “Kingsbury,” when I was thinking Breathtaker might be going for a kind-of dreary, melodic indie with a post-rock bent kinda thing (which I was digging, by the way), a wild dissonant note hit and the screaming began . It was actually a little hair-raising in a literal way, after me not expecting it. And that’s because it was good screaming, earned and welcome and well-done, exceptionally balanced against the instrumentation and used as one ingredient in the wider paradigm of a well-structured piece of music. I liked it, and the rest of the 11 track album was thought out with equal attention and care if not quite as surprising as that initial screaming shock.

I wouldn’t dream to genre a band differently than they do themselves, but indie here more represents the “independent musicians” definition than it does a sound for Breathtaker, at least in relation to what “indie” bands in Austin typically sound like. If, however, I were to try and describe Breathtaker to one of my high school friends from Amarillo who were into the surprisingly extensive screaming music scene there in the mid 2000s, I’d say that they’re a band that’s on the artsier side of what some people call hardcore, and which some just call emo. That last term is culturally deficient to describe these guys – it is far too broad and I really doubt they use it to refer to themselves at any point – but it does the trick in 2015 to get you in the right mind of what to expect from Breathtaker. If you are or ever were the kind of person who thought that screaming rock music had something awesome to offer (like we do), Breathtaker is a new entry in that particular segment of Music with Screaming. That people keep making interesting things happen with music like this proves that it’s a segment that is a powerful space where quality experimentation can occur, and out of which some damn good tracks, like "Kingsbury," can come. Get listening below.

As another run of The Deli Austin’s Artist of the Month poll wraps up, we’re lookin’ at the only artist in the competition that we haven’t yet featured on The Deli- the versatile producer Dr Bobby Banner MPC. For those who aren’t electronic music producers (which, in Austin, is fewer people than you’d think), the MPC in Dr Bobby’s name refers to the Akai Music Production Center, a series of powerful and powerfully badass beat-making machines. Presumably, Dr Bobby Banner MPC makes the slick, dynamic hip-hop tracks he’s known for on such machines, and if you go from the artist’s social media pages, Dr Bobby might just actually be an MPC. Or at least, that might be his character, but who knows? In the days of hologram Japanese superstars and with music production tech where it’s at these days, the idea of a beat machine that makes its own music isn’t all that far fetched.

Regardless of who, or what, is making Dr Bobby Banner’s music, the recent output from this man/machine has been downright stellar. Particularly, Dr Bobby’s new album Musicology, released at the end of March, is a chance to hear one of Austin’s brightest beatmakers paired up with an absolute army of quality rappers. Lots of times we see purely instrumental albums come out of the beatmaking scene in Austin, so (as much as we dig those instrumental joints) it’s a welcome change-up to get a 12 tracker packed full of both beat and rhyme. That nod toward the traditional hip-hop song structure is about the only place this album is predictable though, as Musicology has Banner et al. letting their creativity and personal spins on hip-hop running free. For an example of the acrobatic musical forces at work here, take track "David Ruffin" below, whose herky-jerky sample-based beat serves as a playground for spitters Scuare and No1Important to let their words jump up and around and play all over. The rest of the album is equally good, and all available what for your listening pleasure over here. If this shit gets ya noddin’ like it does us, give the rest a listen, and vote to the right to make Dr Bobby Banner MPC our first human/machine hybrid Artist of the Month.

In the days just leadin’ up to South By this year, Alex Napping, that band with a sound as cute as its name, gave the internet a new single called "Trembles Part I," which is already making a bit of a stir. In the vein of last year’s This Is Not a Bedroom, which we suggested you get into back in October, "Trembles Part I" is another jubilant nod to the glory days of jangly, sunshine-set 90s indiepop. It starts all Pavement-esque guitar and crashing cymbals, and then bounces into something akin to a much less difficult Deerhoofish (that word right there, that was fun to type) experimental, bright and exciting guitar pop sound. This is just a very well balanced song, from band namesake Alex Cohen’s lovely light, pretention-less voice to the interest-grabbing tempo changes to the on-spot instrumentation, and it shows just how true it is that Alex Napping is one of Austin’s top indiepop bands to watch in 2015. Get on into it.

Rough and tumble, that’s what Rugaroux is. And it’s a style and sound in short supply these days in this town; we’re all about the pretty, but what about the gritty? That’s why we’re liking the first material from Rugaroux, a new Austin punk band in the classic vein of fierce and ferocious guitars over a relentless, fist-shake-ready beat. Rugaroux is, by the way, a term that refers to a mythical and revered wolf/human hybrid beast from ex-pat French cultures as found in French Canada and Louisiana, the latter of which it is said to stalk through, roaming the swamps and fields. That Rugaroux the band has a Louisiana connection then makes complete sense, and that their two tracks “Deadly Dance” and “No Desire” come at you all vicious and biting is also fully fitting for their feral name. In a thoroughly punk way, they’re almost wholesome, by which we mean they do a punk’s heart good, hitting all the right, nostalgic feels but putting their own, new twist on the style. In other words, just what you want to hear from a contemporary punk band. Let’s hope this wolf-creature gets howling on a few more new tracks soon, and in the meantime, listen to their first go at recording below.

If you were looking for the mysterious proverbial “fire” that supposedly resides in so many hip-hop mixtapes, you might think the shit is just myth. Most mixtapes are…well, they wouldn’t help much on a cold day, let’s say that. Not so with local LNS Crew’s new mixtape, which packs enough heat to stop a decent sized blizzard. LNS Mixtape Vol. 2 is the goods from three of Austin’s (okay, Denver now, in the case of Cory Kendrix) hip-hop veterans, a series of 21 tracks which feature a rotating cast of Kendrix, Kydd Jones and Tank Washington showing off their undeniable skills at producing and rapping. It’s just April, but this release is assuredly going to sit near if not at the top of the list of ATX hip-hop releases from 2015 when December rolls into January, and that’s why we’ve nominated LNS Crew for our Artist of the Month poll. Music below, and get yer votin’ finger a good workout to the right y’all.

Pyschpop outfit TØMA has just gone and done nice by us local-music obsessed folks by releasing their new EP in its entirety online at their Bandcamp prior to the full album release, which is a’goin’ down at Holy Mountain on March 27. It’s a mix of sounds modern and nostalgic, a bit Of Montreal and a bit of The Zombies, and it all combines into straight-up, good indie rock earworm fun. For those of you fully into the psych thing, you’ll get yer fix here, but this EP also owes a good deal to the 2000s indie scene, like track "Live Forever" that invokes nice memories of when The Strokes were the biggest thing that’d happened in a damn while or "Heartstrings" that has some very Vampire Weekend guitar goin’ on. It’s solid, superbly enjoyable indie music from the Austin scene, and you can get the whole thing bangin’ around in your brain below.

Austin’s premier radio station KUTX (98.9 on the digital dial) recently announced the lineup for somethin’ pretty damn great, and pretty damn Austin, in the form of the Live Vibe Collective presented KUTX Live free all ages concert series. Completely unsurprisingly, this event that happens at local meat n’ booze establishment Uncle Billy’s is particularly well-curated. Frequent visitors to The Deli might notice Hard Proof and Keeper on that list, our own 2014 #36 and #3 finishers, respectively, in The Deli’s Best of 2014 for this city.

Another name you should most certainly get familiar with from KUTX’s event before you head out to yet more free music (goddamn we are so spoiled guys) is the act ushering in the whole shebang with the first series in the concert. That’d be deep electronic pop act The Digital Wild, who are opening the series on April 5.

To prep ya for these exciting events here’s a bit from the most recent output from The Digital Wild, a group that fits as well into the indie camp as it does the beat-based in the Austin scene. The track is called “Around,” and anyone who ever dug Portishead’s early shit will find something immediately attractive in the slowed down, souled up sound here. The song is without a doubt a sultry pop hip-hop track, a quality that owes much to lead singer Chantell Moody’s alluring elfin voice that has a slight, engaging tinge of someplace cold in Europe to it. But, there’s also an element of cabaret lounge smokiness to “Around,” something especially heard in the slinking, wailing horns whose wavering, off-kilter style has a kinda “Life in Glass Houses” by Radiohead feel going on. That kind of genre blending and bending is The Digital Wild’s wheelhouse, something they do not just well, but seamlessly.

“Around” is just the latest addition to the small but growing digital pile of terrific tracks The Digital Wild has been putting out for about a year now, and it bodes nothing but well for the upcoming concert series. Start whetting that musical appetite now with “Around,” and check out one or five of the KUTX Live events happening soon.

The term “Poser Pop” shows up sometimes in the words Austin’s future-leaning Your Plastic Toys have written about themselves. Check their online shit, and you’ll see those two words more than once, those two descriptors that aren’t really a genre as such, but more a stance by Your Plastic Toys on their own place in music. In our estimation, the idea is that Your Plastic Tree poses at pop, refusing to make the standard plays while still fully playing a pop game. They are as art-aware as they are pop-aware as they are experimentally on point, and their music is at once a serious approach to pop music making and a bit of a mockery of the pop that’s already out there (in the fine tradition of acts like Talking Heads, The Fugs, or the very contemporary PC Music label out of the UK). A band that views the pop rulebook through half-broke virtual reality goggles.

In that same vein, you’ll also see a lot of abstractions and hyper-modern shit on Your Plastic Toys’ various web profiles, like glitchy saturated pixel-heavy images created by the band itself, short thoughts and quotes decoupled from their source and presented as something to be considered on their own, and not a single clear photo of the band to be found. This digital obfuscation of the band, its image, its motives, its views, evokes a highly modern feeling of existing in a never ending swirl of bit-noise and net fuzz, and it’s exactly what Your Plastic Toys’ sound is like.

On the just-released album OOO, shoegaze-gone-modern swells and currents of sound layer over tight digital beats and the vocals are threaded in and out heavily tweaked and disaffected, sometimes even disdainfully so (to great effect, it must be made clear). Your Plastic Toys comes through like a band seen and heard through a diabolical storm of TV snow on a channel that’s shakily fading in and out of a 1990s tube TV in a busted up apartment with a courtyard pool in the summer. It’s music that rides on that bright burning edge of culture just curling out from the future and into the present, and that throws back a tech-addled vision of what it sees to those still lingering in the cultural past. Take a listen to one of Austin’s most forward-thinking bands below, and inject their entire new album here.

Ominous guitar and bass start off the newest track from Redeye, an Austin act that straddles the line between indie pop with a folk bent and full on alt-country, but "Sleepwalk" quickly turns hopeful, if also a bit stark. It’s a track about hope, in fact, and it wonders whether someone will be there for the singer in rough times they seem sure are coming. Redeye caps the lovely and heart-tweaking track with the poignant image of this hoped-for ally being "A fragile light I’ll picture always/A fire burning in the snow," and this attention to scenery and mood are central to the artist’s sound.

Going from this track and a few other clips released, like this one that features track "Dryland," the upcoming third album "The Memory Layers" by Redeye (set to be released in April) looks like it will fit ideally into the Texas alt-country/folk canon. It hits that key requirement of also fitting so well into the sweeping, heat-affected spirit of Texas itself, and it’s not hard to imagine the swelling fiddles and Redeye’s twanging, yet not exactly country voice accompanying a long road trip across this state, even moreso for the vivid imagery conjured in each song. This album should be quite good, not only for Redeye himself’s work, but also for the impressive list of artists who have also had a hand in it, including folks who have been members of or worked with groups in the past like the Polyphonic Spree, Midlake, Black Angels, Dana Falconberry, and Baptist Generals. That kind of quality roster attached to the unquestionable talent of Redeye will have a hard time creating anything but a good record, and if you’d like to be one of the first to get it in your ears, listen to "Sleepless" below and get to Redeye’s show at The Mohawk with Bee Caves on April 18 for good, Texan music.