Inspired & The Sleep is a little band out of San Diego that creates music much in the vein of artists like Tune-Yards. “While We’re Young” in fact has that band written all over it. The song is sunny lo-fi pop at its finest; upbeat and filled with joyous blissful indie vocals, tribal percussive beats, and twee acoustic guitar.

To me, being an indie music fan is all about being an explorer, discovering new and untapped realms of audio heaven. One of my favorite things to experience is to stumble upon something astonishing in all its brilliance. An artist I didn’t know. An album that blows my mind. Or a single song that simply appears out of nowhere. I have no clue how Siskiyou‘s “Always Awake” found its way onto my laptop, but boy am I glad it did.

Ganglians will be in Seattle next week. The famed Crocodile will play host to the Lefse Records band on December 6 with Young Prisms. The band gave us Still Living, their first release since a dual album in 2009, back in August. Those were released via Woodsist, and that beach-y psychedelic sound continues here along with one that hints of Lefse artists like The Fair Ohs and Dominant Legs.

Take a step back a dozen years. The year was 2000 and Giant Sand was releasing their LP for Chore of Enchantment. Member Rainer Ptacek had just passed; Joey Burns and John Convertino broke away to focus on Calexico instead. Main man Howe Gelb, though, stood his ground and continued to release albums under the Giant Sand name, as well as under his own — this continues to today; Gelb released Alegrias earlier this year.
Fire Records and Giant Sand have come together (again) and are reissuing this …

One thing you can always count on with Letting Up Despite Great Faults is their ability to put together an astonishing video. With both “Teenage Tide” and “Our Younger Noise”, the band found a great balance between the modern world and fantasy. They do it again with “Sophia In Gold” off their 2011 EP, Paper Crush.

Of all Fleet Foxes‘ collective works to date, none have impressed me as much and as thoroughly as “The Shrine / An Argument”. Off their latest LP, Helplessness Blues, the song is a medley of sorts, an elongated story with various movements. It’s downright exciting to see the song played out in an eight-minute video, created by front-man Robin Pecknold’s brother Sean. The song is epic in the truest of senses.

“Television Youth” blends power pop, garage rock and fuzzy punk for a fun — playful, even — sound that reminds me a bit of the early works by The Thermals. The band is Sonic Avenues, the latest addition to Dirtnap Records. They are four Montreal natives (you can just barely hear that French Canadian accent in the vocals… just) that produce loud, raucous, exhilarating music that simply begs to be heard.

Paladino is a Los Angeles-based band that creates a blend of Americana, old-time country and psychedelic folk. Their blend is an interesting one that incorporates playful, intricate guitar riffs with mopey, downtrodden vocals. It’s precisely what you want from such a band; “Ode to Misery” is plenty upbeat. Enough to make you dance. Their video is proof.

These days, it’s hard to focus on anything unfamiliar that hits my inbox. The sheer quantity of emails that come in is staggering. Only doing FensePost full time would allow me to get through it all. Every once in a while, there’s a free moment in which I take a quick look at a few, and I’m almost never disappointed. “Crank It Up” is one such song. It’s by a little Danish band called The Boombox Hearts.

Durham, NC band Bombadil are back with a new album called All That The Rain Promises. If you had the honor of hearing the band’s previous LP, Tarpits And Canyonlands, you’ll have an idea of what to expect. Bombadil creates an off-beat approach to folk-pop with odd lyrics and a unique songwriting style. You definitely get that on the new album.