The 16 best tracks from the last four weeks. For a minute there, it looked like there weren’t going to be enough great tunes to make another cloudcast in 2012, but while it’s taken an extra two weeks, I hope you’ll agree that these tracks are more than worthy of your attention. What you’ll hear:

• a husband and wife duo channelling The Cult and the Jesus and Mary Chain
• baroque psych pop from the Netherlands (and Los Angeles)
• electropop from Sweden
• proggy indie rock from Oxford
• moody analogue electronica from Adelaide

Plus a bunch of 80s references from Vangelis’s Bladerunner score to The Cure and gothy post-punk and a Fleetwood Mac cover for good measure.

Haunted Hearts ‘Something That Feels Bad Is Something That Feels Good’
Married couple Dee Dee Penny (Dum Dum Girls) and Brandon Welchez (Crocodiles) team up for their new project. Pitchfork compared this to Automatic-era Jesus and Mary Chain and while I get that, you’d have to be deaf not to hear the influence of Billy Duffy on those guitars.
[Haunted Hearts]

Pacific Air ‘Float’
Los Angeles duo (who recently changed their name from KO KO) with insanely catchy, effervescent pop tune.
[Pacific Air]

Girls Names ‘Hypnotic Regression’
Third appearance this year for the Belfast band whose gothy post-punk is almost Krautrock in its rhythmic insistence, with flanged guitars and basslines that recall the early work of The Cure.
[Girls Names]

Kate Boy ‘In Your Eyes’
Swedish electropop duo indebted to The Knife follow up their debut track ‘Northern Lights’ (featured in ITP #22) with another instant classic.
[Kate Boy]

Majical Cloudz ‘What That Was’
Montreal musician Devon Welsh contributed to the Grimes album, but this is much more wistful stuff. This sounds like one of those lost early 90s pop bands like Poppy Factory.
[Majical Cloudz]

Chromatics ‘Cherry’
Portland electronic band follow up this year’s Kill For Love album with a new tune. It’s 80s paleofuturism in the vein of one of M83’s more atmospheric moments
[Chromatics]

Grave Babies ‘Over and Underground’
Gothic post-punk with strong melodic pop bent from Seattle-based NIN and Nirvana fan Danny Wahlfeldt.
[Grave Babies]

Jacco Gardner ‘The Ballad of Little Jane’
Dutch baroque psych pop.
[Jacco Gardener]

Maston ‘Young Hearts’
Baroque psych pop from Los Angeles.
[Maston]

Mean Jeans ‘I Miss Outerspace’
Melodic punk from Portland
[Means Jeans]

Pet Moon ‘Hold The Divide’
Proggy indie rock from Oxford led by former Youthmovies Soundtrack Strategies frontman Andrew Mears.
[Pet Moon]

How To Destroy Angels_ ‘Ice Age (The Soft Moon Remix)’
What was the quite lovely minimal stand out track from the An Omen_EP gets a bruising atmospheric makeover from San Francisco neo-post punk types The Soft Moon.
[How To Destroy Angels]

Rites Wild ‘Rites Wild Theme’
Adelaide’s Stacey Wilson makes moody analogue electronica.
[Rites Wild]

Mountains ‘Living Lens’
Atmospheric instrumental droning – but much better than that makes it sound.
[Mountains]

Oneohtrix Point Never ‘Blue Drive’
This is an old Daniel Lopatin track that’s part of the recently re-issued Rifts compilation that collects all his early work under the Oneohtrix Point Never name. This could be lifted directly from Vangelis’ Bladerunner score, it’s that good.
[Oneohtrix Point Never]

Julia Holter ‘Gold Dust Woman’
Many have raved about Julia Holter’s 2012 debut album Ekstasis. Some of us have failed to get excited about it as, although it sounds great, there’s a distinct lack of tunes. Here, she rectifies this by borrowing one from Fleetwood Mac.
[Julia Holter]