In the March 30th issue of the Phoenix, I profiled Brooklyn's Friends -- discussing the band's ability to write songs about sociopolitical topics in subtle ways. "It's easy to fall for Friends without ever picking up on their politics," I wrote. "The group's glam-pop '80s-New-York-inspired jams themselves are catchy as hell."

Technically? Not the first time Ms. LeBlanc has released something under her first name. Back in 2001, there appeared an album called This Summer, credited to 15-year-old NOELLE; RCA later re-issued it as Damone’s debut. Now, with a decade of trials and tribulations under her belt, LeBlanc’s new one-off EP Good Ol’ Daze (recorded between Organ Beats albums) takes her back to the start: bedroom-crush lullabies lured into synth-pop reveries.

DUSTIN WONG, formerly of the noisy Baltimore art rock band Ponytail, is releasing his sophomore solo LP on February 21, Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads. His solo jams are laid-back and intricate; Wong uses an array of pedals to loop, layer, and distort experimental tones and textures, making huge hypnotizing soundscapes.

Little Spoon (formerly High Sea) is Allston resident Cameron Potter's local dreamy psych-gaze solo project. Potter sent us two new ultra-inspired jams last night, "Slumber" and "Truss," which you can stream right here via Bandcamp:

Potter appropriately recorded both of these high-vibing introspective tracks in his bedroom, layering and looping synth, vocals, and a few drums.

Jim Hewitt's self-recorded 2010 EP, Imago Demos (under the temporary moniker Young Minds), wasn't just a bedroom project. The Allston songwriter was so uncomfortable singing in front of his roommates that he'd venture out to his car in order to record his vocals in isolation. Recently, Hewitt re-emerged as ORCA ORCA, named for nothing really beyond a casual affinity for killer whales.

We here at the Phoenix have been tracking the progress of Corin Tucker's first post-Sleater-Kinney solo album very closely. Now we have our first actual taste of 1,000 Years, her forthcoming Kill Rock Stars release. It's called "Riley" "Doubt," and while it's definitely not the return of Sleater-Kinney, it still succeeds on its own merits.

When she’s not drawing blood at Mass General, Lady Repo is pouring her own out onto paper. Born Ami Nata — or Queen Mother in Senegalese — the rapper-turned-nursing-aid is as real as they come. Repo cuts into her past like a surgeon with an honesty akin to that of Beanie Sigel. “I don’t know how to water myself down.

If Sarah Palin is a bulldog with lipstick — or whatever that moron called herself — Sheek is a rottweiler in heels posing as a poodle. The girl’s girl from Dorchester may giggle between songs, but when she barks, she barks big. Marking her territory all over Boston, Sheek has performed in most of the major venues and earned radio burn on all the local hip-hop stations.

It’s 6 am on a Sunday morning when Serge Didenko picks me up for a photo shoot, and he’s as bright-eyed as Homer Simpson at a pancake breakfast. At the shoot, he’s jumping over fences and bouncing around the Belmont High School football field. “I’m kind of crazy,” he says, cracking a smile. He’s not kidding.

When Young Don rocked the Fletcher Middle School in Cambridge in eighth grade, his best friend, Chris, soon to become Chief C, wasn’t about to let him get all the attention. The two have been rapping together ever since. Their first mixtape as Certified G’z, Fly Boyz, was “about a whole lot of nothing,” says Don, who recently finished a one-year prison sentence.

It’s a slow, hot Sunday afternoon in Jamaica Plain when I meet the Urban Nerdz by the Stony Brook station. Bouffard Malory keeps jumping up and screaming at the sight of every passing bumble bee; Kay Special alternates between sitting and standing every few minutes; Ace BooGie casually places one leg in the air.

Concep sits in the corner of the Orleans bar and restaurant in Somerville (where I’ve been a waitress for more than two years) on nights when his brother Derrick works the door. Mostly, he’s soft-spoken and keeps to himself, and when he said he rapped, I wasn’t sure what to expect, since he doesn’t sport the arrogant swag that most MCs wear like fur-collar coats.

In the modern entertainment industry, Bay Holla is a Renaissance woman. Rapper, model, actress, philanthropist, street worker, manager, community organizer, and comedian, the Roxbury native is like an urban Rubik’s Cube. “I’m looking to make music,” she says, “but at the end of the day, I do everything.

Before rap came along, Millyz was a singer in his class chorus. “I just wanted to be a singer,” he says, sipping Hennessy at Riverside Pizza in Cambridge, “but I would always try to memorize what rappers said, so I could say it with them when I listened.” Growing up near Central Square, “with all the bums and crackheads and crazies,” Millyz was a white minority.