Brooklyn’s Beach Fossils create lo-fi fuzz pop suitable for chilling on a rocking chair on the porch of a historic seaside home in the late-afternoon summertime sun as the salty breeze flows through your hair. It’s the sort of moment one could envision in a Levi’s commercial for skinny cut-off jean shorts with hipsters superfluously meandering through their coolness in a beach house. It’s not that Beach Fossils are trying to sound lethargically cool — far from it actually — but this formula seems to be trending heavily among indie acts lately.

Lead singer Dustin Payseur, having recently moved from North Carolina, created the group inside his tiny Brooklyn apartment, and recorded the songs on a four-track with the aid of Logic Pro, a very unique process that results in a sound archaically haunting and far from contrived. Beach Fossils create music similar to the twangy dissonance of Crystal Stilts, softly distorted and waning like Wavves’ quieter songs, yet still maintaining pop sensibility in the style of Stereolab. “Youth,” “Lazy Day,” and “Window View” listlessly amble with a gentle tone bordering on melancholy, while “Vacation,’” “Twelve Roses,” “Golden Age,” and “Wide Awake” employ more driving snare drums and guitar work.

In a musical time when electro, hip-hop, and scenester indie music is taking more of a leading role in pop, the downtempo lo-fi sound is becoming a standard application to underground bands, almost to the point of redundancy.  However, in the case of Beach Fossils’ self-titled debut, the music is enchantingly entrancing and as refreshing as a cold beverage on the porch of the aforementioned beach house… and the hipster models are not invited. By Peter Viele

They could have easily taken the middle road and rested quietly on a worldwide reputation, but Tame Impala comes with everything they have in reserve on InnerSpeaker, sounding like rulers amongst pounding artists fueled by cigarette smoke and budget foods. Mix Australian brevity and muscle with city speed, and something beautiful will surely fall from the heavens. 

Tame Impala don’t really seem to give a shit about their categorization or musical grouping, which predictably brought forth hoards of attention from tech snobs in European basements who’ve asked questions about every minor itch or thump. The band has happily answered, because they do care about their music, and they make this deafeningly clear on InnerSpeaker.  As an album, there isn’t a single person it could possibly piss off; if you don’t like it because you think it’s a soft, wet blanket strewn on the floor next to your tight jeans, then you aren’t listening to it loud enough. When you do turn InnerSpeaker up, you will hear a brilliant homage to pounding crescendos — exactly what I would like every jam band to sound like, instead of what they actually sound like. I say this because the seamless movement on InnerSpeaker comes off as improvised and spontaneous, while Tame Impala works tight security to insure they don’t lose spark with never-ending guitar solos or key tickles.

The members of Tame Impala are many steps ahead and possibly out of reach. They are hitting the U.S. hard this summer, with upcoming performances at events like the innovative and eccentric Jelly NYC pool parties. InnerSpeaker is a workingman’s ambient slowdown album, or a perfect soundtrack for blasting friends in the face with a dodge ball. By William Port Whales

Remember the 1990s? When punk rock ruled the musical roost, the Warped Tour was the biggest festival of the year, and ska was a commercially viable subgenre? Well, punk music is undoubtedly at a crossroads, squeezed between the popularity of reggae-pop, disco-gaze and indie-electro. Titans of the past like Pennywise, Bad Religion, and NOFX are still around, if in smaller, less powerful versions, while fresh-faced punk bands are more likely to embrace country and bluegrass as jumping-off points than traditional stepping stones like thrash and metal.

Some mainstays keep on keepin’ on, though — take Arizona’s Authority Zero, for instance. Formed in 1994, these guys have weathered major-label storms, the rise and fall of Punk-O-Rama, and numerous lineup changes to release their fourth studio album, Stories Of Survival. That’s an apt title for road warriors like Authority Zero, who shred through Pennywise-like skate punk on “The New Pollution,” thoughtful agit-rock on “A Day To Remember,” and more melodic hardcore territory on “Brick In The Wave.” That latter song in particular shines due to the return of founding bassist Jeremy Wood, whose bass lines add an element of Latin groove missing from the band’s last couple of albums.

“Get It Right” blows an enticing lo-fi intro with buzzing synthesizers, but “Big Bad World” downshifts into a skanking reggae gear that serves as the perfect prelude to “Break The Mold’s” bludgeoning double bass-drum attack. Sure, Stories Of Survival follows a standard punk rock outline, but Authority Zero has worked hard for every shred of success they’ve ever achieved. Maybe that’s what punk music needs in the 21st century — a return to its blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth roots. In that case, Authority Zero would make perfect representatives for prolonged triumph. By Nick McGregor

Paul White And The Purple Brain comes to us from the ears of a South London producer by trade, who enjoys substantial support from other sample-crazy artists like Diplo, Benji B, Mary Anne Hobbs, and Gilles Peterson. Paul White’s sophomore album is based around an obsessively conceptual look at ‘90s Swedish psych-rock mastermind S.T. Mikael. Overall, Paul White And The Purple Brain is slow and epileptic, making it an audible conundrum. It isn’t something you’ll want to listen to on a light foot; in fact, I find it best to look at this release as a haunted forest. One second, a maniacal fanged beast will be creeping up your back, and the next second, a slack-jawed oaf will be tickling your tummy while a flying sea horse sprinkles you with glitter.  

The tickle storms are incredible when they happen, notably in the roughly 15-minute segment of chopped-up samples that runs from the vaguely Persian “Dance Scene” to the sped-up soul sample of “Every Breath.” In this mind-altering span, Paul White’s special sounds and vocals abound, your head will start to feel majestic, and your eyes will open wide. Then, abruptly, the album ends on the queasy house rip-off “Professional Criminals,” the warm, fuzzy feeling stops, and you scratch your head wondering what exactly happened that hasn’t already in some past form. Paul White And The Purple Brain isn’t a pleasurable waltz through and through, but it does have its select moments that will make you feel like you’re in tip-top shape. By William Port Whales