Music from 2 countries celebrating 'birthdays'

We hope our listeners in Canada and the U.S. are enjoying their long weekends celebrating national holidays. And in honor of the 150th anniversary of Canadian confederation (July 1), and the 241st anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence (July 4), we're sticking to those two countries for this week's additions to our New Music bin.

We'll start with another track from Arcade Fire's forthcoming Everything Now collection, which seems to be something of a concept album about modern anxiety-inducing society. "Signs of Life" has some of the same disco influences - and undercurrent of nervous tension - as the title track, which we've been playing for the past month. The rest of the Montreal band's fifth album is due late this month.

Winnipeg's Mise en Scene just released its second full-length, Still Life On Fire and it's generating a lot of buzz. We found the single "Wasters" on the great new-music site The Revue and were quickly sold on a sound that's reminiscent of past bands like The Runaways and The Bangles as well as current groups like Best Coast. Founders Stefanie Blondal Johnson (guitar/vocals) and Jodi Dunlop (drums) are joined by bassist Corey D. Hykawy (bass) to form a high-energy trio.

From the States, we're adding tracks by three indie artists that our regular listeners know well.

Nashville singer/guitarist Tyler Boone continues to try out different sounds. His True Experience EP included flavors of straightforward rock, blues and country-tinged ballads. He's out with a new single, "Short Skirt Bare Knees," that goes full-tilt in the loud blues-rock direction, complete with wailing guitar breaks.

The Right Now's Starlight has been out for a few months now but we feel the need for another dose of this Chicago band's rock-n-soul sound. Most of the album has a polished, retro, big-band sound behind Stefanie Berecz's powerhouse vocals. This time we're featuring the edgier, noisier closing track, "Hooked."

And then because we always like to mix up a wide variety of sounds, we're adding a simple keyboard-and-vocal ballad by Kate Klim. This Ohio-based singer-songwriter is something of a hidden gem. Her albums Kamikaze Love (2011) and 100 Million Years (2014) are filled with well-crafted and highly evocative songs about small moments with big meanings. She's cut back on performing and recording lately to focus on her young family, but recently shared with her fans a "bedroom demo" of a song about making waves, called "Gaileo Galilei," And by special arrangement, we can now share it with you.