Tame Impala are an Aussie three piece making psychedelic indie rock that's strangely accessible. Maybe it's the Beatles-esque vocals or the occasional hip-hop inspired percussion. Maybe it's just great fucking music. The album plays like a vocal version of Yppah's last two albums if you're looking for a frame of reference. The vocals are totally sublime and work extremely well in this territory though, taking us more firmly into indie rock. Hooks here emerge naturally instead of the "oh shit, it's time for the chorus" moments of a lot of indie rock. The albums flows together and it better listened to as a whole, but there are moments I feel will be on a lot of hipsters' playlists, including the opener "It's Not Meant To Be", the infectious "Make Up Your Mind", or "Expectations", which feels like 60s pop until the psychedelic denouement. Strangely, none of those are the opening single, which is "Solitude Is Bliss" and not one pf the lighlights for me, but solid. One of the better psychedelic records to come my way in a while, and probably the first I'd play in front of friends in a much longer while.

Tanlines is a duo comprised of former members of Professor Murder and Don Caballero. Yeah, I don't see the connection either. But if you liked the former, Settings is a record you'll definitely want to check out. No, it doesn't sound like Professor Murder, but it has that sort of reverence to it. The actual sound is a mix of club sounds and indie pop sensibility. The EP is split between vocal and instrumental tracks, and thankfully both work well and coincide well next to each other. It's hard to pinpoint what it actually does sound like that. I guess you could imagine dance punk five years older firmly entrenched in the Berlin club scene, but listening to Panda Bear and Depeche Mode a lot when at home. "Real Life" is an absolutely killer tune.I hoping this EP is the promise of something more in the future, which turned out not to be with Professor Murder's Rides the Subway EP.

Napoli is not Nepal is Germany's Hendryk Bayrhoffer. In 2002, he released a classic genre-hopping album on Shitkatapult called Revolv_er that mixed jazz, IDM, noise, glitch, and instrumentation in a way that was totally new for the time. After Revolv_er though, Hendryk disappeared, finally returning in 2009 with a new album with little fanfare. Well, I'm happy to say the new material is worth the wait. While not as awe-inspiring as Revolv_er (maybe because it never gets as abrasive), Boredom is fully of glitchy, indielectronic compositions that there's something just a little bit special about. The album really showcases the beauty of glitch sounds with their juxtaposition to traditional instruments' sounds. And it still only sounds like Napoli is not Nepal. The project has an aural identity that so few artists reach these days in electronic music. An album and artist that should appeal to a large cross section of fans (IDM, experimental jazz, folktronic), this is one you shouldn't sleep on.

Falty DL continues to enchant with his post-garage funk, and this is certainly his most disco-friendly release yet. "All In The Place" could almost be old-school acid for the first couple of minutes, then the garage influence comes in, and even though the sounds stay retro, it begins to feel more modern. "St. Marks" emerges almost as a micro-house tune, recalling Akufen with hyper-garage samples over a slightly glitchy house beat. "Discoko" plays out like a giant remix of Aphex Twin (in a good way). "Groove" is more a downtempo quecler, but a good closer for sure Drew Lustman over the course of just more than a year has emerged as one of the top cross-genre electronic wizards working today, managing to take a post-UK garage core and blend it into dubstep, house, wonky, and acid. Drop his tunes into sets from DJ's of any of those styles and you create a winner. His debut album "Love Is A Liability" came of out of nowhere as a stunner, and he's followed it up with an EP on Planet Mu (Bravery, a more hip-hop style) and two on Ramp (To London and Party), all worth tracking down.

Now this is a song I haven't been able to get out of my head for the past couple of weeks. "You" is a mash of just about everything that's good about electronic music. There's an experimental component, a repeating cut-up vocal sample, hip-hop, house, etc, all rolled into one of the best tracks of the year. Imagine a hyper-active version of The Field, and you entering the right ball park. Depending on the version you pic up you may get different tracks and remixes. "Before We Talked" is a worthy follow-up on the original 12" (but doesn't appear on the Ghostly re- release), adding more of an element of glitch than just cut-up sampling, but blurring that line is always key to making a good glitch tune. Replacing "Before We Talked" on the Ghostly 12" is "Peaky Caps", a more dub-influenced tune that turns understated techno in a way that's kind of beguiling. The tune definitely has more moving parts that it needs. When the dust settles at the end it goes almost chiptune. Also on the Ghostly release is "Killing Yourself On A Beach", an understated tune with seemingly street-style bucket and drumstick percussion. After listening to these tracks it's clear Gold Panda is making his own kind of dance music that doesn't yet fit a current definition. So often with a track this stunning, the remixes really bring things down, but not the case here. Minotaur Shock impresses with his rendition. Of course he brings things more downtempo, but in a way that's better than any of his solo work, and he brings it back to the dancefloor in time for supper. An Osborne remix appears on the Ghostly version, who pulls the tune into deep house without much resembling the original track, but hey, Osborne making house is never a bad thing.

In the mid 2000s, City Centre Offices was the most impressive electronic music label around. The label released defining albums from Arovane, Ulrich Schnauss, Xela, Christian Kleine, I'm Not A Gun, Casino Versus Japan, and many more. By 2006, they had opened a sub-labeled for more organic instrumental works, and look poised to develop a canon and following similar to Warp and Ninja Tune, but with their own distinct style of slightly, experimental indielectronic music. Then, their distributor Hausmusik closed shop, crippling the label for years. I'm hoping this release signals a return to prominence, as Mark Van Hoen's album is a classic return to form for the label. No doubt a huge influence on the label's existence as a member of Seefeel, Scala, and Locust, Where Is The Truth is an album expressing Mark's emigration to the US and his discovery that he was adopted as a child. The album mixes in sounds from his entire career, and is a balanced arrangement of acoustics and electronic sounds. Any fan of Seefeel or related material should be able to jump right in, but also get something new out of the experience. A tremendous record.

More stuff on the post-Garage tip. This time coming from Texas. Fans of FaltyDL, Joy Orbison, and even the happier side of Burial should take immediate notice of this debut EP by Vvv. "Back To Life" is more on the traditional garage tip. "Project X" brings you to the dark side, very much bringing to mind Burial, with the dark atmosphere, but less reverb. The opener "Project Z" is my favorite, a post-garage killer. "Project Y" closes out the EP in techno-era Four Tet fashion with its sound collage-esque techno meets garage mentality. Bottom line: these are fabulous productions with a heavy garage influence, but definitely still new.

The Radio Dept's singles have had me clamoring for this album for quite some time. Finally, it arrives, and synthesizes a lot of great disparate songs, in an overall feel that might have me labeling it as glo-fi/chillwave if I didn't know this band had been around for eight years. But there's more depth to the sound than just that. Spoken samples tie the album together in a curious way for a vocal album of this style, and the guitar/effects intertwine in a way that's complementary in a pop sensibility. That fun pop component to the album is a stark contrast from the melancholy vocal, but that contrast is strangely compelling. These are songs that can make people dance or cry depending on what they're paying attention to in the song.

French hip-hop producer Onra flips the script on expectation with this new album, going totally old-school electro/soul/funk on us. Once the shock wears off, you'll hear a a totally addictive groove to these tracks and, yes, totally 80s lyrics. It goes to show what type of musicologist Onra is that he can produce Tribute, Chinoiseries, and now this. I absolutely can't get the title track out of my head, and "High Hopes" is just as retro and addictive. Onra includes killer, more hip-hop based interludes in between these tunes, but this album is all about the throwback vibe. Even the instrumental tunes are pretty funkadelic. "My Comet" from the 7x7 series re-appears here as well, and while I didn't necessarily think of it as "throwback" when it dropped, it fits in very well here. Initially, I was disappointed that all the best songs seem to have alrady been released on the previous "Long Distance" single, but upon repeated listens the new tracks rise to the occasion, especially "Sitting Back", which somehow creates a new style of "hyper-active downtempo". When you hear it you'll understand what that means. "Send Me Your Love" and "Wonderland" also stand out as faves. Only available on vinyl as of right now, hopefully a CD release comes soon.

Jamie Vex'd's genre-defying solo work finally has a name: Kuedo. The follow-up to his excellent In System Travel EP, Dream Sequence sees Jamie hitting up the wonky side of things on opener "Starfox", and it's some space age craziness with equal parts hip-hop and dubstep base with that perfect infusion of 8 bit that makes wonky so captivating. "Shutter Light Girl" is only a minute long, but one of the coolest things I've heard all year. Such a catchy and intriguing ambient interlude. It leads into "Joy Construction" which resumes the wonk and is the highlight of the release. There's an intensity Jamie is bringing to these tracks that I don't think a lot of wonky has mastered the way he has. "Glow" brings us more into the unknown, which features barely audible female vocals, strange percussion and an all around strange vibe. I can't be more impressed with the collection of tracks Jamie has put out over these last two EP's and look forward to seeing what Kuedo brings to us next.