Minimalist dream-pop and experimental folk artist, Lady Lazarus, has had a great year with the release of her debut album, Mantic, receiving kudos from Pitchfork, Stereogum, One Thirty BPM, and the like. Now check out her latest song, Story of an Artist, an intimate, beautiful cover of a Daniel Johnston favorite.

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The Travis Louie cover on Les Claypool’s latest offering Fungi and Foe serves as the perfect lure into a backwoods intellectual playground of the man who graced us with the iconic group Primus. A grovin’ bass player with Captain Beefheart cool and Daniel Johnston soul, Les paints lovingly jagged portraits of something slightly akin to real life in the shadow of an abundant imagination.

The Tinklers suck, but that’s what makes them so great. Their atonal, monotonous singing, and nearly non-existent musicianship have certainly won them some virulent detractors, but their unabashed niceness has attracted just as many loyal fans. Much in the vein of Half Japanese and Daniel Johnston, the Baltimore duo has plunked out silly, out-of-tune folk and pop numbers for 30 years, becoming indie icons in the process. Charles Brohawn and Chris Mason are classic underdogs, plugging on against all odds, and their harshest critics miss the point of what they do. A recent documentary about them, Everybody Loves the Tinklers, explores the impact the band has made, and addresses the controversial space they occupy in pop culture.