La Sera (aka Katy Goodman, 1/3 of Vivian Girls) is preparing for the release of her sophomore album Sees the Light on March 26th through Hardly Art. I’ve always been a fan of La Sera and loved the dreamy pop from her self-titled debut album. From listening to her first single “Please Be My Third Eye”, it’s a little harder and more aggressive pop, but I like what I hear!

Watch her colorfully fun video for the single directed by Vice Cooler.

We’ve missed Santigold. Luckily, she’s marked her return with her new track “Big Mouth”, the first single from Master Of My Make-Believe. Check out the video directed by Cody Critcheloe and if you like what you hear, head over to her official site and sign up for her mailing list to receive a free download of the single.

Happy New Year! “Reckless (With Your Love)” by Azari & III may be one of my favorite new jams! If you haven’t heard it yet, well get ready to start booty-shaking in your seat.

The video directed by Geoge Vale & Alphonse Alixander Lanza III, was shot in Toronto.

Swedish duo Korallreven has a new video for their first single, “As Young As Yesterday,”  off of their debut full-length album,  An Album by Korallreven. The pace of the black and white video directed by Marcus Söderlund takes a chill, laid-back approach that mirrors the vibe of the song.

I love me some synth-pop! I know this will be on rotation in the studio for months to come.

Fun sidenote: Check out Korallreven’s designs: Sa Sa Samoa sweatshirt and t-shirt for sale.

Canada’s Elliott BROOD are set to release their upcoming album “Days Into Years” in February 2012 through Paper Bag Records and we’re super excited for it! This marks the bands’ third full-length album, following their nationally acclaimed “Mountain Meadows,” which was short-listed for the Polaris Prize. The Polaris Prize is a pretty big thing in Canada! It’s a not-for-profit organization that honors, celebrates and rewards creativity and diversity in Canadian recorded music. If you haven’t heard of Elliott BROOD, think The Decemberists meets Okkervil River ala foot-stomping rhythms.

The upcoming album was inspired as the trio were driving through the backroads of France on the last leg of a European tour, as they came upon a WWI military cemetary. “We saw all these Canadian names, and it really resonated with us, these young guys that had gone off to war,” says Mark Sasso (banjo, guitar, harmonica, vocals),“but when you actually visit a place where the battles were, it hits you a lot harder.” “Days Into Years” is about story telling and history, nostalgia and loss.

The lead track “Lindsay” invites you into the process of revisiting one’s life while cleaning out an old family home. Check out the band’s live session below:

If you haven’t heard of Grimes (Claire Boucher) yet, well we’re sure that you’ll be hearing lots more about her and her music in 2012. If you like like Nite Jewel and Sleep Over then Grimes is right up your alley. The Montreal native and visual artist creates ethereal and  at times haunting electronic pop, who uses “luscious vocals, chopped and warped beats, and a general mood of beautiful disorder and disarray“.

Check out her live session for “In my Room” presented by Yours Truly and MTV Hive.

We were first introduced to Summer Camp in 2010 with the dreamy track, “Ghost Town.” What was almost as intriguing as the band’s music was the mystery about their whereabouts and identities. But it’s a mystery no more…the band is Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey from London and they released their first full-length album, Welcome to Condale this past September.

We just stumbled upon the video for their latest single “Down” and it’s rad. There’s a Halloween theme, and although Halloween has come and gone, the video features cinemagraphs aka animated gifs. And I mean seriously, doesn’t everyone love an animated gif?

The song is awesome and the video is pretty cool too, trust us! Check it out below:

When I listen to M83, I always feel like I’m being transported to a dreamlike place filled with fields of flowers and rainbow-filled skies. Anthony Gonzalez’s 2005 breakthrough album “Before the Dawn Heals Us” was the soundtrack of my senior year of college. A friend and I drove four hours to New York City for the night just to catch Gonzalez’s live show at Bowery Ballroom. And let me tell you, it was well worth the trip!

On his latest album, “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” Gonzalez says that each track is an interpretation of people’s dreams. The first single ‘Midnight City’, is a beautiful synth-dance anthem that makes you want to sway as you listen to it, and it should be mentioned that there is an awesome sax solo. Yes a sax solo and it’s not lame.

Check out the video below:

Young Galaxy is gearing up for a world tour with labelmates Austra in support of their album Shapeshifting, which was released last year on Paper Bag Records. 

They have a new animated video for Peripheral Visionairies, the sequel to the awesome video for “We Have Everything” that just broke 100,000 YouTube views!  Both videos were directed by Sinbad Richardson, a Montreal-based visual artist.

“The band asked me to create a second animated music video and I suggested making a sequel to ‘We Have Everything’ off the same album,” says Sinbad Richardson. “‘Peripheral Visionaries’ picks up where we left off, our main character is stranded on the side of the highway, her bus having broken down. This narrative interprets ‘Peripheral Visionaries’ as a confession to the attraction of the unholy and a belonging to an ambiguous (nonetheless determined) rebellion against virtue. Our main character was to give in to her superficial ambitions but not without a cost. The line ‘We a sea, tears from the eyes of god’ repeated over and over, is taken as a foregone conclusion.”

Take a look:

Check the band on tour:

Alan Palomo of Neon Indian – we dig your haircut

In case you didn’t know, our team loves Neon Indian. Era Extraña is the newest album from Neon Indian (frontman is Alan Palomo) that dropped yesterday on Palomo’s label, Static Tongues and Mom + Pop Music.

Here’s the new video for “Polish Girl” directed by Tim Nackashi and produced in collaboration with The Creators Project, depicts “a futurist romance between a data-mining outcast and the woman he loves.”

If you love Neon Indian, they are performing “Polish Girl” on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” tonight! Check you local listings.