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This is already shaping up to be a massive summer for music, bolstered by the likes of those dudes with the helmets and the hype around Yeezus. Also on its way is the long-awaited fourth full-length album from M.I.A., Matangi, which has been through a number of versions and created some conflicts between the label and M.I.A. (something about the record being “too positive”).

People love music. They also love to get high. Put the two together and you’re talking about pretty happy humans, provided you pick the right music. What music is that, you ask? Well, Rolling Stone has some, er...ideas. The leadoff choice of Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky with the opening phrase “irony alert” makes us wonder if this wasn’t originally some Father’s Day tribute to dad-rock.

California-born-and-bred Dominique Pruitt is a pop sensation of the old-school variety: heavy on craft and bold on style, each fully her own. With a soulful EP, To Win Your Love, due June 25th, we took a moment to ask the songstress about parental collaborations, underrated instruments, and the allure of the 1960s. Check out ouronversation with Pruitt, plus an exclusive stream of the new track “Victim,” below.

Last week, we found ourselves in love and mesmerized with David Lynch's new single "I'm Waiting Here." Featuring Swedish songstress Lykke Li, the blue-lit and swooning track is the first off Lynch's new album, The Big Dream, due out this summer. As his second foray into the world as a proper recording artist, Lynch carving out his own place as a musician, with a sound that's a bit of an evolution from his first record Crazy Clown Time.

When I hear “cloisters,” I think of nuns, sequestered from the world in safe little gardens and prayer rooms—but that’s only half the story. There’s also  ghosts, and moonlit intrigue, and evil supernatural forces at work, as in The Monk, one of the scariest works of Gothic fiction. That uneasy atmosphere is the one that hangs over this brand-new track from San Francisco’s Yassou Benedict, off their In Fits In Dreams EP.

Don’t get too excited—while this may be the season we all associate with boogie boards and poolside margaritas, for Okkervil River’s Will Sheff, summer is the time for heated self-loathing and steamy despair. The first single, "It Was My Season," from the band’s next album, The Silver Gymnasium, has arrived, along with a charmingly simple video.

Kanye West’s PR team must be high-fiving each other in the office this Monday morning. Not only has a slightly premature Yeezus leak days before West’s grandiosely-named, hard-edged sixth album drops gotten everyone talking about it even more than they already were (and the consensus seems to be pretty favorable, with West generating praise for taking some artistic and content risks), but he and Kim Kardashian welcomed their daughter over the weekend. That kind of publicity one-two punch is the stuff of which Hollywood dreams. And whether the timing was deliberate or not, Kanye and Kim are definitely having a very good week.

Earlier this year, Stockholm’s Shout Out Louds came roaring back with what may be their best album to date, the shimmering Optica. With its electronic textures, it felt like the dance party that lasts till purple dawn. Now their countryman, Jens Lekman, has had a stab at pulling the infectious “14th of July” further into the light.