When we hear a song that is lush, jazzy and chock full of finger snaps, we can’t help but think of one thing: Robin Hannibal. The common denominator between LA-based duo Rhye (Hannibal and Mike Milosh) and Quadron (with Danish singer Coco Maja Hastrup Karshøj), the musician/producer and his music have about as much sex appeal as we can handle and still be a SFW site. And then Kendrick Lamar showed up. The combination of Quadron’s silky smooth vibes with a soft-spoken verse from guest star Lamar raises “Better Off” from subtly sexy to overtly pant-tightening. Listen below and look out for Quadron’s new album Avalanche, out June 4th via Vested in Culture/Epic Records.

STREAM: Quadron – “Better Off (Ft. Kendrick Lamar)”

We’ve known that Brooklyn-based Deutsch group HAERTS was onto a good thing since October when we covered “Wings,” their debut, St. Lucia-produced single. In December we brought them to see you live at our New Noise showcase, and they graced our stage once again in February at All Things Gold along with Breakbot at U Street Music Hall. With the promised release of their debut album looming closer every day, HAERTS is back on ATG and back in your haerts with “All The Days,” a soaring, soulful second release, a timely anthem for another endless summer. Listen, enjoy, and hold tight — there’s bound to be more where this came from.

STREAM: HAERTS – “All The Days”

When I move to New York in just over a month (that’s 5 weeks, 37 days, and too many hours for my atrophied postgrad mind to calculate), I sincerely hope a scary bellhop doesn’t creep into my bedroom every night and gradually slice my skin with a scalpel while I sleep. As nervous as I am for the big move, I never had this particular worry until watching Caveman’s video for “In The City,” the first single off their self-titled LP. The clip features Fran Kranz and Save The Last Dance star Julia Stiles who play the part of a couple on a romantic tour of NYC, a trip interrupted by an unexplained knife-happy hotel worker. Just when we thought the city was getting safer…I blame Bloomberg. Watch it above.

STREAM: Caveman – “In The City”

Ty Segall has been called a “garage-punk prodigy” and a “San Francisco psych wunderkind,” an “ultra-prolific” “lo-fi rocker” with a “distinct talent for crafting really catchy vocal hooks.” Today though, he set aside those catchy vocals, kicked his lo-fi vibe into overdrive and teamed up with fellow Californians Chad & The Meatbodies to create a split benefit single. Segall’s half of the split, “Music For A Film 1,” is a classic rock’n’roll-gone-wild instrumental with heavily layered percussion and incremental gnarly guitar shredding that proves as well as refutes the many monikers of this Bay Area “living legend.”

Proceeds from the single, the seventh in the Less Artists More Condos series, will go to the Ariel Panero Memorial Fund at VH1 Save the Music, a nonprofit dedicated to instrumental music education in public schools. A veritable rock star AND charitable? “Wunderkind” indeed.

STREAM: Ty Segall – “Music For A Film 1″

One score minus 18 years ago (er…two), San Francisco’s father of garage-punk Ty Segall brought forth upon Record Store Day Ty Rex, Goner Records’ special release 7” EP covering songs from ‘60/‘70s British glam rock band T. Rex. “More!” cried the hordes, and Ty acquiesced, dedicated to the proposition that this second album, innovatively titled Ty Rex 2, would be created equal to the original. We have come to dedicate a portion of this website as a platform to announce the streaming of “The Motivator,” Ty’s cover of that classic jam off the band’s seminal 1971 album Electric Warrior. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here on ATG, but it can never forget what Ty’s typically fuzzy, low-fi interpretation of this rock classic did for our ears or for Record Store Day. Ty Rex 2 will also include “Cat Black (The Wizard’s Hat),” a track of the people and for the people that—if our glimpse at the B-side is any indication—shall not soon perish from the earth.

STREAM: Ty Segall – “The Motivator (T. Rex Cover”)

Nothing—not even months worth of legal warfare with Big Pun—can stop Jessie Ware from taking over the world. On April 16th, Cherrytree Records will finally release the US edition of Devotion, the British diva’s debut, this time featuring two bonus tracks: a remix of “Wildest Moments” featuring A$AP Rocky and Julio Bashmore-produced “Imagine it Was Us.” While the former is still tightly under wraps, “Imagine” recently hit the web and makes a welcome upbeat addition to the rest of Jessie Ware’s irresistible understated oeuvre. Check out the BBC Radio 1′s Annie Mac radio rip above, try to ignore the occasional aggressive MC interjections, and prepare yourself for Ware’s next stateside appearance at Coachella in April.

STREAM: Jessie Ware – “Imagine It Was Us (Annie Mac Radio Rip)”

According to my iTunes play count, I have listened to Usher’s “Climax” 69 times since it dropped last February (Usher! Ushuh! Ushah! Yeah!). While the apparent coincidence seems too good to be true, I do not for one second doubt the cosmic powers of the sexiest track of all time to telekinetically calibrate every iTunes in the world to that exact statistic.

This technological quirk could quite possibly have inspired experimental indie giants The Dirty Projectors to team up with Australian radio station Triple J and perform a cover of “Climax,” a rendition that is less between-the-sheets than it is multiple eargasm-inducing. While I admit the indie interpretation does not do true justice to its exemplar, I’d say it’s worth at least 34 and a half listens. Watch above.

Since releasing her debut Devotion early last year, British balladeer Jessie Ware has taken her act stateside, earned a spot on the Mercury Prize shortlist, and come to fisticuffs with Big Pun. According to Billboard, the Pitchfork Paris troubadour had trouble gaining clearance to sample the late hip-hop legend’s “Dream Shatterer,” a loop of which is an integral element of her new track “110%.” The track’s title is also inspired by another of the Punisher’s tracks, “100%”; Ware told Billboard, “I thought I could top it.” The hubris-ridden dispute has resulted in a delayed release of Ware’s EP and the subsequent renaming of the track to “If You’re Never Gonna Move,” as well as the minor lyric adjustment from “carvin’ my initials on your forehead” to “coming on a mission like a warhead.”

Now that all is said and done, Ware got to yell “Fuck you, Big Pun” in public AND has re-released the video for the track, earning her more media coverage than she could have originally hoped for. Check out the video above, mark January 15th on your calendar as the release date for the new EP, and come catch me from fainting each time Ware shifts registers during her live performance at the 9:30 Club this coming Tuesday.

STREAM: Jessie Ware – “If You’re Never Gonna Move / 110%”

Another arbitrary 365-day cycle has come and gone, offering the music world an opportunity to reflect on the fruits of the preceding year’s toil. Most frequently, these reflections come in the form of innumerable ‘Best Of’ lists, but for 2013, dream pop duo Beach House decided to reminisce the retro way: with an old school home video. The band’s latest video for “New Year,” off of 2012’s Bloom, samples footage from their recording session at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, Texas. The video is replete with up-close-and-personal shots of the band in action, shakily shot Halloween décor and a well-timed catfight (literal cats, not the kind you need to take your earrings out for) which, as the band writes, “we just thought these moments and the memories they involve fit this song.”

Watch the video above and buy the rest of Beach House’s Bloom, out now on Sub Pop.

Can’t decide what to get your Grizzly Bear fan for the holidays? Buck up! This season send him the gift of the 2012 LP Shields. He already has that, you say? Well of course, any Grizz fan wouldn’t consider his collection complete without it, but all’s not lost. The band has been kind enough to grace us with an epic YouTube video accompaniment to Shields, rearranged song-by-song for smooth jazz piano, solo sax, and Baroque operatics and set to a slideshow of vaguely apt stills that range from card-playing dogs to a preponderance of shrimp cocktails. Now if only I could find something as good to give my mother this year…

STREAM: Grizzly Bear – “Gun Shy”