In Orange County, Trevor Magaña's main squeeze has always been his mathrock affair Hollow Ran, but lately he's been branching out, exploring directions from sensibile bedroom pop to jazzy slowcore through guitar and voice. If the name Puppy Soul doesn't confer the spirit of Magaña's project, then you probably haven't browsed enough doge memes. With help from Jonathan Modell (The Human Machine, Panoramic, Tririla Recordings), Magaña was able to self-record the debut EP live with minimal overdubs (thank you smartphone Voice Memos) amidst a hazy ambiance of Maj9 chords and deliberately chilled rhythms.

Puppy Soul's debut EP releases through Pacific Nature Records on November 16th, 2016, with an extremely limited run of 25 red foil cassettes in lavender-scented cases. You probably missed their supporting set for Avi Buffalo tonight, so watch Trevor and Jonathan throw their EP release party tomorrow at Beatnik Bandito along with Slice, love birds, and the equally prolific Arden Klawitter.

After three years, Christoph and Anton Hochheim's passion project Ablebody celebrates individual exceptionalism in full with the release debut album Adult Contemporaries. The album—which includes the band's first sleeper hits "Backseat Heart" and "After Hours"—shimmers with tones redolent of sophisti-pop while casting light shade with its tongue-in-cheek title. Adult Contemporaries releases October 14 on Lollipop Records.

Watch the absurdist music video for Ablebody's "Gaucho", directed by Lily X. Wahrman (Dinner, Prince Rama) and see them on October 18 for a record release party with Winter at The Bootleg Theater.

Once you hear the higher pitched croon of Castles' Cody Myers, a nostalgic comfort for the early 2000's will rush over you. A reminiscent mixture of Mae with a bit of older school Dr. Dog and Tame Impala, Castles understand the ins and outs of alternative rock and have shown their capacity to make it easy to love and enjoy, without sounding passé.

Starting in 2014, the Portland 4-piece have released a self titled EP in May comprised of tracks that transport you to a whole other realm sonically. The combination of Myers' colorful vocals with impeccable playing from Eric Wenzel on lead guitar, Adrian Swindells on bass and Tom Wortman on drums make for an overall chill yet stimulating listening experience.

Castles is working on some new tracks and have got a few shows coming up, including one on the July 29 at the Waypost. Congrats on being the new Deli Portland winners, boys!

Verbal Kent has teamed up producer !llMind to release a new album, Weight of You World, on Mellow Music Group. The album dropped today and is completely free on bandcamp. Kent also partnered with Jash and Homeless Cop to release a video for the track "Roll With Me".

I don't know a lot about Chicken Pop Pie. I know they recently released a single called "It's a Beautiful Day and We're All Stupid" via Grandpa Bay, and that the b-side to that single, "Fruit Cat", is featured in the wild video below. I know that I really enjoy both tracks and that the first names of the band members are Nate, Rachel, Zach, Teresa, and Ben. Other than that Chicken Pop Pie is a mystery.