Kathryn Calder was originally hired by her uncle Carl Newman to serve as a stand-in for Neko Case when Case’s solo commitments clashed with her ability to tour with The New Pornographers. It would be difficult to imagine a more thankless task than being the substitute for one of the more powerhouse vocalists of the era, but Calder acquitted herself well enough to become a valued full-time member of the Pornographers, in addition to leading her own band, Immaculate Machine.

“Slip Away,” a track from Calder’s solo debut Are You My Mother? (to be released August 10th by File Under: Music), swings back and forth between quiet verses built around a hushed, somber piano line that recalls Neu or Cluster in their quieter moments and full band breaks with a soaring wordless vocal. The lyrics on the verses are melancholy and autumnal, most likely reflecting the fact that it was recorded while Calder was caring for her dying mother. Perhaps the neatest trick of all is that she’s created an artsy piece of female piano pop that manages to sound nothing at all like Tori Amos, Kate Bush, or Sarah McLachlan, which just goes to show that with talent and imagination, old genres can still be taught new tricks.

Calder deserves a lot of credit for creating a compelling track that relies very little on the established styles of Immaculate Machine or The New Pornographers. Not a bad piece of work for someone who spent much of her early career by being greeted by groans of disappointment by people who’d come out expecting to see someone else.

Stockholm, Sweden duo Pallers describe their music as “dance music for the lazy,” and we’re hard pressed to come up a more apt encapsulation of their sound. Filtering Brotherhood-era New Order jams through a post-shoegazer lens, Pallers creates dreamy, electronic music with a pulse. Without resorting to piling on sonic layers, the pair crafts hazy soundscapes which are suddenly pierced by a drum machine or guitar riff, like ships suddenly appearing on a foggy horizon. Their latest effort is a two-track single, The Kiss, which was released on May 25th by their current home, the erstwhile Labrador Records imprint.

“The Kiss” spends most of its five and a half minute run time patiently cultivating a reverie of synth washes and digitally delayed notes, the backbone of which is a gentle but persistent arp line. Overlayed on this slow tide are ponderous vocals (“If it wasn’t a kiss / then I don’t know what it was”) and the glacial build up of drum machine tracks. The latter hit critical mass alongside more propulsive vocal and instrumental melodies about three minutes in, suddenly elevating the implied tempo closer to something countrymen The Sound of Arrows would rock. This duality helps lend a grace and flowing symmetry to “The Kiss,” a song which wins the listener over not with a rush and a push but rather by beguiling degrees.

Wild Nothing is the sort of band whose sound is both difficult to define and easy to “get”–one listen was all it took to hook this listener. Essentially a home-recording vehicle for Virginia Tech’s Jack Tatum, Wild Nothing constructs hypnagogic songs out of quietly buzzing synthesizers, homespun drum beats, and reverb cloaked vocals. While Tatum doesn’t try to recreate the rootless sonic drift of traditional shoegazer acts, he is adept at imparting an ineffable fuzziness around the edges of his work, making the dreaminess on display more of a suggestion than an outright production tool.

Following the May 25th Captured Tracks release of his debut LP, Gemini, Tatum has taken his act on the road backed by a full band, handling opening slots for The Depreciation Guild and Neon Indian. Although neither of these other acts is a perfect analog to Wild Nothing’s sound, they are certainly complementary: The Depreciation Guild’s music shares the same dream-pop roots and Neon Indian holds electronic-tinkered haziness in common.

“Chinatown,” Gemini‘s tenth track, begins amid a gentle passage of digitally delayed notes before kicking in with a proper starts. Drum sticks rattle against cymbal stands in brief interjections while a vaguely Eastern pizzicato riff hops around mid-stage. Buried lower in the mix are two distinct synthesizer tracks, the first playing a deep, distorted bass riff, the second gliding like a butterfly, tossing in its melodic two cents. Tatum’s vocals are foregrounded throughout, and with good reason; his voice is capable and low-key, if not dazzling, and works effectively within the larger sonic framework. Given the ethereal qualities of some of its instrumentation, “Chinatown” is surprisingly catchy; it taps into a sense of familiarity while clearly being part of a distinctive new sound.

Copenhagen’s Anders Trentemøller is one of the most well respected electronic music producers on the scene today, which makes his decision to expand his horizons and take big risks on his new sophomore album all the more noteworthy. Those new to the Dane’s work should know that he has been providing his services as a remix artist since the turn of the century, lending his talents to an impressive array of top tier acts such as The Pet Shop Boys, Franz Ferdinand, Depeche Mode, Royksopp, Röyksopp, The Knife, and Moby. In 2006, Trentemøller issued The Last Resort, his critically lauded debut LP, which wasfollowed by a slew of remixes compiled in 2007′s The Trentemøller Chronicles.

On June 7th, Trentemøller will be releasing Into the Great Wide Yonder on his own label, In My Room. For someone with such illustrious credits within the electronic realm, his new record represents a dramatic departure away from the “safe” territory of pulsing beats toward a more all-encompassing approach which defies easy classification. Songs like “Sycamore Feeling” almost feel like a rebuke of sub-genre labeling, as they infuse electronic elements with more traditional, organic components.

The album’s second track invokes Trentemøller’s affinity for the minor key side of life, employing heavily reverbed guitar parts and Marie Fisker’s devastating, silken vocals to create a dense musical tundra that alludes equally to Massive Attack and Mazzy Star. When the drum machine finally kicks in about halfway through the track, it does so tastefully; its elegance is not a trait one typically associates with the instrument, but there is no denying its stateliness here. On first listen, one would be forgiven for thinking Fisker to be the star of the show–her vocals are breathtaking in the truest sense of the term. However, the real genius here is Trentemøller, who has the acuity of a well seasoned producer and knows precisely how to dress the stage around her.

As a result, “Sycamore Feeling” is a jewel of a song, one of those nearly cosmic alignments where all of the constituent parts shine and create something close to magic. Trentemøller has crafted something hauntingly beautiful, melancholic, and majestic–and we’re all the richer for having heard it.