Ted Leo combines punkish energy with a strong ear for pop melody and a love of falsetto vocals. Indie rock critics have gone utterly superlative describing his recent releases, but don’t hold that against him.

The site’s Music page has over a dozen tracks for download, but to my mind the standouts are Me And Mia, a song that won’t leave my frickin’ head, and the guitar riff on Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone.

Mike Doughty is better known to the world as the former lead singer of the fabulous Soul Coughing. When the latter broke up, Doughty moved away from its samples-heavy groove style into a more singer-songwriter vein. His lyrics also shifted from stream-of-consciousness into some really striking poetry. If you listen to his solo stuff expecting more Soul Coughing, you’ll be disappointed; if you listen to it on its own merits, it’s great stuff.

His new album, “Haughty Melodic”, is one of my favorites this year, if not the leader. He doesn’t have any tracks for download on his site, but Amazon’s currently offering the lead single, Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well, as a free download.

Yat-Kha are a Tuvan band mixing rock with traditional Tuvan throat singing (a method of singing more than one note at once by hitting the right resonances). The result is both a low, gravely drone and a high, flute-like sound.

The band’s got a lot of tracks on their CDs page, including some great tunes like Ahoi, but the true gem is their cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart.