1. Samantha Crain “I Guess We Live Here Now”
2. The Spirit of the Beehive “Entertainment, Death”
3. Bruiser Wolf “Dope Game Stupid”

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.

Samantha Crain “I Guess We Live Here Now”

For more than a decade, Samantha Crain has been putting out wonderful folk-rock records from her home base in Shawnee, Okla., about 40 miles east of Oklahoma City. Shawnee is no doubt a fine place to be from, but it doesn’t exactly hum with the same kind of big-city buzz as a New York City or even a Portland, which is probably a big reason Crain is one of the more overlooked and underappreciated talents within the Americana scene. Her songs are heartfelt and well-crafted, her voice is consistently compelling and each of her albums reward repeat listens. “I Guess We Live Here Now” is her new EP, just out last week, and it is as beautiful as it is brief.

The Spirit of the Beehive

“Entertainment, Death”

I was today years old when I learned The Spirit of the Beehive is named after a very well-regarded 1973 film. I just thought it was a Philly indie-rock band with a weird name. And not just any Philly indie-rock band, but one of the best, which is saying something, because that city pumps out a lot of good indie-rock bands. What The Spirit of the Beehive does really well is write and record catchy little pop songs and then bend them and twist them and coat them in a layer of buzzy fuzz and add a synth squiggle here or some unexpected percussion there, all without sacrificing their melodic charm. That’s not easy to do, and this band does it well.

Bruiser Wolf

“Dope Game Stupid”

As long as there are rappers, there will be different rapping and rhyming styles. If some of today’s most prevalent flows — the Migos triplet, mumble-rap, Drake’s singsong style, etc. — are starting to wear thin, check out Bruiser Wolf, an associate of another very distinctive MC, Danny Brown. On his debut album “Dope Game Stupid,” the Detroit rapper more or less speaks instead of raps, unspooling a seemingly endless supply of clever lines and metaphors in his own herky-jerky way. He sounds like a cross between Bay Area legend E-40 and, as one album review put it, “a breathless jogger attempting to talk.” If that sounds odd, well … it is. But it’s also endearing and engaging and different, which is always good.