Los Angeles based, Devon Williams has been writing and playing music since the early days of high school, when his first band Osker signed to Epitaph in '98. Drawing attention for his brutally honest criticisms of the punk scene, Williams has been speaking his mind and playing a mean guitar ever since he was in bands such as Lavender Diamond, Fingers Cut Megamachine, and most recently - backed by fellow musicians under his own name - Devon Williams.

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It's tempting to call the electro-pop of Small Black a modern form of easy listening: their songs contain just enough '80s new wave synth to attain that level of comfortable nostalgia, and their soothing electro-pop style is that perfect mixture of catchy melodies and down beat tempos to make it suitable for most palettes. But what distinguishes the Brooklyn quartet is their talent and attention to detail that is evident within their sedated dance pop. Through Small Black's tiny catalog of releases, their songs continue to gather layers of sound and depth within their already packed electronic productions. Simply put, their music is infectious, and poppy and no doubt engulfed in the chill-wave movement, but it is legit. And I'll be damned if their breakthrough single "Despicable Dogs" doesn't kill it every time.

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There is a methodical evolution taking place in the music Claire Boucher records under the name Grimes. In an increasingly crowded music marketplace where it’s easy to make an initial splash but just as easy to be swallowed up immediately after by the churning internet machine, artists are being pushed to grow and be creative, two things that seem like second nature for Grimes. With each release, she stretches her sound, shedding the negatives and enhancing the positives. Where she once seemed content to lure you into a mesmerized trance, she now seems just as likely to snap you out of it with engaging, avant-pop beats. Over time she has learned to harness her beautiful ballet of a voice, a glorious falsetto that often sounds like innocence being carried to its demise on a cold wind. With her most anticipated release looming next month, if 2012 is truly going to bring about the end of the world, Grimes could very well provide the soundtrack.

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Conventional wisdom says that “haunting” and “catchy” are two adjectives that should never share space in a band’s sound. They describe two seemly conflicting reasons for a song to stick with you, lurking in the back of your head every time you let your guard down. Yellow Ostrich dares to defy conventional wisdom. This indie pop trio weaves perfect pop hooks around complex and incredibly dark songs so effortlessly that it isn’t until you’re wordlessly mouthing “Mary, you are doing drugs, don’t you think we know” while you unload your groceries that you take a moment to get bummed the heck out. This isn’t to say that their whole catalogue is a joyless collection of sad bastard music; it’s just that even the ostensibly upbeat songs like “Whales” have a mournful quality that is unshakable. There’s a beauty that runs along the melody that can only come from an aching sadness.

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Not easily classifiable, Zun Zun Egui has exploded out of England with its own subgenre: “free-range rock music.” The quartet draws upon multiple styles—often within the course of the same song—and a seemingly bottomless pit of energy to produce the type of dizzying songs found on its recently-released full-length, Katang.

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Enveloping himself in a swirling ambient indie pop, songwriter Josh Wambeke, aka, The Morning Clouds, is a slow moving, all encompassing deluge of post shoegaze and nostalgic rock sounds mixing to form a massive front of noise and melody.

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Quirky blues-inspired riffs, electronic dance beats and soul-searching lyrics are what makes the up genre-bending Bombay Bicycle Club. The British foursome come armed with three albums and an ever growing sound. Ok, so they might not be the Beatles, but this quartet definitely know how to get people dancing (no seriously, check out their video for their track “Lights Out, Words Gone”).

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Carl Fox may not be a household name in America, but he’s an established indie darling of the Perth, Australia music scene. He’s the charismatic lead singer of dance-friendly indie-pop band Good Little Fox, and in 2010 released his independently-released solo debut, Chunky Rainbow, on iTunes. Heavily influenced by the time he spent in Switzerland, Chunky Rainbow is a collection of minimalistic yet texturally luscious electronic pop that is easy on the ears.

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Blind Pilot, The Dodos, Iron & Wine, Priory guitarist and keyboardist Kyle Dieker describes his band best as a project "all about tones and where those sounds sit in a song. Blending folk melodies with pop sensibility, Priory takes from a collection of sounds and brings them together into something that is familiar yet innovative."

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The One AM Radio makes it all look so easy. They’ve made the backbreaking trial of crafting complex and thoughtful tunes seem effortless. Every track floats out of your speaker as though it sprang fully formed from band leader Hrishikesh Hirway’s musically fertile imagination. Alternating between soothing and driven, each song is a tightly wound package of aural bliss that glides through your brain. As advances in home recording technology has made producing an entire album by yourself possible, a hoard of insomniac wanna-be virtuosos have begun to glut the music scene. The One AM Radio breaks this mold, reminding quality-starved listeners that D.I.Y. doesn’t always S.U.C.K.

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