Bowers & Wilkins, producers of totally sick, high-end audio equipment, is showing love to music fans with an unusual approach for gear makers. B&W Music Club puts out exclusive albums recorded at Peter Gabriel’s studio, and available to members in a lossless file format (as to avoid compromising the superior recording quality as it reaches your B&W speakers). One album will be released every month by artists including Skip McDonald, Gwyneth Herbert and Grindhouse. Even if you haven’t heard of any of them, it will probably be worth checking out just for the quality of sound.

Overall it’s really progressive program. Based on the membership fee, each album (in digital format) costs the consumer about $5. The artist gets a high-five from B&W as well, by getting the rights to their music two months after the initial release on Music Club. The motivation for this series is seems to be experimentation in sound rather than the ‘best-seller’ mantra of your traditional label. Definitely a refreshing move from an old school head.

From the moment the music faded in on the first track “Sit & Sink,” I knew The Graduate would be a breath of fresh air. Formed in 2005, the group is a collaboration between five long-term friends. Their music is described as mature pop-rock and I agree with that label. They’re edgy and you can rock out, but it’s still very listenable. If you like Simple Plan or Jack’s Mannequin, you may find them appealing. They have been featured many times on MySpace’s front page and on the cover of CMJ. Not about to rest on their laurels, the band has been touring extensively, playing over 200 shows in the past year. Their album, Anhedonia, was released last year but is being re-released this year to accompany their new tour, which starts on July 11th at the Troubadour in L.A. See you there!

The stress of pronouncing the strings of consecutive consonants in DJ Sasha Crnobrnja’s name are easily remedied with a simple name cutting simple breaks. Cosmic Rocker’s Action Breaks Remixes EP explores a fun side of down tempo that plays like something between K&D Sessions and a less ornate take on Wagon Christ’s style. Stuff that may have had its finest hour at least a decade ago, but if you remember correctly (as I do), was totally head-bobbingly awesome. Just play track 2, “Tonic”– note a break you’ve heard at intervals from Brand Nubian to Vibert to Spank Rock, and try not to tap your sneaker. It’s gonna be hard.

The Brooklyn Brothers‘ mission to cut through the crap that is any brand’s “intended image” is one that will inevitably cure the quarter-inch, 15-second attention span that most of us have formed to protect us from bombardment. Every one of the spots from the ‘Music Is…’ campaign for Fuse TV is conceptually simple, honest, and totally engaging visually. Ranging from film to animation, there is no strict stylistic theme within the collection aside from the tagline, yet each invokes a similar feeling of fleeting delight. My personal favorite is ‘Music Is a Time Machine’ (I’m a sucker for a tight beatbox).

Gregg Gillis, better known as Girl Talk, might just be the Mash Up king of the world. (Here are some tracks to listen to and tour dates to keep up with on his Myspace page.) His latest album creation, Feed The Animals, is — if I may borrow some slang — off the hook. Dirty South rap mixed with Motown; pop music mixed with rock — wait, did I just hear Ace Of Base? You have to listen to believe it. Similar to Radiohead, Gills has deployed a pay-what-you-wish model that has been allowing people to download the entire album as a high-quality 320kbps MP3. You can nab it for free, pay $5 for FLAC files and a seamless mix, or $10 and get all of the above plus a packaged CD when it becomes available. Or you could just throw the guy a $20 … because he is single handedly making music fun to listen to again.

David Ford’s latest album was actually released a few months ago, but I really want you guys to know about it. Shortly after the dissolution of his band Easyworld, Ford started a series of small solo gigs. He quickly gained fans due to his clear commitment and passion for the songs he performed. His voice has its rounded edges, but still maintains that slight raspiness that seems to be a requisite for all male artists these days. Ford is also known for the loops he employs in his songs, but instead of being annoying they they actually work well in carrying the vocals. I’ve listened to “Songs For The Road” three times over already. Now it’s your turn to check it out.

David Bowie, Bootsy Collins, and Gary Glitter may have exemplified rock’s wildness in fashion (among other things), but they weren’t the first to challenge the status quo. In the days since these legends, many a musician has gone off the deep end with their onstage apparel. Two years ago journalist and London DJ Paul Gorman released The Look: Adventures in Rock and Pop Fashion, a book that peered back at these outrageous trends.

Now, for you non-readers, with the help of Nigel Waymouth’s (Granny Take a Trip) sinister designs, Antony Price’s elegant tailoring and Wonder Workshop’s penchant for glam, he’s launching a men’s line inspired by clothing of the ’70s and ’80s. Check out the T-shirts out at thelookpresents.com and go a little wild yourself.

If you took a listen to Jessie Baylin’s new record Firesight without glancing at the album cover, you’d probably guess she was older than her 24 years. Based in Los Angeles by way of New Jersey, Baylin has a voice that is comforting, but not defenseless. There is a noticeable fight in the folk/jazz singer’s tone. Working with an all-star cast of producers and songwriters, and featuring guest appearances by Hotel Cafe alumni Cary Brothers and Brett Dennen, Firesight is easy listening at its finest. Baylin has been featured on the forth-annual Hotel Cafe Tour, sharing the bill with other singer/songwriters such as Ingrid Michelson, Greg Laswell, and the aforementioned Brothers. Her album drops June 24th. You can listen to a stream of her single “See How I Run” here.

Sometimes the best thing about catching an arena rock spectacle isn’t your favorite headliner, but the chance to see some pretty amazing opening acts before they start selling out arenas. If you’ve already snatched up tickets to the late summer leg of Coldplay’s North American summer tour (hitting a venue near you from July 20th to August 4th) we recommend you arrive at the show extra early to catch supporting act Santogold. The Brooklyn-based band fronted by Santi White busts out bombastic, bass-heavy tunes that mix elements of indie rock, punk, reggae and electro music that will add a little bounce to the step of Coldplay fans getting their quiet chill on.

What do you do if you want to be a standout artist in a saturated genre? If you’re Swedish born Theresa Andersson, you approach the challenge in a non-conventional way. Andersson, who played every instrument on her new album, drew inspiration from her surroundings and combined them into 12 tracks recorded in her kitchen-turned-recording studio. “Hummingbird, Go!” is a musical journey with sounds reminiscent of the music you may have found on the radio 30 years ago. The music of each instrument (wine glasses, a violin, and vibraphone among them) is relatively simple but there is a complexity in how they are layered. The album is slated for release on September 2nd. Pick it up for a wonderfully relaxing, laying on your hammock on a Sunday afternoon, experience. In the meantime, you can watch her music video for “Na Na Na”

The other day, a guitar fanatic friend of mine - who incidentally also handcrafts guitars for an impressive list of virtuosos you’d all know - burst into the room looking like a kid fresh off of his first roller coaster ride, and began spouting off about this new Paul Vo designed Moog Guitar. When I was able to to calm him down enough so that he could speak sufficiently clear for me to understand what he was saying, he began explaining to me why the release of this guitar is such a big deal. See, the ‘guitar’ as we all know it employs technology that is older than most of our parents– over the years, Bob Moog has breathed freshness into the instrument by way of his synthesizers and effects; those changed the way modern guitarists approached the instrument because they broadened musical possibilities.

This guitar is - as I understand it - a landmark addition to the guitar family because it (on its own) vastly widens the range of sonic options through its ‘infinite sustain’ and muting capabilities. Plus, it goes for $6,500, so it must be an ass-kicker, right? Any feedback from our guitar heroes out there?

Related: Wired’s Moog Unveils Badass Guitar with Infinite Sustain

Anyone in the industries of marketing, graphic design, advertising, film-making, journalism, publishing, and way more knows that the indispensability of Getty Images ranks right up there with Apple and oxygen. It’s a one-stop place to shop for a mind-bogglingly huge array of images, footage, and music and is relied upon by creative types worldwide.

Now, Getty Images has tapped even further into the mindset of right-brained creative types with Moodstream, a kick-ass new brainstorming search tool. It's amazingly intuitive user interface starts with a presets wheel where you start the foundation of your search by choosing feelings that stabilize, simplify, intensify, refresh, excite, or inspire. Then you fine-tune from there– make the mood happier or sadder, turn the images nostalgic or contemporary, go for a vibe that's warmer or cooler, and much more. As you adjust the settings, the site plays different tracks from its music library to match what you've chosen, and each time you refresh your settings you're taken down a completely new road of imagery, sound, and video footage.

As you gather materials that ‘work,’ you can collect them together into individual Moodboards that you can save online– ideal for working on multiple projects at once or, if something's not working, forgetting about it for a while before coming back to attack it again. Though with a creativity boosting tool like this at your fingertips, inspiration probably won't be much of a problem.

Have a look at London based designer Dan Mumford’s portfolio. He's produced some really fluid prints and appeal showcasing his career as a freelance illustrator, designer and screen printer. We especially love the shark series he did for music group the Gallows. I didn't know who the Gallows were until I looked them up on iTunes. I can't vouch for the music, but Dan's design work for the group and others is definitely worth a look. We can chalk this one up as another example that you can't judge a book by its cover, but that doesn't mean you can't take the cover off and admire it in its own right.

Rarely does a new musical artist grab me by the heart and stop me in my tracks. Stockholm’s young and gorgeous Lykke Li wins the prize– I’m floored. Talented, humble, delicate, and even dare I say visionary. Her music is eerie, warming, and thought provoking– and so incredibly mature for such a young person. Be sure to listen to Window Blues, and Little Bit– two of my favorites. Her new album Youth Novels isn’t available online in the Americas yet but you can grab it, shipped to your mailbox here.

You can however nab the Little Bit EP on iTunes pictured, or enjoy several other tracks on her full-of-content Myspace page for free. Looks like she’s on tour through England, western Europe and all over Scandinavia over the next few months. I’ll be making one of her shows and will probably be patiently waiting outside on one knee to propose. I love you Lykke Li.

When reading a comic, the speaker is the character with a word bubble above his head. In everyday waking life our words don’t hover above our person to allow everyone within peering distance to catch our conversational content. For that, we employ another kind of speaker, the kind that blares song lyrics or comedy routines, not to mention embarrassing best man speeches we blurt into a microphone. These different definitions of the word speaker are echoed in designer Sherwood Forlee’s design concept for a speaker set. Forlee has created a pair of noiseboxes shaped like the speech surroundings of something said by Superman that just might sing the sounds of Sinatra or The Shins. Pretty awesome.