Andy Kayes, an up and coming France-based British rapper, released his indie-album, 2012’s Alone in Numbers to little notice. So it’s surprising when you take one look at the neon-saturated glow of his promo video, “The Man Without a Face”, a stylish exercise in decadent glamour and cutting street-smarts. While Kayes certainly doesn’t have the kind of major-label cash to throw around, the video’s intelligent sense of style (an ingenious use of colour, clever effects and skillful editing) easily trumps the marketing efforts of his far more financially-endowed hip-hop contemporaries. The number’s lean, stripped-to-the-bone beats on which rivers of verbal flow ride atop give ample room for Kayes and his cohort, Copywrite, to demonstrate their rhyme-technique. Sized up against Kayes anxious, nimble and textured verse, Copywrite’s no-nonsense rhymes slice like a serrated blade.

In the past several years, Dylan Ettinger has carved his place out in the electronic music world with a dark, post-punk indebted style that embraces a range of analog equipment, hacking a new path out of well-worn devices. His newest, bass-heavy, ringing “The Pale Horse”, found on a new split 7” with Goldendust, sees Ettinger yowling in borderline-Ian Curtis desperation over cut-up, static-y percussion. The song’s video consists of VHS footage from Michael Almereyda ‘s Lynchian 1994 vampire masterpiece Nadja, including a scene of David Lynch himself in a turn as a morgue receptionist, cut up into a stuttering, nauseous, color-altered smear (courtesy of the Tachyons+ Video Art Machine) that complements Ettinger’s icy electronic excursions. The same weighty, pixelated pulse drives both song and video, resulting in an claustrophobic, immersive viewing and listening experience.

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Last time we heard from Candy Claws, 2010’s Hidden Lands, the band showcased a soft, dreamy, layered style that was easy (and often quite pleasant) to just get lost in, letting it carry you off to its titular lands. Their newest song, “Transitional Bird (Clever Girl)”, from Ceres & Calypso in the Deep Time, due out June 25th, retains the same layers and a measure of the dreaminess of Hidden Lands, while sounding a good deal more propulsive and energetic. Instrumental and vocal hooks are also much more clearly audible, and the bite of shoegaze guitars buzzes through the candy-colored haze.

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