Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features indie rock by Idle Ray, hyperpop by Dapper Ain't Delirious and Splingus, hip-hop by Gusmão, and punk by Reckless Manner.

Idle Ray, Even in the Spring
Ypsi trio Idle Ray sneak-released this new album with no build-up, though it's been a few years in the making. Idle Ray started out as another solo project for singer-guitarist Fred Thomas, but Even in the Spring shows fellow vocalist-instrumentalists Devon Clausen (bass) and Frances Ma (guitar) fully incorporated into the band as songwriters (and have been for a while as live performers, alongside rotating drummers). While Thomas has written all manner of songs in a three-decade career via numerous projects, Idle Ray has become his twee/indie/noise-pop outlet, and Clausen's "Die at Night" and Ma's “Quiet Cab” and “Halo Undefined” fit perfectly alongside his seven tunes. In many ways, Even in the Spring feels like a continuation of one of Thomas' previous bands, Failed Flowers, which was heavily inspired by Sarah Records and worked with a similar aesthetic: short, punchy, indie-rock songs, recorded with minimal production that frequently dips into lo-fi. 

Dapper Ain't Delirious, id fully id EP
There was a time when electronic music was the main influence on video-game music. But now that video games dominate popular media and young people's brains, it feels like video-game music is one of the driving forces behind electronic music—that's certainly the case on the debut recording by the anonymous Ann Arbor project Dapper Ain't Delirious. The five brief songs here sound like game soundtracks, mixing 8-bit aesthetics and hyperpop kinetics.

Gusmão, Cut Through
University of Michigan assistant professor Gustavo Souza Marques, aka Gusmão, recently released the Urso Futurismo EP, which I said "often sounds like instrumentals meant for a rapper." The newly remastered and reuploaded Cut Through EP is in the same vein—in fact, Maques calls it a "beat tape," and like with Urso, it's a blend of "boom bap, trap, drill, and trip hop with a Brazilian and Latin twist." So, rappers, if you're looking for beats: Pick up the phone, see if Gusmão is home. (Or rather, send him a polite email.)

Splingus, things get slower until they stop
Splingus, WEE
There's no bio info for Ann Arbor's Splingus on its Bandcamp page, but this project features several University of Michigan jazz and classical students playing on it. But at its heart, Splingus sounds like a one-person project since nearly every performance is sped up and augmented by electronics in a hyperpop-meets-video-game-music mashup, rendering the acoustic instruments in new, alien ways. These two albums were released simultaneously, with WEE being the experiments and outtakes that Splingus didn't think fit on things get slower until they stop.

Reckless Manner, "Big White Truck"
This Ann Arbor punk trio has only been at it for a little more than a year, but has already played The Blind Pig several times, all without any recorded music. "Big White Truck" is Reckless Manner's snarky debut single, and it recalls a mixture of Dead Kennedys and '77 punk with its pub rock/rockabilly riffs and sarcastic take on a certain American demographic. 

Christopher Porter is a library technician and the editor of Pulp.