Cold Cave: "Oceans With No End"

RIP Justin Benoit. The former Cold Cave collaborator passed away from an undisclosed reason last week. The "band" is basically Wesley Eisold's baby, so Benoit's passing won't affect the touring/release schedule (he'd already exited the revolving door line up some time prior) but at 35 years old his untimely end seems like exactly the kind of warm eulogy a track like "Oceans With No End" was meant to commemorate.

Kylesa: "Unspoken"

Well this is new. In a literal sense, of course, but "Unspoken", the first single from Kylesa's upcoming Ultraviolet LP, has kind of a space rock / not-quite drone vibe to it that is kind of a break from the group's usually straightforward stoner sludge. I mean, I've seen this band live more times than just about any other in the last five years and I've never seen a smile on Laura Pleasants' visage even once, so I wasn't expecting anything cheery, but this gratifyingly sees the band evolving beyond their usually straightforward sing-growl-sing template.

You've got a long wait until Ultraviolet proper is unveiled: 5/28 on Season of Mist, bitches.

Bleached: "Next Stop"

For my money, if there's one surf rock / girl pop duo that can dethrone the hyped-to-death Best Coast it's Bleached, who we last jammed on over a year ago. Somehow, in spite of that chronology the sisters are just now getting around to putting out a full length album (via Dead Oceans). Looking forward to popping on some shades and checking these ladies out at SXSW in a few weeks.

Black Jeans: "No Safety"

Black Jeans give me hope for a Giorgio Moroder revival. Purist synth tones employed toward a scuzzy end with indiscernible lyrics is pretty much exactly what I want out of my electro right now. "No Safety" sounds like Kraftwerk held an orgy and only Death Grips responded to the invite.

Keep Shelly In Athens: "Madmen Love"

Perhaps in response to EDM, the more experimental frays of electronic music are increasingly eschewing the soft edges of chillwave and dream pop for more incisive, cutting synth lines. So it shouldn't be surprising to see Keep Shelly In Athens employing a darker feel on "Madmen Love", the first single from their upcoming debut LP (through they have so many EPs and singles out over the last few years the whole scenario just shows how ridiculous the idea of a "debut LP" is in 2013).

Look for that on Cascine, a label with amazing taste but a correspondingly infuriating refusal to provide up-to-date release info via their otherwise snazzy website.

Screaming Females: "Poison Arrow"

This fucker's got 1981 written all over it. Post-punk and dour to the core, Screaming Females hang their hat on a pronounced groove and piercing guitar riff while sticking with that dejected, world-weary singing style that you have to struggle to make out... like I said, '81 all over again.

Goldroom: "Sweetness Alive" [Future Unlimited Remix]

We've covered Future Unlimited before, but here they're remixing Goldroom - a band hitherto unknown to WKMR - to stunning effect. Nothing wrong with the original, but take a gander at the unreconstructed version over at Goldroom's Soundcloud then come back and tell me this mix doesn't take it to some next shit.

The Black Twig Pickers: "You Play the High Card and I'll Play the Ace"

One thing about having such a voluminous mountain of new music staring me down every single day is that I no longer find myself getting as nostalgic for genres of music that seem to fade in both popularity and artistic momentum. It's probably not fair to say that Americana has run its course, but if anything it seems to have largely been assimilated into the alterna-rock mainstream (the more trad country acts disappointingly heading off to Nashville).

Black Twig Pickers want none of that, sticking with arch bluegrass filtered through precisely zero outside influences. This is the kind of shit you haul in if you want to add some authenticity to your folk festival, even if your larger plan is to use The Avett Brothers or Iron & Wine to sell tickets.

Morri$: "Things Behind Glass"

Cloud R&B is all the rage right now, but this is one of the first choons I've heard that actually seems to have an honest-to-goodness old school soul jam at its gauzy heart, even though vocals are nowhere to be found. The title "Things Behind Glass" could be construed as pornographic in the wrong hands, but the bittersweet distance behind the production points to a more appropriate theme of unattainable objects.

In the spirit of gratis jams that is part of the whole "rebuilding fan support for the music industry" thing, you can snag the fuck out of the Young Love Heartbreak EP - a split with the hilariously named Sweater Beats - over at Morri$' Soundcloud.

Gates of Slumber: "Death March"

Scion AV is still pumping money into heavy metal, and this time around we get some free doom courtesy of Indianapolis' Gates of Slumber. Hell, this time around they even financed a video, which doesn't always happen (I don't recall seeing anything for the recent Corrosion of Conformity EP). Many decry corporate dollars being used as a cash influx into underground music, but thus far Scion has proven itself a bit more sincere than when, say, Anheuser-Busch decides they're going to come at those Guinness bucks.

Download here.