Hey, what's up everyone? Hard to believe we're coming on 75 editions of this series, and even harder to believe that there are still songs left on my playlist that haven't been used. You're about to get acquainted with a few of them.

We're going to start with a song from my favorite Russians, folk/black metal outfit Arkona. This song comes from their newest album, Khram ("Temple"), and is interesting for its progressive elements and the blending of folk melodies with synths. The song caught me right away with its strident yet subtle guitar riff intro. The song, "V Pogonie Za Beloj Ten'yu" is about a quest for an ever illusive and possibly fictive thing, the "white shadow," and so the song itself is a meditation on how faith and the search for knowledge and meaning can lead us on ultimately pointless quests. There's a more contemplative and brooding sound to this song than you'd usually find in Arkona, who are more known for raucous folksy tunes and blistering blasts of black metal.

Up next is a song that's sure to lighten your mood, a wonderful synthesis of indie and electronica sound. This is "Light My Way" by Lavender Diamond.

Next we have a bit of a musical curio in this track by Son House. Son House, of course, was a legend of blues, and alongside Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters I'd say he belongs on the Mount Rushmore of blues. This song, Shetland Pony Blues, was recorded on a several hundred pound recording device by American ethnomusicologist (say that three times fast) Alan Lomax while Son House and his fellow musicians performed the song on the porch of a general store. In fact, you can hear an actual train chugging by while they play around 1:20 in. This is "Shetland Pony Blues."

And last up, I wanted to end with a song from a band that strangely has never featured in this series until now. Passion Pit, fronted by lead singer and keyboardist Michael Angelikos, is driven by two competing forces: depression and elation. Actually, it's mostly just depression, with Angelikos creating almost saccharine sweet songs in defiance to his depression. With every Passion Pit song I've ever heard, there's a certain vulnerability, as if at any given moment the happy melodies might take a nosedive into mordancy and depression. This song is called "Moth Wings," and includes the exhortation, "Come lay with me on the ground," which depending on how you view it could either be an invitation to join the speaker in an intimate moment, or an invitation to join him in death. Which one is it? You decide for yourself.