Devendra Banhart is an artist. Recently, the music for which he is widely recognized has been demarcated by periods of his lesser known visual art, where open hearted interaction with forms and figures may be shaping his recordings.

“Pink + White,” one of the standout tracks from Frank Ocean’s latest album, Blonde, would have fit nicely on his last proper album, 2012’s Channel Orange.

There finally comes a moment in Frank Ocean’s Endless, at about the 18-minute mark, when the entire affair finally isn’t completely dull. At long last the characters in the California musician’s visual album begin painting the boxes that we just spent a dozen minutes watching them saw and piece together the boards for.

Following hot on the heels of last year’s Beyoncé and Radiohead style surprise release Star Wars is this oddly-named follow-up, perhaps a direct nod to Harry Nilsson’s similarly titled Nilsson Schmilsson.

Anders Trentemøller has always been a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants producer. He pays attention mainly to atmosphere and the instruments of his design get revealed in the process.

A few minutes into the latest Phantogram record and you would be forgiven for expecting nothing more than a collection of mundane dark electronica.

The four members of Preoccupations could make a strong case against the argument that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Scattered public roiling over their former name Viet Cong spread farther than expected and threatened to derail the group just as their instinctively carved brand of post-punk was mounting mass appeal.

It’s been constant flux for Cymbals Eat Guitars since they seemingly came out of nowhere in 2009 with the excellent Why There Are Mountains.

Local Natives have, whether through intentional effort or not, established themselves as the go-to band of inoffensive but charming West Coast indie rock.