Terry Malts

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Terry Malts is among the local rock bands whose full-length debuts we're most excited about in 2012, and the album's first single, "Tumble Down" oughta show why: With sizzling guitars playing atop a molten bassline and Phil Benson's distantly crackling vocals, the song is textbook indie rock turned into a casual mess of pop catchiness. All its offending grit is balanced by the insistent merseybeat and "bop-baa"-ing in the chorus, making this upbeat song sound like it's suspended inside a swimming pool of mud. That's a good, good thing, though. Check out "Tumble Down" after the jump.

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"Your girl, she ready," goes the titular refrain here, and after hearing this new track from the Bay Area's Heart Break Gang, well, yours may not be the only lady running out to grind (or worse) with these boys. Over a confidently laid-back bassline made by local producer/rapper Iamsu!, the gang woos the lasses of lesser men with various smoothly delivered boasts and leers. The whole thing feels comfortably smug -- "bet you found my number in your bitch's cellphone" -- and pretty much deserves to be. This is the first single off the Heart Break Gang's upcoming street album/mixtape, which doesn't yet have a set date for release. Play it for your 2012 conquests.

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Raka Rich.

​Panama-born, Oakland-raised Raka Rich is best known as one-half of the rap group Los Rakas (with cousin Raka Dun), but he's also a solo artist who is planning to drop a new EP sometime in 2012. Today we have a taste of that release with a new single called "Check Yo B*tch." With its gentle, R&B- reminiscent backing track, and lyrics that portray some cocksure macking, the bilingual song harkens back to the player era of '90s Bay Area rap, when artists like Rappin 4-Tay and Dru Down parlayed coldly addictive anthems to international attention. Check the tune after the jump.

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Brick Stowell

Alexander Spit

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S.F.-and-L.A.-based rapper Alexander Spit has a new mixtape out. It's called These Long Strange Nights, it's this up-and-coming rapper's biggest release so far, and it's worth your time. The 11 tracks on Long Strange Nights wander from blunt swagger to mellow musing: "Strange and Unusual" starts things off watery and laid-back, but by the time you get to "Real RSWD Pt. 2," you're in full industrial-banger territory. "Posse Up" is a balls-out track made to blast when you're hitting the town -- it isn't shy about that specific purpose -- and "El Camino" is a panoramic rap anthem. But there are plenty of moodier, more introspective moments along the way, too. Spit seems better suited to technical, imagery-laden rhyming than forceful bluster, but he makes a strong case for himself on most of these tracks. Download the full mixtape -- along with art for each and every track -- after the jump.

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The Jealous Guys

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Here's yet another promising release from rising S.F. rappers the Jealous Guys: It's the Audiobook EP, a four-track collection of dimly ethereal beats capped with some of the more vivid rhymes we've heard -- especially from an S.F. outfit: "Headed to Pier 39/ Start an Arcade Fire that turn Tron into Phoenix ash/ My soul rise fuck a gravity overcast/ In sync with graffiti crying me a river/ Under the overpass, at last," goes a verse on "Genesis."

This collection of songs is what we might call cinematic -- a step or two more abstract than the hoes-and-blunts street hip-hop we get a lot around here. (Although its lyrics deal a lot with S.F. -- there's even a song called "Miss San Francisco.") The EP seems to sprout more dimensions with repeated listens, too; check it out after the jump.

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They do have an awesome promo photo.

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We're a bit unsure of the name, but anyone looking for experimental new rock/electronic sounds out of the Bay Area (or anywhere, really), oughta give Mwhahaha a listen. The band sounds more than a little bit like TV on the Radio sometimes, but -- as you may have gathered from its moniker -- it is far more playful. There are flourishes of analog synthesizers, bent guitars, and even the occasional pop hook in the band's songs, which are usually built over some towering, propulsive rhythm, whether live drums or machine-based. And while we get a little bit of pop-oriented verse-chorus-versing, Mwahaha also likes to take its songs in adventurous directions that may not always be foreseen at the start of things.

Check out three free Mwahaha MP3s after the jump.

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Extra Classic

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We've liked most of we've heard from the newish S.F. outfit Extra Classic -- so far, it's all been evocative, grainy rocksteady with plenty of dub flavors. Until now, that is: Yesterday, Extra Classic hit Yours Truly with a dim-the-lights track called "Give Me Your Love," which sounds like a gorgeous '60s soul outtake. Think lolling tempo, piano and organ flavors, and singer Adrianne Verhoeven reaching high up into the upper registers.

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Oh friends, what a special year 2011 must be to earn two, yes, two (!) new albums from San Francisco titans of garage-rock Thee Oh Sees.

First, in the spring, came Castlemania. Next, on Nov. 15, we shall receive another full-length, titled Carrion Crawler/The Dream. Why? Who? Where? These are distracting questions -- and "Carrion Crawler," the newest Oh Sees track you can hear right now, is enough of a distraction on its own...

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This has been a breakout year for San Francisco artist Luis Vasquez, who records and performs as the Soft Moon. It saw release of his excellent self-titled debut album on the Brooklyn label Captured Tracks -- 11 songs of pummeling, noirish gloom that instantly gained the Soft Moon a national reputation.

After tours and numerous high-profile S.F. shows -- including an excellent Noise Pop Festival set -- Vasquez is about to release more music. His Total Decay EP is out on Oct. 31 (Halloween!), and you can hear the title track now.

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"God bless you and your American thighs," he sings.

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Considering it's track two of the Blockbuster Album of 2011 -- and the latest single -- you must know the song: Adele's "Rumour Has It" [delightful British spelling sic]: A stabbing post-breakup romp with the R&B diva's soaring voice front-and-center.

It wouldn't have been the first choice of material for Oakland crunk-pop misfit Wallpaper -- and that's exactly why his cover, just posted by Live 105, is a little shocking. Also, the lyrics: Somewhat ironically, Wallpaper's Ricky Reed nastied-up the tune to ensure his version won't ever get played on the radio, at least not without a lot of bleeping. Hear it after the jump.

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