Cullen Omori knows it’s a false cliché to say there are no second acts in American lives, but, after the 2014 breakup of his acclaimed band the Smith Westerns, living that cliché was his greatest fear. His solo debut, New Misery, is a direct challenge to that anxiety: an album that goes beyond the glam punch of the Smith Westerns to new sounds, new sources of inspiration, and greater self-awareness. “I had this overwhelming feeling that perhaps the apex of my life as a musician and as an individual would be relegated to five years in my late teens/early 20s,” says Omori, who launched into the music industry when the Smith Westerns, who started in high school in Chicago, became fast-rising indie stars. “This fear really forced me to work hard as to not see the Smith Westerns as an end but as a point along a bigger trajectory.” While New Misery grew out of a difficult personal and professional time for Omori, he says the title reflects “not so much the distress that comes with failure, but the troubles and complexities that come with any type of success. No matter what you get you're going to want more, you're going to want something different. That’s the catch.” Synths play a much larger role in Omori’s new music than in the Smith Westerns’ guitar-fueled rock, as do a wide range of influences including Roxy Music, INXS, Spiritualized, Wilco, Garbage, Hall & Oates, Kate Bush, U2, and Sparks. There’s also a more deliberate pop streak, inspired by the top-40 radio that would play while Omori worked at a medical supply company cleaning stretchers and wheelchairs. Along with Omori, New Misery features additional bass and keyboards from Ryan Mattos, drums from Loren Humphrey, and James Richardson on guitar. But unlike with the more distributed roles within the Smith Westerns, Omori wrote, played, and oversaw nearly every part of the new album, beginning a true new chapter of his long-term creative growth.

Salad Days is the second full-length studio album by Canadian musician Mac DeMarco released on April 1, 2014 through Captured Tracks. Following the debut releases of Rock and Roll Night Club and 2 in 2012 and the extensive touring for both releases in 2013, DeMarco worked on material for his next album at his Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment in Brooklyn. Salad Days garnered acclaim from critics, and debuted at number 30 on the Billboard 200. The album spawned two singles: "Passing Out Pieces" and "Brother". To promote the album, DeMarco went on a tour that spanned across North America, South America and Europe.

Montreal's Elephant Stone is led by sitarist/bassist Rishi Dhir. As a highly sought out sitar player in the psychedelic rock scene, he has recorded and toured with the Black Angels, Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Horrors, the Soundtrack of Our Lives, and many more. Their new self titled LP is a follow up to their debut album, ''The Seven Seas,'' which long-listed for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize. The album finds Elephant Stone combining '60s pop with heavy psycehdelic raga, showcasing Dhir's ability to write concise pop songs as well as the band's ability to kick out sprawling jams. Artful lyrics and Rishi's considerable sitar talents make this a modern psych classic. The band has upcoming appearances at SXSW, Austin Psych Fest and a tour with The Black Angels.

The four members of Spanish Prisoners found each other in the winter of 2009, when the streets of Bushwick were covered with grey, fading snow. Songwriter Leo Maymind had just begun working at the largest nightclub in New York City; squeezing through crowds of thousands of drunken revelers that were caught in a breathless pursuit of everything wrapped in nothing, going down in celluloid history. He began scribbling down things he overheard in dark corners, fragments of personal violence from characters filled with self-doubt and nostalgia. During the empty 4AM subway rides he took to his Bushwick apartment, he stock-piled musical ideas, putting the pieces together like some long-lost cosmic puzzle with no map or guide.

Norwegian-Mexican artist and producer Carmen Villain makes atmospheric music made up of tapestries of field-recordings, flute, piano, vocals, zither, programmed drums and synths, culminating in her own distinctive sound combining elements of fourth world ambient, experimental pop with an electro-acoustic vibe.