Taking their time between the releases of their 2008 debut EP and self-titled 2012 album, the Brooklyn-based trio Hospitality has settled into a comfortable whole. Additional instruments are brushed into the picture now and then, though the band seems just as natural with a lean, straightforward sound as they do fleshing out the spaces.

Sebastian Lelio delivers a tour-de-force that embraces the notion that we never stop seeking love and companionship.

There’s always been a hint of spirituality to Damien Jurado. The Seattle-born singer/songwriter’s solo recordings tend to bathe in chiming melodies and puritanical lyricism, creating deep and soulful psalms flushed with introspection.

Academy Award nominee and Emmy Award winner Greg Kinnear plays Keegan Deane in Rake, a remake of the critically acclaimed Australian program. An addict first and defense attorney second, Deane is intent on self-destruction.

The follow-up to Swedish duo I Break Horses’ 2012 debut Hearts finds chief songwriter and vocalist Maria Lindén deeply entrenched in expansive synthetics and, as the fits-like-a-glove title suggests, plays heavily with the idea of contrasts.

24 Exposures filters its lurid subject matter through the low-key, DIY aesthetic which Swanberg and his collaborators have cultivated over the past decade.

Bella Union, the record label on which Lanterns on the Lake‘s sophomore album Until the Colours Run is released, is run by Simon Raymonde, formerly of dreampop pioneers Cocteau Twins. This is telling, because the band’s sound has always not so much borrowed from the Scottish trio as dressed in woollen knitwear and gone to a fancy dress party as it.

When the sound of Motown and Stax had a second coming in the early 2000s, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings were at the forefront of the rumpshaking resurgence. Their recreation of all things vintage being crafted with such acuity and authenticity, it almost demanded elevation to the status of “instant classic.”

Listening to Warpaint, it’s easy to see how they were a good fit as openers for The xx in 2010. The Los Angeles quartet share a likeminded feel for nuance and the use of space, as evidenced by their debut album from that year, The Fool. For their follow-up, building from that sound without walling in or muffling their distinctive elements and subtleties could have been an understandable challenge.