Welcome to Funplex, the first record of the 21st century from the B-52s. "It's loud, sexy rock and roll, with the beat pumped up to hot pink," says guitarist Keith Strickland. Eleven fresh new songs, crafted by the groundbreaking band that put Athens, GA on the musical map in the late '70s, and conquered the world with its savvy hooks, unconventional approach to music-making and original style.

"Never quite knowing which Feelies riff or Malkmus vocal turn or, hell, CYHSY organ sound these guys will strike with next is precisely what makes The Loon such a rich, participatory, and eminently repeatable experience."

Parades is the highly anticipated second album by Denmark’s Efterklang, the follow up to their underground hit of 2004, Tripper. Comprising 11 majestic, otherworldly pop songs, Parades manages to be both magnificently ambitious and engagingly intimate; a breathtaking panorama of sound with few clear antecedents.

You can certainly taste some sugar and spice – not to mention a bracing shot of whiskey-tinged wit – in the music of Kate Nash. But when it comes time to answer the question of what the 20-year-old singer-songwriter is made of, one need only look at the title of her debut album – Made of Bricks.

Since 1995, Cloud Cult have crafted sprawling, cathartic albums that have won them the attention of the New York Times, MTV, Spin, Billboard, and a devoted following of fans.

"Port O'Brien whip up a hazy, beautiful narcosis on The Wind and the Swell. ... clear evidence that Pierszalowski's idiosyncratic alt-rock/weirdo folk deserves the same kind of attention paid to Will Oldham (Palace), Jason Molina (Songs: Ohia), or even M. Ward, who named Port O'Brien his favorite new band the same year this album came out (2007)."

Originally formed in 2006 under the moniker Dodobird as a one man acoustic act, Meric Long would gig around San Francisco playing folky guitar w/ a combination of loops and ambient keyboards. Having already studied West African Ewe drumming, Meric got turned onto country blues fingerpicking and sought to create a band where the drumming could be a center role and help bring out the syncopated rhythms coming out of the acoustic guitar.

"A terrific slice of rabble-rousing dance rock in the Big Audio Dynamite stylee - cheesewire guitars and Television bass criss-crossing over a deceptively funky undercarriage."

Those looking for the inspiration of the current jam band movement need look no further than Phil Lesh. A founding member of the venerable American musical institution, the Grateful Dead, Lesh has continued to inspire while pushing the envelope with his highly evolved musical performances.

El Perro Del Mar is Swedish singer/songwriter, Sarah Assbring. She created her musical moniker after befriending a stray dog along the coast of Africa. Assbring records most of the music herself with poppy melodies, simple vocal lines, acoustic guitars, and twinkling pianos.

Rock bands are pigeonholed into ever-increasingly minuscule sub-categorizations, but The Dresden Dolls continue to defy explanation and classification. While some have called it theatrical rock, punk cabaret, manic-musical, neo-glam-torch,…eventually even the most clever and creative describers shrug and say: “You just have to hear it to believe it.”

French Kicks are obsessed with possibility. For this band experimentation and self-discovery are the whole game, and the results of their continued explorations have set them in a category all their own, and earned them a dedicated audience. From the time they began as a raucous four piece with a singing drummer, to the more refined, intricate and subtle experimental pop band they are today, French Kicks have taken that experimentation always further, consistently trying to surprise and surpass themselves with each new chapter.