Alexander Brettin’s debut release as Mild High Club is due next week — plan your 4:20 around this. The psych-pop salad Timeline features songs with the likes of Ariel Pink and Mndsgn, the former whom Brettin worked with in the album pom pom. You’ll hear Pink along with Weyes Blood in the newest teaser "The Chat" (via Pitchfork) as buttery bass and confectionary synths wrap themselves around the lackadaisical croon of Brettin, guitars quavering with delight. It’s the sweet, slow-rising narcotic you’ve come to expect from the jazz-trained transplant (ex-Soft Candy), whose previous list of credits also include working with Wolfgang Strutz and Salvia Plath.   

Days earlier, Mild High Club also put out the music video to another song on the album, "Undeniable". Brettin casually explores boundaries of bar and online dating with director Todd Narson in the glory of cathode ray grain. "It’s about hooking up, having the balls to talk to someone in real life instead of the obscure Tinder reality," he says.

Mild High Club’s debut album Timeline comes out September 18th via Stones Throw’s step-sister Circle Star Records. Listen to the first single off the album, "Windowpane" below. – Ryan Mo

For the last show of its summer 2015 series At The Inn, Brooklyn arts organization HYPNOCRAFT – in collaboration with The Deli – will present two intriguing new acts early next week. Inspired by such vibrant genres as cumbia and spaghetti-Western and featuring the simply striking voice of frontwoman Kamala Sankaram, Brooklyn quintet Bombay Rickey makes pleasantly strange music. The band put out its debut album ‘Cinefonia’ last September, and one hopes Sankaram and friends will perform the beguiling songs from that record. Syracuse-hailing, Brooklyn-based trumpeter Wayne Tucker is perhaps more on the traditional side with his elegant playing and smooth melodies but the late-twenties musician has his own musicial ideas. As seen in the trailer for his album ‘When I Was a Child,’ the SUNY Purchase-educated artist wants to "evoke nostalgia," as he says, and his piano-twinkled track "Polka Dots And Moonbeams" (streaming below) majestically does just that. Bombay Rickey and Wayne Tucker perform at The Manhattan Inn on Monday (9.14).- Zach Weg

“Is Happiness Just a Word” — an electro/hip-hop single by androgynous, Icelandic, Brooklyn based chanteuse Yes Alexander and emcee Vinny Paz — re-treads Dido/Eminem territory, minus the forced kinship. She sings full-bodied and optimistically; he wrestles fatalism in earnest lines like: “I don’t wanna be dead/Dead don’t work.” Elsewhere, Alexander leans heavily Bjork-like, especially on "Kyanite," her unreleased EP currently making the NYC club rounds. Check out single "Fooled" from last year’s release, and see her live at Pianos’ upstairs lounge on 09.17, within The Deli’s official CMJ electronic stage. – Brian Chidester

The LA Psychfest continues to curate acts that aren’t psychedelic. More power to them.

2015 marks the festival’s fourth year of existence, and also its first year away from the Bootleg Theater (currently accepting submissions for a new wall mural). Live performances by veteran Drab Majesty, Ras G, and singer-songwriter Jenny O. might not fit the genre of psychedelic, but they’ll certainly expand your consciousness. Psych-rock mavens will still leave happy as locals JJUUJJUU and Mr. Elevator and the Brain Hotel join up with Moon Duo, Night Beats,Tomorrows Tulips, The Budos Band, and Earthless. Way more where that came from, with secret guest DJs, a custom poster by Tim Biskup, and live visuals at the Regent Theater and the Echo/Echoplex.

Single-day and two-day tickets still available. Celebrate and expand your consciousness with music and art next weekend, September 19-20 — you don’t have to be on drugs. You do have to be 18 or older. – Ryan Mo

There was something almost transcendent about Brooklyn rock band The Loom’s 2011 debut album, ‘Teeth.’ On such intimate, horn-skied tracks as “A Song of Faint Praise” (streaming below) and “The First Freeze,” oaken-voiced frontman John Fanning and company stared into a dark forest but pined for a blissful, pure air. The quartet, like Leonard Cohen on ‘Songs of Leonard Cohen’ or perhaps Walt Whitman in ‘Leaves of Grass,’ foraged for some kind of holy truth on ‘Teeth’ and gathered intensely beautiful songs in the process. At work on its sophomore LP, The Loom plays The Mercury Lounge on Sunday (9.13). – Zach Weg

Fin-Folsom are a musical trio from Brookyln who describe their sound as Animal Pop, and when you listen to "Ruins+Rituals," the band’s latest EP, you realize that the obscure genre identification couldn’t be more accurate. The songs, which are a collection of "character adventures" set in and around New York City, feature harsh-yet-beautiful vocals, wild and unrelenting rhythms, and guitar lines that are as sharp and angular as a lion’s tooth, or in other words, a bit animalistic. This isn’t to say that they sound rough or aggressive. In fact, the songs on the record have a rather stripped down and refined quality that produces a warm atmosphere, perhaps enough to keep your summer going just a little bit longer. The trio consists of Conor Walsh, Joshua Gottesman, and Jeremy Nakamura, who attended college together, graduated, ang began playing music following their return to NYC. They released their first EP in 2013 and have been performing and writing songs ever since. Speaking of performances, Fin-Folsom will be at Cake Shop on November 16 so be sure to check them out. – Patrick Wolff

The ethereal voice of McKenzie Ellis, aka Mothica, floats like a disembodied spirit over the haunting melodies and gloomy beats of her self-produced tracks, generating an aura of soothing melancholy that has drawn over 11,000 followers to her Soundcloud. The Brooklyn-by-way-of-Oklahoma songstress found her way into the world of music by accident while studying to be a web programmer, and it was certainly a fortuitous event. Besides producing her own tracks and preparing to release her debut EP within the next few months, Ellis also collaborates with a wide range of other artists, recently having lent her skills to a collaboration with Hip-Hop artist Mayo and electronic artist and recent NYC arrival Beshken, which found its way to the front page of iTunes’ New Artists list. One of her most popular tracks, "Trying 2 Say" (streaming below), is a song that manages to convey a deep sense of frustrated yearning with only a minute and a half of somber beats and Ellis’ melancholic delivery. Mothica’s debut performance will be taking place tomorrow, September 11, at Palisades. Don’t miss out! – Patrick Wolff

Fairytales For The Fatherless is a folk, Brooklyn-based, band that, despite their name, sounds like a harmonious family of bohemians; Led by Danny Musengo, whose voice is both pastoral and arresting, the six-member band utilizes each musician to create a momentous and deeply affecting sound. FFTF wrote their debut, self-titled EP as a whole with four movements and asks first-time listeners to listen to all four tracks, 16 minutes of music, from beginning to end. Over instrumentals of intricate guitar picking and violin melodies that flutter with a resounding sadness, FFTF lyrics tackle the hardships and quandaries of life. “Do you get nervous like I do?,” Musengo asks. It’s not difficult to relate. The band will perform at The Deli’s CMJ Roots Stage at Rockwood Music Hall on 10.14. – Isabel Rolston

Unapologetically rough around the edges, Feral Foster takes roots music back to its truest roots: a lone man with an acoustic guitar tenaciously informing us about his rough lifestyle. (Yes we wish we could say "man/woman" in that sentence, but when blues began, women were more inclined to be involved artistically in gospel choirs or vaudeville blues groups, rather than in the busking lifestyle of the early delta bluesmen. The man has just released this new vcideo for single "New World Blues."

Feral Foster – New World Blues from Horatio Baltz on Vimeo.

Brooklyn’s retro electronic duo The Fantastic Plastics aren’t nearly nerdy enough to sound like Devo, though we appreciate their obsession with the visual side of that band. They treat Devo the way Warhol treated Campbell’s Soup – like a brand. Sure, Devo was once anarchical and dangerous, but now they’re not. There’s something cheeky about Fantastic Plastics, especially having this cute pixie chick run around in dresses shaped like Devo helmets. Their cool eye for urbanism and design blends a love of kitsch with a hatred for commercialism. You can see them live at Pianos this Saturday 09.12, when they’ll be celebrating the release of their new EP entitled "Devolver" – look out for a video installation and a "graphic novel." – Brian Chidester

The dark isn’t necessarily scary for Aimee DeBeer. As heard in the celestial singles, “Oblivion” (streaming below) and “Persephone And The Devil,” off her forthcoming EP ‘Strange Fiction,’ the New York-based singer/songwriter glides across a black sky of cloudy synths and tumbling drums with calm strength. The South Africa-born and Texas-raised musician, with her satin timbre and nocturnal pop, almost inevitably recalls Lana Del Rey in these early singles, but these enigmatically moving songs foreshadow an intrigue all her own. Although no upcoming shows are visible on her Facebook page, Aimee DeBeer’s ‘Strange Fiction’ is reportedly out this month with a tour to follow, and will be performing at The Deli’s CMJ show at the Living Room on 10.17. – Zach Weg

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

Go see Connor Leimer this Saturday at Crossroads Music Fest. He’ll be performing at The Tank Room at 6:00 p.m. Facebook event page. Get your tickets for CMF here. 

–Michelle Bacon