Fresh on the music scene, San Diego’s Mrs. Magician is slowly but steadily churning out drum-kick, post-punk singles. With only five tracks released, it isn’t yet apparent exactly what their deal is—whether they’re trying to make a point or simply speak for a generation. With a bedroom pop sensibility driven by screeching guitar riffs, they are reminiscent of a rowdy night on the town. Whatever they’re doing, these guys are up to no good, with egregious track titles such as “I’m Gonna Hang Out With the Lesbians Next Door and Drop Acid” and “There is No God.” You almost get the sense that their primary aim is to point a middle finger at their conservative parents or elicit head shakes from the media. They take a slower spin with “Angel Baby,” a less controversial, doo-wop nap-track that feels like a slow dance in a 1950’s dream. Controversial as they can be, they’ve nailed a pretty cool sound and offer free downloads of all of their songs on their SoundCloud.

The Spells

Angel Baby

Tabloids

It’s summertime and [almost] anything goes. I could whip up a whole sappy post about how music documents some of the most nostalgic times of our youths but this time I will refrain. The music itself provides a much better description than my words could. Plus it’s summer you shouldn’t be inside reading the Internet you should be outside soaking up some free Vitamin D. Make memories and enjoy the choonz.

Drugs In My Body

It’s surprising that Long Island one-man-show-turned-five-piece Beat Radio isn’t a more prominent face in the indie scene. An ultra-palateable blend of folk and indie electronica, Beat Radio paints a landscape you wouldn’t mind crawling into and getting lost in for a while. The electronic progressions and digital beats hardly overwhelm the music, rather subtly enhance it. The vocals are what ultimately win you over, in a soul-healing sort of way reminiscent of folk-outfits such as Blind Pilot. They’ve released three albums and an EP, each track uniquely delicious and eclectic, perhaps most beautiful when it’s stripped from its electronica sensibility and left only to its natural devices–a guitar and a voice. Check them out below and if you like what you hear, check out their site where they offer more free music (a difficult offer to pass up).

Free Samples

Memoir of a Lightning BoltAlbum: Safe Inside the Sound

Stranger FlowersAlbum: Safe Inside the Sound

Hard Times For DreamersAlbum: Safe Inside the Sound

Golden AgeAlbum: Golden Age

Santa Barbara five-piece Gardens & Villa is the musical incarnation of summertime. Their upcoming debut (pre-orderable on iTunes) is set to release next week. It’s a colorful blend of 1960’s pop and new wave synth. The album’s opener “Black Hills” is sluggish yet fizzy, teetering somewhere between Band of Horses and Yeasayer. It’s as lazy as a summer day ought to be but funky enough to retain a youthful vibe.

Black Hills

Shoe-gaze duo the band in Heaven is a blissfully distorted pop concoction. What sets them apart is the unique contrast they create—they manage to be severe yet sweet at the same time. Listening to their demo, you are sucked into a homespun dream sequence though not in such a way that it blurs together as many bands of the dream-pop genre tend to.

Each song, though equally confusing and aimless, manages to stand on its own as a sort of individual trance. The hauntingly vivid kind you remember and want to write down. Suppressed amongst dizzying repetition and reverb, the vocals have a sort of calming effect, like they’re letting you in on a secret. In this way they manage to command attention. You want to know what they have to say next, even if what they actually are saying doesn’t make sense.

They strike a nice balance between lo-fi fuzz and guitar distortion. Though at times their presence is vaguely reminiscent of the Velvet Underground traveling in time to cover ‘80s pop essentials such as the Cranberries, they’ve really managed to create something distinctive. Each song has something special to offer. Even their covers (of the Cranberries and Q Lazzarus) present something successfully reinvented. The band in Heaven could very well be influential in the movement to revive the shoe-gaze genre.

Check out their bandcamp

I’ve managed to squeeze the Naked and Famous’s “Serenade” onto just about every playlist I’ve made in the last month. And I make a lot of playlists. To be honest, I’m kind of in love with it. A breezy retro-pop jam this song perfectly suits just about any summertime activity. It wasn’t released with their debut “Passive Me, Aggressive You” and I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been released in the US but that shouldn’t be an excuse not to download it. It’s got a nifty video to go with it, check it out.

This song is oozing the kind of breezy summer vibes that will make you want to work on your tan. It’s a blast back to the ’90s, forget the frosted tips and puka shells. It hasn’t been officially released yet but it belongs somewhere on your summer 2011 playlist.

Milkshake