On Bitte Orca, the Dirty Projectors’ Domino debut, Dave Longstreth & Co. continue their arc towards accessibility. They’ve always mashed together pop, R&B and the avant-garde, but here they kick out jams that could fit in on some as-yet undiscovered Beyonce and Wagner Go to West Africa album, jams that seem as influenced by Nico as they are by Song of Songs, and jams that are simply good rock tunes. Most of the harsh edges in Longstreth’s vocal delivery have been sanded off, and backup singers Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian step up to take the lead on a few tracks. The orchestral arrangements give the songs more literal, obvious beauty than they ever did on past Projectors albums, never really serving as a challenge but as a pleasant accompaniment. This album is for fans and newcomers who maybe had a hard time swallowing some of the more over-the-top experiments this ever-changing band has produced in the past. Bitte Orca is the pop album the Projectors were always capable of making, boiled down and unencumbered by anything unnecessary. (Travis)

Ah, another cool breeze from Sweden—never mind that they’ve named themselves after Liechtenstein (the smallest German-speaking nation in the world. Word to the trivia buffs out there!). This trio of stylish ladies is devoted to the classic neo-mod pop that came from legendary indie labels like Sarah, El and—well, the one they’re on. Actually, the first band they remind these tired ears of is former Slumberland stars the Aislers Set, those Bay Area princesses of moody, Spector-esque pop. The glaze of reverb and three-way harmonies on Survival Strategies in a Modern World (try not getting goosebumps from songs like “Roses in the Park” and “All At Once”) mean one thing and one thing only: Indie-pop still ain’t noise pollution. In fact, upon hearing Liechtenstein, you may find it’s downright mandatory! My only complaint is that at nine songs and 23 minutes, Survival Strategies is not enough. More, please! (M.L. Thrope)

Glance at this album’s artwork and your brainy-matter might flash on any number of Flaming Lips record covers. For good reason: This Oklahoma quartet is led by Dennis Coyne, nephew to Wayne, and his bandmates have made up the Lips’ roadcrew in the past. Which is nice and all, but what if you, like me, really don’t care much for the Lips’ music? Fear not—this swirling modern-psych record’s just plain good, and the links between the groups (hard to imagine these guys would’ve found their way to Warner Bros. otherwise) matter not, because Stardeath and White Dwarfs really don’t sound inspired (musically) by the Lips, or anything else more specific than just the whole wide world of music. Light and dark, heavy and bright, fresh-faced but preternaturally wise, and really ambitious overall (considering all the overt weed and escape references), The Birth is, as Lips drummer Kliph Scurlock has said, just a great debut album by a band with a wide-open future ahead, so long as the world doesn’t end. (M.L. Thrope)

Deerhunter are a group that understands the parameters of the formats in which they’ve chosen to work. Cryptograms used the dimensions of an album in order to unfold over time, moving from all-encompassing paranoia to glistening pop. Rainwater Cassette Exchange hearkens back to the classic days of the EP as stylistic shift, welding the more blissful pop elements heard on last year’s Microcastle / Weird Era Cont. with a diffuse clarity seemingly relieved of the menace that’s characterized much of their work. The dreamlike shuffle of “Game of Diamonds,” in particular, could qualify as “feel-good,” and “Circulation” proves that Deerhunter are more than able to pen a shoegaze anthem. It’s their most accessible work to date, but also their most consistent. (Toby)

One line-drive into the gap after another for the champs over at the Numero Group. Amid their unending soul, gospel and R&B excavations they uncover a true left-field odyssey-oddity that was never an album to begin with—and yet, hearing this collection of bizarrely great late-60s psychedelic-pop recordings by the Illinois group Pisces, you might find yourself wondering just how big of a hit it might’ve been, in that perfect world that exists in our imaginations. There’s a Midwestern vibe in the way that these cats never chased after the blistering freak-out, choosing instead to follow a psych-touched pop muse sometimes reminiscent of the gleeful old UK band July or little-knowns like the Beatles. And then there are the handful of songs that feature Linda Bruner on vox. Wow. She was some kinda wayward shamanic princess who may have only slipped into this realm to record these songs, before flitting back to wherever she was hatched. A Lovely Sight should be a catch-as-catch-can selection of tunes, but in true Numero form, this orgone-rich baby holds together better than most proper albums. Highly recommended! And another of the past’s many missteps corrected by this unsurpassed Chicago imprint. (M.L. Thrope)

Texas always has kicked out this country’s best psychedelic stuff. The duo Headdress (who might live here in NYC now, hard to say with dudes like this) adds a hazy, shimmering new chapter to their home state’s book of American dreams, casting rootsy guitar figures in blown-out shapes and drones that arc across a desert sky in slowest motion. Lunes is one of those albums that bends your perception of time; its four long (and one short) instrumental tracks move along at their own particularly spaced-out pace, like half-dreamed lightning storms that fork around your silhouette at nighttime, with flares illuminating the haunted landscape. Seriously, I didn’t use a thesaurus here! Beautiful, huge and minimal, Lunes is required listening for fans of Spacemen 3, Hendrix, weird America of any era, and guitars for their own sake. (M.L. Thrope)

The Cologne producer Ada (a.k.a. Michaela Dippel) has studiously kept her nose to the electronic-grindstone since emerging early this decade, to the point where she has enough wide-ranging material to make a bona fide “mixtape” worthy of the Kompakt imprimatur, namely this collection of remixes of and by her, as well as stray, previously released and unreleased tracks. Although she’s also made herself into a DJ of note on the scene, these cuts are discrete, as in, not mixed into a whole, which is just fine, because the sequencing shrewdly moves between attention-grabbers—her remix of Tracey Thorn’s “Grand Canyon,” the Michael Mayer/Tobias Thomas remix of her barely recognizable cover of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps”—and breezy, kind of faceless-in-a-good-way tech-house sides. You’ll slip and amble between easy, summery moods and layers—sweet. (M.L. Thrope)