LA just got a big ole gift from the city of Austin, Texas, as rocker pair Gal Pals has made the big jump further west. Gal Pals makes stripped-down, up-energy summer pop that’s a good bit punk, and also a good bit of bubblegum and fun. Y’get the feeling listening to their shit that these two ladies moved to California just to put their music in the right setting, which is undoubtedly a beach party in the warm day, the Gal Pals’ lazer-bright clothes and sunglasses standing out against the blue sky as they blast out their guitar-and-drums-and-nothin’-else pop music. Give that track a listen below, and dance ’til summer can’t help but get its ass back here.

Damned dark, weird electronics with lady vocals; you get me every time. This time it’s Austin’s Sune providing the hit off the darkness pipe, an electronic duo that undoubtedly deserves to be better known by its hometown. Their unique brand of electronic pop, with roots in Björk and minimal techno (no surprise that one half is from Germany), has landed Sune on some interesting stages over the past year or so, like the excellent Exploded Drawing‘s 3 Year Anniversary show, at the equally excellent Museum of Human Achievement, and even the famous Berklee College of Music in Boston (you can watch some of that show here). Most recently they put out an arresting live video for their track "Jafar," filmed at music gig connection service Solstice Live‘s Loft. "Jafar" is frantic and jerky, like a mad run through the night into a forest of LED lights. Its strange, muted rhythm is overwhelmed by the sometimes off-pitch, constantly changing "melody" of bleeps that feels like it just could drive you happily mad after too much exposure, but this warped and wild sound is contrasted to great effect with harp-like tones and echoing vocals from singer Audri Acuña. This is future music, my friends. Give the future a good long listen below and at their Soundcloud here, and look for Sune to keep up a frequent set of shows both local and international as that future keeps moving ahead. In fact, if you’re out and about on Friday February 27, get out to Cheer Up Charlie’s and see some Sune at The Human Circuit’s record release party.

STUCK is a non-profit org and production company here in ole Austin whose mission is to create ways for artists to connect with the state and each other. It’s a neat little group, and among the products of their labor are things like the ultra-high-quality, Vimeo-based music show Hardly Sound and apartofstuck, through which they release music.

Using this last outlet and following their musician and Texas-supporting missions, STUCK has just released "Frog Music Licensing Presents: Parallels Volume One" with, as you might guess, Frog Music Licensing. This 15 track album/playlist is packed like The White Horse on honky-tonk night with local musicians, each of whom records a cover of another Austin-based musician. It’s got quality names both on the side of those doing the covering (Cilantro Boombox, The Invincible Czars, Tee Double and more) and those being covered (The Octopus Project, A. Sinclair, Ghostland Observatory, Ben Kweller etc.).

We were handed the whole shebang, and it’s an affair of quality, with standout tracks being Zookeeper’s “Ballad of My Friends” covered by Quiet Company (and available below) and Box of Baby Birds’ cover of Bill Baird’s “New York Love.” Listen to the whole album from Frog Music Licensing and STUCK, and which is about as Austin as it can get, here.

Austin can’t stop making world-class beats. I mean really, it’s like every other day someone here puts out some new shit that is living on that burning edge of advanced innovative beatmaking. This time around it’s Tangence, also known as Tanner Griffin, who came out of the digital woods a couple days ago bearing a six-track short album called Lovers Lost, and it is the straight, uncut goods.

Tangence is part of the Sole Glow Collective (we’ve profiled some Sole Glow-related acts lately, like ManoftheDown), and this newest release follows in the Sole Glow tradition of undeniably thoughtful, electronic genre-bending music with a clear hip-hop influence. More than even some of his Austin contemporaries like ManoftheDown, who admittedly has a foot firmly in the experimental pond, Tangence plays around with his BPM and influences in every track, sometimes even switching up the sound completely multiple times in the same track. Album opener "With Me" and track "The Truth" even go almost ambient at parts, which is pretty damn cool and gives the whole album a refreshing narrative substance that few electronic acts aim for these days. The whole piece of work here is solid end-to-end, and it’s just another bit of proof to throw onto the growing mountain of production work that is a digital monument to Austin becoming a key figure in the national beat-making scene. Check out standout track "With Me" below, and the rest of the album here, where you can also order the thing in super-limited-edition vinyl form. Additionally, those in the 512 with ears and a will to get mindblown by beats can see Tangence along with our December Artist of the Month ManoftheDown and a few of their excellent friends at Vulcan Gas Co. on February 20 for no damn cover. Free beats, y’all.

Valentine’s is a weird day to release a track, but it kinda makes sense from the strange dudes of BUHU, who use a big ole heart with their name in it as their band logo. BUHU (maybe it stands for "By Us Hug Us?" No idea.) did just that this Feb. 14th with "Daytona Beach," a track of dance-y, weirdkid pop that accompanied the group’s announcement of their upcoming Mostly Midwest Tour (April 1-May 15).

BUHU’s been on the local radar for their 80s-tinged, future-gazing quirkpop for a bit since releasing their excellent 4-Track Cinemat earlier this year (listenable in its full pop goodness here), and "Daytona Beach" is an indication that they may be turning up the Quality Knob on the avant-garde pop machine even further. This track has a lot of moving parts, like lead vocals that indicate BUHU has a healthy interest in Depeche Mode-era Britpop, backing vocals reminiscent of a cheerleading chant and the sick, bouncing, dance-punk drums that are a standard for BUHU tracks. All of it sits on top of a wall of modern synths and furiously picked guitar, and when it all comes together in the final thirty of the track, it’s one of the better pop moments to come out of an Austin band in a long time. Get in on the goods below, and check their tour poster here to take your body to the party physical.

How ’bout a little guitar growlin’ blues for your evening, from local front man Walker Lukens? As Lukens and backing band The Side Arms prepare for a big show with Bright Light Social Hour at Stubb’s on March 27 (Do512 is giving away some tickets here, if yer clicking finger is feeling lucky), these guys have been making the rounds of online music shows and making waves. We’ve recently seen a couple of performances at KUTX, along with the one below recorded for NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest. In said vid we see this band that just crackles with talent putting out a pared down but anything-but-simple version of their tune "Jacket on Your Shoulder," and looking like they’re havin’ a goddamn good time doing it. These guys are really getting their name out there at the moment, and their sound is blues that sometimes invokes a little Spoon and isn’t afraid to put some tech into an oldschool sound (check out Lukens’ looping skills in the vid below). Lukens et al. have been puttin’ in good, hard work over the last few years (we talked about him in 2013, here), and with big shows like the Stubb’s one and not one, but two records set to come out by the man in 2015, this may be the year that takes Lukens and The Side Arms from local staples to a big-time act.

Officially only one head on the track below is out of Austin these days, but we’re gonna go ahead and claim Cory Kendrix for the ATX, as he just recently made the move to Colorado after holdin’ it down here for many years. And hell, Houston’s only 3ish hours away, so we’ll take UZOY under the wing as well in the name of Texan solidarity. In that regard, this here hip-hop track released under the banner of Los Angeles rapper IKE and produced by Austin’s own Haris Qureshi is one hell of a good ATX-to-LA connection.

It’s a connection which it looks like we’ll be getting a good bit more of soon as well, as this track "You and Me" is just one part of upcoming long play Paradise, a full album of tracks by IKE and Qureshi soon to be released. "You and Me" alone is some highest caliber shit from beat to hook and all throughout, a track I’d put up against most anything out there right now. It’s mature and relatable, all about how livin’ is hard but better with someone good on your side, but it stays fun and jammable with not one weak part, and it doesn’t get bogged down a bit by its deep message. It’s outright killer shit y’all, and yet another example of how Austin is doin’ it hard as any other city in the national hip-hop scene.

COSMS is an Austin post-rock act that first cracked into my consciousness at Psych Fest last year, but not because they were playing. It was actually, somewhat oddly, not music but clothes that got me into this two-piece instrumental band. To be specific, it was drummer and synth player Damen’s unmissable shirt which had me going up to take her shot for my friend ATX Streestyle’s blog (I was filling in for a day).

It wasn’t much of a question the lady was making it on the blog: girl was rocking a shirt that was covered hem-to-hem with Steve Buscemi faces. Like, weird ones, if one Steve Buscemi face could be said to be weirder than another, and they were all goddamn over her shirt. ATXSS records peoples’ gigs along with what they’re wearing, and Damen told me she was the drummer for a band named COSMS out of here, which I later looked up. It was a hell of a journalistic win- not only did I get to shoot a wild Steve Buscemi shirt, but the stylish lady wearin’ it was also in a damn good band that I’ve been keeping tabs on since.

Now is an excellent time to get into COSMS, as they’re prepping a new album for release, which should be happening during one of a series of SX shows that these guys will play. In support of said sparklin’ new album, COSMS recently recorded a new and neat live version of track “PAGODA” for KOOP radio, and it has The Deli rather pumped for the full release. The song’s first few dreamy minutes invoke visions of its namesake- one could see it soundtracking cherry blossoms flowing down from the sky in lazy schools around a still Japanese pagoda- and then it gets raw as fuck. It’s also an excellent representation of what COSMS does, which is firmly in the instrumental-only, crescendos-sometimes-included realm of post-rock, but which keeps its own sound and isn’t a clone of the genre’s big acts like GY!BE or Explosions in the Sky or Mogwai clone like much of post-rock can be.

It’s good shit from a group with style and substance to spare, and it portends an excellent full release. Head to their FB page to keep an eye on info on that release and the SXSW shows, and listen to “PAGODA” below.

Some one-man-bands are a person on the street with a bunch of shit strapped to him screeching weird punk-folk. Some one-man-bands are a person taking all the many instruments they have painstakingly mastered and surrounding themselves with them on a stage with a bunch of layering equipment to create what must be called compositions, keeping all the parts of a complex song straight in their head and performing them perfectly.

Much as the first style of one-manners can be fun, it’s a very limiting format that doesn’t often result in the kind of deep, multi-layered performances that the second style can achieve. Roger Sellers is one of these second kind of artists. He’s more composer than singer-songwriter, but his sound is more Animal Collective than it is Andrew Bird. Standing in a hollow cradled by an array of more instruments than some entire bands can field, Sellers lays one set of sounds on top of another carefully and precisely, but with undeniable energy to create airy avant-garde pop songs. As a true multi-instrumentalist, and not just someone who can strum a little and owns a lot of musical shit, the result is top-notch experimental indie music where guitars and drums are there to add to the whole, not dominate it. Sellers has recently announced that he will be doing his thing during SXSW this year, and it’s hard to imagine that Austinites, with their refined musical palettes, would find his shows anything less than exactly the kind of thing that should be making it huge in this city. For a taste, see the KUTX-filmed version of his track "Waves" below, part of his newest album "8 Songs," which you can hear the rest of at his Bandcamp page here.

Yes, that was a grammar-correction joke in the title. I think it’s funny (it’s not, but an editor only gets so many chances to make word jokes). Now, to the music.

Sleep Good is a mostly instrumental act out of the excellent local Pau Wau Records that makes music true to its name. I say "mostly" instrumental because there is a bit of "ooh"-ing, some fuzzed-up vocal sampling and a track or so of singing in here, but mostly what this music does is to create an atmosphere of deliciously blurry-eyed lay-down music. That makes it pretty damn lovely that Sleep Good has just given us the entirety of new album "Dream Dealer" on Soundcloud (yes, it says it’s older, but trust me, it’s just Soundcloud being a tit). What we’ve got here is 11 tracks that are aren’t just good to sleep to (see what I did there), they’re outright made to nod off to, preferably while on a hammock in the sun. Or maybe you might put it on while seducing a mermaid. Driftmusic is a good name for it. Get yourself comfy, crack a window for some breeze, and get them eyes shut while you listen to track "Godlike" with its Boards of Canada-with-a-band beachy aesthetics. I did, and damn; I can’t wait for summer. It’s a quite damn lovely sound indeed, as is the rest of the album, so make sure to head to this link for the other 10 tracks.

Empire Machines is Austin indie that came in fourth in our 2012 Best of Austin reader’s poll, and it looks like they’re preparing to put a new EP into the world early this year. To get the word out, they’ve released a fresh-out-of-the-oven single, "The Plan," which has a distinct British-rock sound that we quite dig.

In fact, "The Plan" almost sounds like The Beatles doing Bloc Party, coming in on a big toms beat and then dropping some foggy-night appropriate rhythm guitar as (what I assume is) lead singer Matt Blackwell does his best to convince me that John Lennon had another son who got his voice. It’s pure indie rock that actually does focus on the rock part, with distorted guitars featuring prominently, and it’s a sign that this band that released their last EP back in 2011 has matured their sound nicely in the in-between years. Look for Empire Machines to put out the full EP soon, and in the meantime, get at a quality Austin indie track (that makes for quite good driving music, if I do say so) with the player below.

Sometimes finding the right track to post takes a good amount of digging. Sometimes, though, you hit play on a track and you know in about five seconds that you’ve got something good. That’s what happened to me last night with Francine Thirteen, an artist we found through the submissions e-mailed to us through our form (use that form y’all!).

If you wanna hear somethin’ deep and good, somethin’ with soul coming straight out of the future, hit that play button down there yourself. Because "Queen Mary" is a hell of an opening salvo from a new artist that has shot to the top of my personal "to watch" list. It’s a track whose pitch-perfect siren vocals will have the hairs on the back of your neck standing up, and whose slow, sliding clap-based beat contrasts with an incessant ticking sound (that may or may not be snares) and the smooth soul of Francine Thirteen’s voice to create a perfect balance of tension. It’s the buttered coffee of tracks: it gets in your system all soft and warm, and sets you buzzing for hours after imbibing. The few other tracks on Francine Thirteen’s Soundcloud show her to be a bit of an experimental artist and a powerful personality, but while that stuff is interesting and shows much promise, that promise is brought to fruition by the more traditional (admittedly not all that traditional, in this case) restrictions of this song. I want a whole album of "Queen Mary"-level tracks, and according to the word on the street, we’ll get one soon. Can’t wait to hear what this talented lady does next with her sound.