On the Radar:

Charli XCX

When the Brit-pop star isn't posting strung out, grunge pics on Instagram she's touring around the world  promoting her 2013 hard-hitter True Romance. Anxious to put out her third studio album, due sometime this summer, she's released a fast-paced, anti-ballad cleverly titled "Allergic to Love". The intensity of the guitars and Charli nearly screaming on the track mirrors her on stage persona. If this track is featured on her upcoming album we can expect a stronger rock theme, straying away from the pop that colored True Romance.

Youth Lagoon

Trevor Powers, or better known as Youth Lagoon, has never been afraid to venture into intricate themes of disorder and the metaphysical. With his new, psychedelic-pop track "Worms", presumably on his upcoming third album, he takes a step into space and the unknown. On his Facebook page he writes introducing the song:

FYI: although there's no real sound in the vacuum of space, it's possible to translate the electromagnetic radiation fluctuations and charged particles of these celestial bodies into conventional sound. So now that you're no better of a person at all for knowing that,
A collection of artists have come together to take audio recordings of planets that were gathered by the Voyager 1 & 2 space probes and manipulate these frequencies in music. This is my piece.

The collection named The Space Project features Beach House as well with other contributing artists composing pieces for various planets and other astronomical beings of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Space Project's release is scheduled for mid-April this year.



Beck

Beck has been known to mash genres together making every album an eclectic, stand-out creation . For the follow-up to his award winning Modern Guilt, he decided to get back to his Californian folky roots (and even reunited with musicians he worked with for his 2002 album Sea Change). His latest single, "Blue Moon" reflects that upbeat, acoustic strumming we haven't heard in years from the artist. Morning Phase, his twelfth album, is scheduled for release February 25th this year.