Nashville/LA based boy-girl electro-pop duo Magic Wands just premiered this video for the single "Space", from their upcoming album "Aloha Moon" (followup to their debut EP "Magic Love & Dreams"), which will be released in April 2012. The video was entirely shot in the band’s Los Angeles apartment and neighborhood, and it was DIY to the point that the headlights of the band’s car were used to illuminate the night shots. The band will be present at SXSW with two shows on the 15th and 16th of March, more info here, definitely an emerging act that deserves to be checked out.

Elika, one mainstays bands in the NYC dream-pop/shoegazer scene, is releasing today their 4th album entitled "Always The Light", and offering a free mp3 of the single "No One Gets Lost", streaming below. Compared with the band’s previous material, this song unveils a less guitar-centric sound, as if the electronic elements that always constituted the band’s rhythmic section had slowly taken over other roles in the band. So much so that the shoegazer matrix is almost completely lost in favor of a more complex electro-pop sound, characterized by carefully chosen drum sounds, layered synths,  sudden melodic openings, ambient breathing spaces, and – only occasionally – the unmissable electric guitars drenched in reverb.

Mp3: Elika- "No One Gets Lost"

Recently nominated for our Artist of the Month Poll, Cultfever is an electronic duo with both industrial and pop inclinations, as this cool new video for the song "Collector" can prove. The band is currently in the studio preparing their debut "physical" album, but they already have a bunch of songs released digitally through Bandcamp. The new single, with its complex arrangements and intricate percussion patterns, signals obvious signs of growth, which make us look forward to the upcoming release. While waiting, you can see them at The Mercury Lounge on Tuesday March 13.

Boogaloo! There, I said it. In case you haven’t heard, there’s another dance-crazed revival on the loose here in NY. Only this one has no 808’s. What began in the swinging ’60’s as a local merging between soul and mambo party styles, has today found its way over to our backyard again, and some of the leading curators that keep the Spanish Harlem sound alive are bringing the party to several upcoming nights in Alphabet City. While much of Boogaloo is kept alive these days in Barcelona, superstar DJ Turmix has decided to pack up his vinyl and head out to NYC, reminding us of what makes Nuyorican Soul music such an important part of NYC’s cultural fabric.
Check it out at the next of Turmix’s monthly sets on March 9 at Nublu, where he’ll be joined by Spanglish Fly, an 11-piece Boogaloo revival group set to make sure your tailfeather bounces around the dance floor all night long. – Mike Levine

Ex Deli Artist of the Month Field Mouse just premiered a new single called "Happy". The band has veered decisevely into shoegazer/dream-pop territory in the last year, which is definitely a genre lead singer/guitarist Rachel Browne’s voice is suited for. This song is slightly reminiscent of one of our favorite more obscure shoegazer bands of the 90s – Pale Saints. Enjoy (and dream on)! The band will be present a SXSW with a show at Skinny’s Ballroom on 03.14.

The day Celestial Shore will decide to write a pop song that’s just… THAT, our world will become a slightly better place. These LA/Brooklyn based guys – who played our 29th NYC issue party at Mercury a few weeks ago with Ava Luna – have an outrageous melodic talent, but choose to deform their celestial melodies with avant/progressive experimentation (something they can actually pull off thanks to their noteworthy instrumental skill). Which is still a lot of fun, but fill us with laughter and regret at once. – Read Dean Van Nguyen’s interview with the band here.

Canadian via NYC and now LA based indie-pop band Islands released their 4th album, "A Sleep & A Forgetting," on February 14th, 2012. The title was taken from a William Wordsworth poem and features songs that bring out the inner angst in all of us, with its mournful lyrics and ghostly vocals against a backdrop of the band’s signature catchy instrumentals. The song “Hallways” stands out with its eerie energy mixed with infectious piano melodies. Check out the official video here, with Nicholas Thorburn singing vocals accompanied by a skeleton band. Islands is currently on tour in Canada and has a show at the Bootleg Theater in LA on March 14. Be sure to catch them! – Chelsea Eriksen

Brooklyn’s dark rock band Tyburn Saints announced the release of their new EP "You and I in Heaven" for March 27. Containing four original tracks, the record evokes influences from rock bands from the "peak" of the 80s, like U2 and The Cure, although the lyrical tone and subject matter lean more towards the later. Songs like "Broken Bottles" alternate bright guitar figures against synth lines. "Last Time I Sing For You" positions a solid drum beat central in the mix, allowing shards of strummed guitar bursts to dance left and right through the stereo field, while title track "You And I in Heaven" references a similar 80’s pop-goth vibe, its overall spirit leans more towards Bowie/Psychedelic Furs elements. –Dave Cromwell

Tiger Flowers offer an eclectic mix of complex post-hardcore on their eponymous four-track EP. This NYC troupe implement spurts of spastic noise with an alarming use of disjointed riffs (“Cuts”), slurring staccato beats, and heavily effected heaviness to create a devastating mix of metallic destruction that takes the time to strip the lowest common denominator down without leaving a trace behind (“Drag”). Understanding the power of the breakdown as well as the effects of its aftermath (“The Weight”), Tiger Flowers shakes foundations with jarring switches making their spiraling out of control sound. www.tigerflowersnyc.com –Mike SOS

I guess we’ll call this "Electronic, one-man-band-Friday"… Brooklyn’s atmospheric electro-pop project St.Lucia made some deserved waves in the blogosphere recently, and also placed at #58 in The Deli’s Year End Best of NYC Emerging Artists Poll. The band just premiered the video of their single "We Got It Wrong" and announced March tour dates ending in Austin during the SXSW fest.

If you’ve ever seen DC based avant-indie duo Bluebrain (ex NYC based Epochs) live, you’ll know that their aesthetic endeavors have the two brothers exploring and pushing both sonic boundaries and the visual landscape. When performing live, their haunting and multi-layered electronic music, rich in deep tones and timbres, textured with interesting instrumentals and various string arrangements, and characterized by dynamic transitions in pace and rhythm, is often accompanied with strange and mystifying visual effects, making them just as much of a performance art act as it is a music show. Their three EPs Soft Power, Cult Following, and Ten By Ten continue to captivate indie rock fans beyond the DMV area. Recently, Bluebrain took their sound to a whole other level of unique art by joining the ever growing world of apps (with location aware album-apps to be specific), and hosted a boombox walk through the U.S. Botanic Gardens earlier this year.