Here's one from a continent you don't see too often in instro: The Moths hail from South Africa and their sound reflects the look of the album cover here pretty well. It's raw, ragged, and punk-styled. This three-song live EP and their LP from last year are free to download

These Chilean folk definitely don't sound like every other band. While the prominent saxophone may be historically common, it's always a little surprising to hear in modern groups. More surprising is the sitar and the Street Fighter "HADOUKEN". But more importantly, their tone is much different, sometimes definitely not always sticking to the major chords, sometimes sounding a little atonal (I'm assuming intentionally).

Plain ol' Peanut-butter-n-Jelly surf instros with an upbeat vibe from Argentina. I found all six tracks enjoyable, and the drummer seems especially eager. Give 'em a quick listen!

Khruangbin have released 3 EPs this year, two of which were teetering on the edge of surf/rock & roll -- and I decided they were over the edge. This one I think is far enough in our camp, and I think they all deserve a listen if you want to hear something different. They're a little surfy, a little jazzy, dreamy, some krautrock in there...

This one is all (mostly obscure) covers and a little more tight than their other EPs. I'll just go ahead and post them all below

Surfin' Fariseos hail from Chile and love to make a racket. They've got 10 loud and fast instumentals here including 3 covers -- though currently missing an album cover. I think that's a mistake, but sometimes it's nice to listen to something without an album cover telling you how to listen to it. Just me telling you it's pretty raucous. And available for however much you want to pay.

Once I only knew about maybe three Mexican surf bands (Lost Acapulco, Telekrimen, Twin Tones). I always thought it seemed a bit low considering the great things I've heard about the crowds at Mexican surf shows. Bandcamp seemed to open the floodgates, and among other groups, Dr. Tritón came out. This EP is a handful of dark and moody instrumentals to match the album cover. My favorite is probably Pistolera Lady Mamacita

Evil Waves hail from Valpraiso Indiana playin' trashy, dark lo-fi instros. They're saying that Vol 2 is following shortly behind in early 2015. Give it a listen!

Tuareg have an interesting thing going. Two guitarists in Middle Eastern garb (from Spain), no other bandmates, with both their album covers depicting them surfing on a wave of feces. That may not be 100% clear on this one, but it is on their previous album cover, where the brown wave comes straight fromthe toilet. It's unique, I'm pretty sure of that, and I don't think anybody's going to steal it. As you might expect, this isn't supposed to be relaxing, it's meant to be loud!

That's no NES game cover, that's a space band. Tsunami Experiment hail from Pennsylvania playing sci-fi surf. I hear a lil' bit of piano on their song Mission to Mars, which is always nice to hear. Right now you can only purchase the album on Bandcamp, but they're accepting preorders on CDs and vinyl for February and March respectively. Head on over to bandcamp if you wanna grab it!

While Brazil has no shortage of great surf groups, if you asked me to name the first that comes to mind, it would probably be the Dead Rocks. They've been around for about 10 years now and put out some great albums, my favorites being International Brazillian Surfs and One Million Dollar Surf Band. They're relentless promoters and have made their music easy to obtain across the world. And most importantly, who can forget those sharp outfits. After a brief Spaghetti Western stint on their last LP, they're back to plain ol' surf and doing it well.