Lovely Bad Things
Brought together by time and fate—they’d all known each other since high school, but finally made a band together in 2009—and named by some kind of esoteric computer filename error too complex to further explain, Orange County’s The Lovely Bad Things are the hyperactive omnitalented and relentlessly hilarious garage-pop band who crowdfunded their way to an encore performance at the world-famous Primavera Sound festival and whose new album The Late Great Whatever was titled during a dream at the suggestion of their spirit guide, who happens to look strangely like Dinosaur Jr drummer Murph. Was that a lot to take in all at once? Then now you can sympathize with the cop who pulled them over on their way to the UFO museum in Roswell, New Mexico: “‘Who here has ADD?’” Brayden Ward remembers him asking. “And we all raised our hands.”

The Blank Tapes
The Blank Tapes is the monicker of Los Angeles/San Francisco based multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter Matt Adams, who has produced 9 albums of “winsome pop tunes” (OC Weekly) and “Kinks-plus-Creedence roots-rock ‘n’ roll” (LA Record) recorded almost entirely by himself on an 8 track cassette tape recorder in garages, basements & sheds across the California coast.

Lake
LAKE is a group of cloudy individuals brought together through lines drawn along Interstate-5, intersecting in Olympia around 2005. Since forming, they have gained and lost members, recorded 12 full length albums (only 3 of which have seen proper release), played across the world supporting such talented acts as Adrian Orange and Her Band, Half Handed Cloud, Laura Veirs, and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. The sounds they craft are straight from the playbook of the good parts of Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, and Turkish psychedelic music. Caressing the Rhodes piano, endearing drum fills, guitars that don’t sound like guitars, and some slamming bass lines: listening to LAKE is like pouring sugar in your ears.

Cruel Summer
San Francisco's "jangle darlings" Cruel Summer were formed in the fall of 2011. Reminiscent of the mid to late 80's C86 and SARAH sound, they have also been compared to 4AD's hazy early 90's catalogue. Cruel Summer have managed to put their own spin on a sound borrowed from their icons of the past while paving the way for new acts in the genre. Unpiano says, "The best band of the 90’s that actually exists right now. San Francisco is full of jangly guitars, but only Cruel Summer combines it with shoegaze to sound like your favorite band when you were fifteen."

Guitars heavy with fuzz-laden dreaminess and reverb-coated vocals, Cruel Summer is Josh Yule and Thea Chacamaty (Wild Gift), bassist Chani Hawthorne (Standard Poodle, Old Fashioned Way) and Sean Mosley (Apopka Darkroom, Congested Few) on drums. Their forthcoming self-titled E.P. is to be released in March 2013 by Mt. St. Mtn."

Psychic Ills
Most music exists to tell a story, share some emotion, or make you want to get your groove on. This is all well and good but what about when you are sitting in a teepee, out in the woods, surrounded by wolves and snow, and the magic vile you took an hour ago is finally kicking in and you're hoping the extraterrestrials you met last night are going to keep their promise and blast you into outer space before your fire burns itself out? What do you put on your iPod then? Psychic Ills that’s what.

New York's, Psychic Ills came on the scene in 2006 with the release of their debut album “Dins” and were immediately heralded as New York's "Best Psych Rock Band" by The Village Voice. In 2009 they released “Mirror Eye” and supported it by touring the US opening for their psych rock idols, and fellow native Texan's, The Butthole Surfers. Their next album, “Hazed Dreams” released in 2011, had them showing off their chops on a new label. Sacred Bones Records, which has released records from similar bands like Crystal Stilts, Blank Dogs, Moon Duo, Woods and Zola Jesus, is an obvious home for this quartet. Their latest creation, “One Track Mind,” was released on February 13th. The single "Might Take a While," which Sacred Bones has already released digitally, has elements of Texas country twang and catchy sing-along vocals un-obfuscating their normal sound. The title track, for which there's a kaleidoscopic video, "One More Time" is even more accessible, making one wonder if this may be the year Psychic Ills brings you and your alien abductee friends back down to earth to dance around the fire and tell stories of the human and non-human experience alike.

Mike Donovan (Sic Alps)
Mike Donovan founded Sic Alps in 2004 with Adam Stonehouse of The Hospitals and has since led his constantly evolving band through nearly a decade of melodic highs, challenging noise-world lows, experimental rock twists,
hard-folk cliff hangers and lysergic doo-wop poetry successes. Over the course of 5 albums and countless tours, his band has continued to define and inspire the new San Francisco sound along with compatriots Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees. What sets Donovan and Co. apart, besides the relative length of their teeth, is an experimental and lyrical depth as well as an uncompromising non-commercial stance. Now, with his band reaching ever wider audiences, Donovan is branching out solo. With the help of Eric Park
(Yikes, Curse of the Birthmark), Donovan is recording a full length LP which will be released by Drag City later this year. (bio)

Follakzoid
"Föllakzoid is a two-piece psych rock band from Santiago, Chile who love German Krautrock. After self releasing their first recordings on their own Blow Your Mind Records they got the attention of the label Sacred Bones in New York who released their self titled EP in 2011. Their first full length, entitled “II,” was released this past January and already has critics and fans raving. This is their first US tour, in which they will most likely lull the audience into a trance-like state causing them to disassociate from all constructs of space and time."

AAN
"When they said that the classics never go out of style, they were right. But there is something to be said about adding a modern twist to keep things fresh. Portland based quartet Aan are a perfect example of this idea, taking classic pop structure and turning it on its head in a way that is both familiar yet very inventive. From their first EP, “I Could Be the Girl For You,” to the most recent “Amor Ad Nauseum,” Aan’s unique songwriting and keen production find them laying somewhere within the realm of Beck, Modest Mouse and The Flaming Lips."

Go*Going*Gone Girls

Ogres

Bronze

Holy Balm (Australia)
There’s no murk anymore. The lights are on, smoking has been banned, and Sydney’s Holy Balm have finally recorded a proper dance record. Here the group’s lo-fi grime has been scrubbed away, leaving sharp-focus textures and 4/4s that never wobble out of step. All evidence is gone of the drone-y jam band that debuted on a split CD-R with Vincent Over The Sink back in 2006.

Holy Balm are a dance group that have rarely (if ever) played in a club, appearing instead mostly on punk line-ups. It’s You is released locally on R.I.P. Society but also on Californian label Not Not Fun, and the association with the latter makes a lot sense: some will write Holy Balm off as amateur dance music for people who don’t like dance music, an accusation sometimes leveled at Not Not Fun’s dance offshoot 100% Silk. But this only holds true if keeping things tidy and in their right place is really important to you.

It’s true that precision is not a concern for Holy Balm. Bass lines fall slightly out of step with the beat sometimes (especially on ‘Holy Balm Theme’) and their panicked improvised lead lines always sound like they’re rushing for a bum note. Holy Balm sounds defective, but only just: the clean right angles and white textures of techno are bent crooked here, the shades all mixed up and the components bolted incorrectly. Brief lead lines pop up in ‘Phone Song’ that sound like cameos from other songs, but their intrusion is a pleasing sensorial jolt, like sonic detritus from another transmission.

Screature

Punk Rock Sideshow

Rose Windows (Sub Pop, Seattle)
Seattle psychedelic septet Rose Windows, recent signees to Sub Pop with debut LP out in June.

Low Hums (Seattle)
"Low Hums’ minimalist Mexicali blues sounds like a Cormac McCarthy novel, sprawled out beneath the stars and a poncho, smoking a joint and watching the embers die before drifting off to sleep." – The Stranger