Antenna: Free Song Sampler

This month, Google Play's Antenna locks in on a fresh batch of artists you need to hear, spanning styles from indie to modern bluegrass, avant hip-hop to hard rock and glistening electronic pop.

First up, Canadian indie electropop duo Purity Ring work in gently lurching trap beats, glassy synths, and singer Megan James' alternately crystal clear and murkily processed vocals. It's haunting and astral, pretty yet vaguely unsettling. Similarly chilled, Wild Nothing is the sighing, aching dream pop band of one Jack Tatum (formerly of Jack and the Whale and Facepaint). The sophomore album Nocturne is appropriately dim-lit and romantic, full of swooning vocals and slippery soft guitars.

Queens rapper (and Das Racist associate) Homeboy Sandman drops in with "Hold Your Head," a cloud rap recession-era survival anthem. Then we head south and visit Camilo Lara, the DJ/producer behind Mexican Institute of Sound, a project that flips traditional brass and folk music into pleasantly rumbling hip-hop and electronic beats.

Antenna shows off its R&B side with sultry neo-soul singer, Kendra Morris, whose new album is released by respected, crate-digging music archivist magazine Wax Poetics. Elsewhere, brother-and-sister duo The Roys from Nashville by way of the unlikely country outposts of New England and New Brunswick, Canada, draw inspiration from their family's traditional Acadian music for their modern bluegrass.

Next sample Burning Love, a Toronto band comprising former members of Cursed and Our Father, whose second album of hardcore punk and thrash comes via respected underground metal label Southern Lord. Similarly intense, Pennsylvania alternative rock band Circa Survive merges melodramatic rock bombast with oceanic guitar textures. Noid, England's The Heavy offers snarling, howling rock tinged with soul, led by Kelvin Swaby's charismatic vocals and buoyed by crashing drums and fiery backup singing. We round things off with Brooklyn's TEEN, who showcase their droney, darkly alluring dream pop on "Electric," from the Sonic Boom-produced In Limbo. Enjoy this month's Antenna selection and check back every month for Google Play's survey of the world's most interesting music. – Eric Grandy, Google Play

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