Jeff Mangum, "Live at Jittery Joe's"

1. Jeff Mangum “Live at Jittery Joe’s
2. Sa-Roc “The Sharecropper’s Daughter”
3. Baroness, “Red Album”

Bandcamp is an online music platform used largely by independent artists and record labels to stream songs and sell merchandise. It’s also a vibrant virtual community teeming with interesting sounds just waiting to be discovered. Each week, I’ll highlight three releases available on the site that are well worth your time and attention. If you find something you dig, please consider supporting the artist with a purchase. To fit in with the theme of this week’s GO! Magazine, below are three albums by artists from the great state of Georgia.

Sa-Roc “The Sharecropper’s Daughter”

With apologies to L.A. and the cool scene in Chicago, Atlanta has been the hip-hop capital of America for years, and the city’s roster of talented rappers ranges from legends (Outkast, T.I.) and mega-stars (2Chainz, Future) to oddballs (Father, Young Thug) and next-big-things (Lil Baby, Russ). And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Bubbling under is an MC named Sa-Roc, who released her debut album on indie-rap tastemaking label Rhymesayers last fall. Don’t sleep on it. Sa-Roc is a skilled writer and a sturdy rapper with a predilection for thoughtful rhymes and punchy, soulful beats, and overall, “Sharecropper’s Daughter” is efficient and impressive. Here’s hoping she can rise up through the ATL crowd.

Baroness “Red Album”

For a long time, the small coastal enclave of Savannah boasted an outsized metal scene, with bands like Kylesa, Black Tusk and Circle Takes the Square all active at around the same time. But the best of the bunch was — and still is — Baroness, a quartet equally adept at heavy sludge-punk riffs, gentle acoustic guitar picking, arena-ready pop-metal and growling alt-rock grooves. The band’s catalog is a well-worth a deep dive, and their best album is 2012’s sprawling, ambitious “Yellow & Green,” which would’ve made them huge if not for a terrible tour bus crash in 2012 that put Baroness on the shelf for a few years. But you might as well start with “Red Album,” their 2007 debut that showcases frontman John Baizley’s expansive songwriting and simply hints at the band Baroness would become.

Jeff Mangum “Live at Jittery Joe’s”

The fertile music scene in Athens, Georgia needs no introduction. R.E.M. made it famous, The B-52’s and Widespread Panic are from there, as are cult-fave bands like Pylon, Of Montreal, Japancakes, Drive-By Truckers, The Glands and on and on. And for a time in the 1990s, Athens was a major hub city for the Elephant 6 Collective, a group of bands that made psychedelic indie-pop of a particularly scruffy stripe. If you’re unfamiliar, check out Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, The Minders, Beulah and, the best-known of the bunch, Neutral Milk Hotel.

The frontman of that last band, Jeff Mangum, is a transcendent singer-songwriter, and “Live at Jittery Joe’s” documents a solo show he played at an Athens coffeehouse in 1997.

Go, listen and welcome his melodies into your life for however much longer you’re here.