April 4, 2012 – For Emma, forever ago: "So many days have come and gone," Racing Heart mourns on "Emma," from the Brooklyn-based indie-folk group's debut album To Walk Beside the Ghost, due out April 20 on Movemountains. Oslo transplant and prime creative force Mathias Tjønn's distant muse feels just as irrevocably lost as Justin Vernon's, though this chamber-pop construction's elaborate wash of harmonies more closely recalls Grizzly Bear, Local Natives, or even Maps & Atlases. Members of St. Vincent and Sufjan Stevens' bands, in fact, contributed to the album's recording. There's an intricate allure in the interplay between Racing Hearts' rippling auto-harp, precisely shaded drumming, and queasy analogue synths. But the head-spinning moment on "Emma" is the chorus, where multiple voices join in singing the title character's name.

April 4, 2012 – Just your typical video for a Kosovo-born British chart-topper performing a song written by Drake with a guest verse from another proud owner of a U.K. No. 1 single. Rita Ora scored her chart victory in late February with DJ Fresh's "Hot Right Now," an over-the-top hi-NRG dance single centered around frenzied drum-and-bass breakbeats and "throw your hands up" robot choruses. Ora's first solo video selection, Drake-penned "R.I.P." (via Rap-Up), declares the old her dead and starts intriguingly anew. As the England-based, Albanian-descended singer preps for her May-June opening slot on Coldplay's European tour, "R.I.P." makes it amply clear why she would be a good match for the Rihanna-collaborating British softies. The patiently spaced, simple yet distinctive seduction lyrics and lilting, RiRi-like melody have songwriter Aubrey Drake Graham's signature all over them.

April 4, 2012 – Garbage will see your The Artist and raise you one Un Chien Andelou. The band's first music video in five years — for hook-crammed alt-rocker "Blood for Poppies" — reaches back into the last century and then some, taking its textured black-and-white look from classic silent films. In addition to Luis Buñuel's eye-slicing surrealist landmark, watch out for apparent allusions to Georges Méliès' 1902 Le Voyage Dans La Lune — you know, the one with the brand-new soundtrack by Air (there was also a Smashing Pumpkins video). In a Ustream chat announcing the new clip, singer Shirley Manson acknowledged the influence of Buñuel and fellow surrealist René Magritte.

April 3, 2012 – Put them in, coach. They're ready to play. Foo Fighters, My Morning Jacket, Miranda Lambert, and other big-name artists are teaming up with John Fogerty for his fall album Wrote a Song for Everyone, the former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman has announced. Billed as a "celebration of Fogerty's iconic songbook," the album combines newly recorded songs the California roots-rocker's hugely influential back catalogue with an unspecified number of totally new tracks. One of the albums from CCR's terrific late-'60s/early '70s run was titled Willy and the Poor Boys, but the new record's list of contributors is nothing if not rich with talent.

April 3, 2012 – The Flaming Lips, the Roots, Public Enemy, Of Montreal, Girl Talk, Spoon, and Modest Mouse are among the musical heavy hitters who've spent their Fourth of July weekend in Des Moines to headline the Iowa capital's 80/35 festival. This year, the fest's fifth, will see Death Cab for Cutie and the Avett Brothers topping the bill for the July 6-7 event, organizers announced today. Midwest festival-goers won't only be getting sensitive, emotive pop-rock and harmony-drenched open-air folk-pop, however. Dinosaur Jr., Fucked Up, Freddie Gibbs, and Dan Deacon are also on the bill, along with Leftover Salmon and Greensky Bluegrass.

April 3, 2012 – L.A.'s Edward Sharpe is still in folksy character on the latest track from May 29 album Here, the follow-up to 2009 breakthrough Up From Below. "That's What's Up," which like previously surfaced Here opener "Man on Fire" sticks to the sweetly down-home, She & Him-meets-Walk the Line nostalgia of their love-lovin' best song, "Home." As on that track, bandleader Alex Ebert — formerly of spazzy new wave revivalists Ima Robot — duets here with singer Jade Castrinos, and once again they're exchanging sweet nothings, complete with whistling and jug-band bass. "You've got my love to lean on, darlin'," goes the sunny chorus. Spoiler: That's what's up.

April 3, 2012 – In which T.I. reminds us why we love him. Tip's recent streak of musical activity since getting out of prison last fall has made it all too easy to take the self-proclaimed King of the South for granted. Generic party bangers? Faceless street boasts? On "Love This Life," the first single (available now on iTunes) from upcoming album Trouble Man, the Atlanta rapper born Clifford Harris returns to the regal, effortless-sounding savoir fair that helped make him so appealing in the first place. It doesn't hurt that this song starts with an actual, focused concept: T.I. wants us back. And, in his telling as in reality, we really can't find another Tip. Of course, he's addressing a romantic interest, not necessarily fans or critics, but the point is made either way.

April 2, 2012 – Fast-forward to Coachella later this month. On the last night of each of the festival's two weekends, Dr. Dre will be headlining with Snoop Dogg. If recent weather patterns hold, sweaty fans will be cooling down after a sweltering 90-degree day. And, just maybe, decades-younger Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar will join his new Aftermath Music boss onstage for a moment-perfect rendition of slow-burning Southern California ode "The Recipe." With a Lamar-sung hook that languidly flaunts L.A.'s "women, weed, and weather," Lamar's latest joins Best Coast's "The Only Place" in the recent canon of stoner musical tributes to the Golden State.

April 2, 2012 – MGMT's first album, Oracular Spectacular, was effervescent electro-pop, party rock anthems before party rocking required an apology. Their second, Congratulations, prankingly left-turned into druggy psych-rock esoteria. Palates now cleansed, what we can hear of the first song to emerge since suggests MGMT's third album might split the distance between those two previous extremes. NME points to a fan video of the Connecticut-bred band played a new song on Friday night during the Festival Estereo Picnic in Bogotá, Colombia. "It has acoustic guitar," bedheaded frontman Andrew VanWyngarden says by way of introduction to the song, which he calls "Alien Days" (or "Alien Daze" — pesky homophones!).

April 2, 2012 – Underneath effects-pedal whiz Oliver Ackermann's industrial-grade squalls of distortion, A Place to Bury Strangers have always tucked away shimmery goth-pop songcraft. Both aspects of the New York band return in equal measure on "You Are the One," the advance MP3 from the group's upcoming album Worship, which Dead Oceans will release on June 26. Building on last year's Onwards to the Wall EP, it's the first album from Ackermann and the crew since 2009's Exploding Head. "You Are the One" has more of the ear-rending sonics on which Ackermann has built his Death by Audio business, though he always seems to keep the shrillest settings to himself. At the same time, the song is a simple plea for a lover who's gone, with Ackermann almost whispering at points atop the lockstep, krautrock-tinged pummeling.