Kissing Cousins is an all girl band from Los Angeles, California, and the main creative outlet for songwriter Heather Bray Heywood. With haunting melodies over noisy guitars and pounding rhythms, Kissing Cousins’ music belies the sweet appearance of their name and image. While the last record, Pillar Of Salt, produced by Richard Swift, took a decidedly lo-fi approach, the new EP Unfortunate End is heavier, darker, and meaner. Produced By S Foye, the music utilizes more experimental instrumentation like Autoharp strummed through delay pedals and drum machines played manually through distorted amps. There is still plenty of reverb soaked vocals, vicious guitar tones, and stomping drums, but for the first time, the songs twist and turn within time signatures and tempos. Lyrically, Heywood -- who grew up in rural Alabama the daughter of southern ministers -- drew heavily from personal experience to create stories reminiscent of the classic southern gothic literary cannon of Faulkner and O’Conner.

A cacophony of synths, pedals, drum machines and looped beats, the Oakland-based analog synth duo, James & Evander have been churning out future pop since 2005. Comprised of college friends, Adam Myatt and Glenn Jackson, their discography showcases an exploration of ambient Dntel influenced techno and woozy weed-wave.

James & Evander just dropped the Constellating EP + 2, marking their first foray into the land of vocals. This five song EP is a hybrid of the pair's electro roots with emotive vocals layered over their signature subdued, lush synth pop that’s equal parts dreamy and alluring.

Experimental electro indie post rock band from San Francisco. "Mist Giant are one of those bands that sound too good to be from your city and still be new to you. … Given the slick pro­duc­tion of the record, it’s sur­pris­ing that Human Tree was recorded and mixed entirely at their house out in the Richmond dis­trict. … The EP has an enor­mous sound which the band also man­ages to pull off live (check out this Wiretap video of a per­for­mance at their house). Mist Giant’s songs walk the line between pop melodies and worm hole open­ings into drony delir­ium." --The Signal & Noise