Local Natives: "You & I"

The increased emphasis on nuanced, soulful singing as late seems to finally be putting a stake through the hearts of both one-dimensional emo singing and the flat, monotone singer-songwriter schtick (sorry, but having a shitty voice alone does not imbue your material with character). Local Natives are fresh out of Silver Lake, Los Angeles - a.k.a. Williamsburg West - and only two albums in they've already settled into a nice groove of accessible yet intelligently written indie pop. Basically the kind of thing you would expect given their origin (the cover of Hummingbird even plays on the uber-trend of 3D sidewalk art) though in practice they come off as more exceptional than typical.

Matia Aguayo: "Levantate Diegor"

The conceit for "Levantate Diegors"'s video is paper thin - Matia Aguayo attempts to rouse a lethargic sidekick to the English refrain of "get up!" - but the music itself is anything but, an affectionate blend of techno and Tropicalia that brings to mind Mala, though rhythmically a bit more hard hitting.

Majical Cloudz: "Bugs Don't Buzz"

"The happiest songs end with a smile", Devon Welsh croons, but the way he's singing it you know up front this isn't going to be one of those songs. "Bugs Don't Buzz" has to be one of the more unrelentingly bleak pop songs in recent memory, an insistent piano chord underscoring the austere drudge of humanity. It's kind of pretty, no?

Weekend: "It's Alright"

Interesting mix of period styles here, Britpop-inflected shoegaze with a martial-lite, industrial percussive backing. Somewhere in the intersection where Jesus & Mary Chain, Cocteau Twins and Cabaret Voltaire were meant to collide - and never did - resides this.

Part Time: "I Want to Go"

The weird thing about the intentionally damaged production on much of today's retro music is that, while it's clearly intended to resemble a worn cassette tape, it sounds just as much like the kind of bad MP3-encoding that was prevalent in the early days of Napster. Doesn't really matter, I guess, since I spent the turn of the millennium hunting down 80's one hit wonders that I hadn't heard in 10-15 years by that point. Hard to believe that an equivalent amount of time has passed since I first went self-consciously archival in my music collecting. Guess that's what listening to these throwback tunes will do for you.

Black Joe Lewis: "Skulldiggin"

Black Joe Lewis hasn't mined the same success as fellow Austinite Gary Clark Jr. when it comes to riding the crest of retro-blues rock that the Black Keys and Jack White have helped to popularize. Perhaps it's because they've always represented somewhat of a moving target, their 2009 debut Tell 'Em What Your Name Is! largely consisting of James Brown vamping, while the 2011 follow up Scandalous found Lewis and his Honeybears delving deeper into P-Funk.

"Skulldiggin" takes the band even further left field, the crushing riff and claustrophobic production nearing 70's metal levels of heaviness. Electric Slave isn't out until August 27 (on Vagrant), so time will tell if this is a new direction or just a one-off. With Black Joe you never can tell.

College: "Départ"

There's arguably been no greater popularity booster for post-Moroder minimalist electro than the 80's-repping soundtrack to Nicholas Winding Refn's 2011 polarizing film, Drive. Kavinsky's "Nightcall" got most of the press, but David Grellier's College project made noise with their Electric Youth-featuring "A Real Hero". Grellier's chosen nom de plume evokes 80's electro-R&B group Collage and "Electric Youth" is obviously the name of a (best forgotten) Debbie Gibson hit, so everything about the song was firmly rooted in a specific decade.

College goes back to 2005, one of several backward-glancing projects that Grellier juggles - others being Valerie and Sexy Sushi - and March saw the quiet release of their third album, Heritage.

Quilt: "Open Eyes"

Quilt sticks with that brand of acid rock that is not so much a mishmash of psych tropes over the years as it is firmly entrenched in 1967, that Haight-Ashbury sound where everyone wanted to be the next Jefferson Airplane. The sound is not so much timeless as uprooted, reenactment sans pastiche. It's deeply affecting even as it's purely inauthentic. Shit, what are you gonna do?

"Open Eyes" can be found on the New Hampshire Freaks split 10" with MMOSS, out now on Beyond Beyond Is Beyond.

Nine Inch Nails: "Came Back Haunted"

Trent Reznor is officially the Too $hort of EBM: retiring for good his bread-and-butter flagship Nine Inch Nails nearly three years ago to focus on film composing and other projects, only to unapolegetically announce a comeback tour this week. What gives? Shit if I know, but "Came Back Haunted" is one of his more radio-friendly tunes in years, even though I thoroughly dug Year Zero and The Slip (Ghosts I-IV was a bit harder to take seriously).

Hesitation Marks won't be out until September 3, but you can while away that time by wondering aloud what the fuck Reznor is doing back on a major label.

[EDIT 6/30/13: added the David Lynch-helmed music vid]:

Hey Champ: "Celebrate"

I listened to the new Simply Red recently. Sucked. As you probably expected it. "Celebrate" actually sounds more like SR contemporaries Thompson Twins, maybe with Howard Jones fronting. That chorus is totally it's own beast, however.