Many flavors on this week's new-music menu

This week's New Music picks range from Canadian folk, to Americana, to dream-pop, to Australian rock.

Tara MacLean lives on Canada's West Coast but grew up on the East Coast and celebrates the Atlantic music tradition on her first release in nine years, Atlantic Blue. Although a songwriter herself, here she devotes herself to covering works by other Atlantic artists. We've chosen the title track (written by the late Ron Hynes from Newfoundland) to feature in our New Music bin.

Folk and bluegrass traditions form the background for Avenhart, a six-piece from Denver. Members of the band came together in a Colorado University bluegrass ensemble, and were later joined by lead singer Andrea Pares. They began playing local venues and recording just last year, working with student-run label CAM Records to release their debut, self-titled EP. We're picking up on "Enough," a breakup song with the refrain "I never want to see you again / No matter how much I do."

Photo: Shawn Brackbill

Baltimore-area dreamers Beach House just released B-Sides and Rarities, a collection of singles, alternate mixes of past album cuts and two previously-unreleased songs from the Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars sessions. Pitchfork commented "It’s a testament to the band’s consistency that [it] plays nearly as smoothly as a proper Beach House album." We're putting one of the new songs, "Chariot," into our New Music rotation.

Only a year after the Turning Into Water EP brought Maybird to our attention, the group is back with Unraveling. Originally from Rochester, N.Y., and now based in Brooklyn, Maybird traveled to Nashville to work on this collection with The Black Keys' Patrick Carney. The result is a sound that's perhaps a bit poppier but with Maybird's signature combination of indie-folk and multi-layered psych-rock. We're featuring "Bluebird Flew Away."

And we're adding another track from the debut album by Melbourne's Jacobs Run. We've been spinning "Use" for about a month now. Now we're adding "Hold On A Minute," a rocker that brings to mind the likes of R.E.M. and Foo Fighters.