1. Big Thief “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You”
2. Various artists “Duppy Vaulted (2011-2021)”
3. Godspeed You Black Emperor “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven”

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.

Big Thief, “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You”

It’s not every year that you hear an album in early February and think you may have already found the best album of the year. But that may just be the case with the fifth full-length from New York City indie-folk-rock band Big Thief. A sprawling 20-track collection, “Dragon” is a showcase for a skilled, adventurous band and, most of all, its leader, a woman named Adrianne Lenker who writes better songs than just about anyone else right now. Memorable melodies, impressive lyrics, inventive arrangements … “Dragon” has it all. This one will be near the top of all the year-end lists, so you can wait and check it out then or you can jump on board now.

Various artists

“Duppy Vaulted (2011-2021)”

Released in the hottest part of last summer, “Duppy Vaulted” documents a decade of the Duppy Gun record label, a venture started by well-known experimental artists Cameron Stallones and M. Geddes Gengras for the purpose of releasing collaborations between Jamaican singers and top-shelf producers from around the world. The 19 tracks on this compilation are truly from the Duppy vault, in that they didn’t make it onto official releases from the label. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a whole bunch of heaters here, though. A variety of styles are represented, including dembow, dancehall, trap-pop and dub, and featured artists include I Jahbar, Lopo, Sikka Rymes and G Sudden. The common thread? If it’s on “Duppy Vaulted,” it bangs. Hard.

Godspeed You Black Emperor, “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven”

In 1994, the Canadian post-rock collective Godspeed You Black Emperor released just 33 copies of its first album, “All Lights F**ked on the Hairy Amp Drooling.” Since then, it had never shown up on the internet, and it was assumed that all copies had been lost and the music would never surface. But on Feb. 4, someone posted the whole thing to 4chan, and 10 days later, the band posted it to Bandcamp, seemingly confirming its authenticity. I was going to write about it, but with the naughty word on the album cover and in the URL, it’s just too complicated. So instead, here’s GYBE’s perfect 2000 album, a four-part mountain of cinematic post-rock, unnerving vocal samples and apocalyptic vibes. It’s not only GYBE’s masterpiece, it’s also one of the best albums of the 21st century so far.