My friend once told me something so right, he said to be careful of thieves in the night

Although they’ve always been one of my favorite bands, it is my personal assessment that Hot Chip can do no wrong. It doesn’t hurt that their last three albums are pretty perfect examples of thoughtful pop music that can make you dance and swoon at the same time (sounds like a hipster party to me!). Of course they keep the disco freshness rolling in, but there’s an added layer of quiet sentimentality that runs parallel to the playful blip-blop electronics they are so known for. Tracks such as Alley Cats (**best of album**) and Keep Quiet point towards a Hot Chip that is comfortable enough in their style to deliver delicately sung meditations on life between the dance parties. Hot Chip seems to have endured the test of time for our most scrupulous of generations, and continue to offer up innovative pop music that simultaneously defines and expands their sound.

Best tracks: to be honest, the only song that I haven’t played over and over (pardon the pun) is Slush.

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I’ve previously mentioned my love for Delphic, but upon hearing that they signed to Universal for the release of their debut album, Acolyte, I feared they would go the route of many over-hyped bands (like Passion Pit) and reduce their sound to a more comfortable exercise in dancey electronic pop, palatable to the coveted 18-34 set. Instead, they’ve refined their sound and vision, and emerged a more determined post-dance electrorock band. This strong debut combines the most energetic moments of bands like Friendly Fires with beautifully composed electronic sounds a la Hot Chip. Old favorites Counterpoint, This Momentary, and Doubt remain relatively unchanged, but new songs such as Red Lights and Remain provide a enticing look at a pulsing, anthemic Delphic that screams for life on the stage. Check them out on their tour of Europe this winter and be sure to keep an eye on Kitsune for more artists that can make you dance to practically anything.

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here are two prior releases. they’re pretty good too. i think the song “old folks” on the 7″ is awesome, maybe you will too.

these peeps are from Jersey. they have a song called Atlantic City. i fell in love with ac this summer, it’s an awesome place to go and buy tons of m&ms and meet famous trashy people. this is some surf-pop psychy lackadaisical music that i challenge you not to enjoy. all you really need are the 7″ and atlantic city expressway, but the s/t sounds nicer all together and has a few great tracks near the end. the reality ep on mexican summer (one of my favorite labels with releases from ariel pink, kurt vile, washed out, pearl harbor, weekend, and more) is really great as well.

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YAY! Annie Clark, Texan multi-instrumentalist and guitar shredder extraordinaire delivers on the promise of her genre-busting first album with Actor, a sweetly composed 21st century baroque cacophony about the performativity of postmodern Western life. An intricately orchestral rock album, it delivers at once a manifesto and eulogy for our vapid culture. Or whatever, read it how you like; I just came from an art history symposium. This is one of my top five albums so far this year (including The Big Pink, the xx, Delorean, and Bibio), and it rivals in quality its predecessor Marry Me. She is extremely talented, gently hardcore, and soon to be very influential. This is an essential 2009 release on the (as always) incredible 4AD.

Favorite tracks: The Strangers, Marrow, Actor Out Of Work, Laughing With A Mouth of Blood, Just The Same But Brand New

For proof of her guitar-shredding skillz, check out some photos I got of her performance at All Points West this summer!

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UPDATE: link includes V0 version

Yup, it leaked a while ago. It’s great. I kinda hoped this wasn’t the cover art because I feel like he creates much better (more interesting) stuff, but whatever. The album itself is excellent, though hang onto those old leaked demos and unmastered versions from last year if you have him, cuz there are definitely some cuts and changes. Overall, the record is a delicately refined and polished version of songs you can tell he’s been working on for the past 4+ years or so. An astoundingly beautiful sophomore release. I keep getting more effusive as I write because I started listening when I started writing the post.

Check him out as he tours North America with Broadcast this fall/winter! He’s in Philly October 18th.

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My interpretation: New Order “took a walk down to the beach.” Enjoy. They’re apparently the latest and greatest in indie rock. I quite enjoy it, because it’s like The Smiths for people who are happy and not losers (jk meat is murder yall lolz).

They have an official EP called Summertime! out soon, but this is what’s been floating around and it’s at good quality so grab it. 8 tracks and all are incredibly sunny and catchy. My personal favorites are: I Felt Stupid, Let’s Go Surfing, Me and the Moon, Best Friend

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link is in the comments

This is one of my favorite albums of all time. Shocking Pinks are from New Zealand, which is an beautiful and nice country. They’re on the most famous (only? jk) label in NZ, Flying Nun Records, home to The Chills, The Verlaines, and numerous other Dunedin Sound pop and post-punk bands in the 80s and 90s. This album is a compilation of their previous two albums released by Flying Nun, slapped together with some fancy/strange cover art and a beautiful DFA logo, their American label home. It’s fuzzy, melodic, and gives me nostalgia reminiscent of New Order and driving fast in the middle of the night. It’s probably all the cowbell.

This album will make you want to stay in high school forever. (Too soon?)

Best tracks: The Aching Deal, Emily, How Am I Not Myself?, Second Hand Girl, fuck it’s only 45 minutes, just loop it

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YESSSSSSS. Can’t……not….

…..
summer.
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Arctic Monkeys made a third album. It’s more stoner-rocky. They’re not derivative or washed up. Yay! MORE ARCTIC MONKEYS!

Saw them at a few festivals this summer and they are always really fun live. This album won’t change music or your world, but it’s good confirmation that they weren’t just hype and they’re probably here to stay.

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UPDATE: I’ve included their previous EPs and singles, Too Young To Love, Stop The World, Dominos, Velvet, and a V0 of A Brief History of Love [link after jump]

Without boring you too much, I’d like to say that I think this band is something really special. I’ve been following them since I heard of them and their “post-shoegaze” label, and then about the concept for their album. All songs about love. All its dirty, fucked up, reverbed, fuzzy, droned-out anthemic wistful suckiness. That is sexy and sad and dirty and hopeful and dead and alive.

The album came out September 13th, 2009. The single “Dominos” was released as a free, 320k download a month prior. Numerous EPs and singles have been released in the few years (?) of their existence and are sprinkled around online, and I’ve collected what I’ve found here.

Be sure to check out their Myspace, complete with awesomely obscure and eclectic YouTube clips speaking to love and its many moods, and to see if they’re gonna be in your area when they tour the US this fall/winter!
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Ah well this just goes to show you how backed up my posts are due to exams. Cymbals Eat Guitars is a completely new band out of Staten Island, NY, formed via Craigslist (oh yeah). They’ve started out strong with this, their debut effort Why There Are Mountains. At first listen it evokes the best of 90s jangly rock bands, with newer contenders such as The Walkmen bearing strong resemblance on more melodic songs. Overall, it is the type of non-confrontational but consistently innovative indie rock music we’ve become accustomed to, complete with the occasional Pavement-inspired raucous crash and slacker jam sessions that remind me of Dinosaur Jr. Full of garage band static fuzz and gentle noisy reverb, this is a summer album in bits and pieces, one you’ll blast at full volume driving down a highway and then again the day before school starts, looking at the sunset from a rooftop. It’s the type of album you listen to and wonder, ” hasn’t this been written before?” and it becomes instantly recognizable and comfortable. At its most anthemic, the album is the closest thing New York can ever get to a British Sea Power album. A classic, you might say.

Best Tracks: And The Hazy Sea, Some Trees, Cold Spring, Share, Wind Phoenix

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THIS IS HOT SHIT. straight up. (blog-crazy folks are like, “um welcome to three weeks ago.” whatever! exam period is rough..)

The Crocodiles are another one of these lofi fuzzed out pop/new wave bands like Dum Dum Girls, Neon Indian, Surf City (NZ represent!). You will like if you like heavier noisy bands like Wavves (beachpunk? what?), Titus Andronicus, No Age, or sweeter shoegazey pop like Vivian Girls (not that sweet) or The Pains of Being Pure At Heart (so sweet). They are a two-piece hailing from San Diego, a location which has given their Jesus and Mary Chain tendencies time to mellow out and come back sounding like a sundrenched Spacemen 3 with hints of early Deerhunter in the punkier songs. Make no mistake, a few of their faster songs still sound remarkably like JMAC, and the singer’s voice reminds me a lot of Jason Pierce’s (hence the Spacemen 3 reference), but regardless, there is a definite punky California feel strongly reverberating around the lackadaisical fuzz.

Best tracks: I Wanna Kill, Summer of Hate, Young Drugs

For fans of: No Age, Dum Dum Girls, Spacemen 3, Jesus and Mary Chain

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YES this leaked a few days ago and while it’s not The Body, The Blood, The Machine, their last album, it doesn’t have to be, and I’m glad that it’s not. This band’s lineup constantly changes (I think only Kathy and Hutch are the original members, and correspondingly their sound changes, though the aesthetic/motive/drive behind it seems constant. I think Hutch’s lyrics (and voice) are really excellent, and he is able to crystallize a lot of the frustrations that living as a part of our vapid generation entails. It’s poppier than the driving, punk-rock last album, and it doesn’t have such stellar pulsing tracks like Here’s Your Future or Pillar of Salt, but sometimes it’s OK to mellow out (I’ve been learning), and it definitely hasn’t lost its simple, anti-profound profundity, both with lyrics and melodies. Also, it’s catchy as hell and upbeat too, so you can get energized for the revolution! (I agree with others in thinking the title is meant to be sarcastic).

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This is a really good noisey shoegazesque rock album from a band that is irritatingly called women, from canada. i say irritating because it made it a super hard album to find, but whatever, i got it and it’s really good. fans of deerhunter and crystal stilts and wavves and vivian girls should approve. it has some epic, anthemic moments, something the album cover perhaps foretell. also, one of the songs is my birthday (can you guess which one?); it’s not the best, but it’s not bad!

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here we go magic - here we go magic

I didn’t think I’d like this, but I really do. I really really do. I can’t get over how surprised i am. It’s psychedelic pop, essentially..but really well done to the point where it’s experimental ambient drone in parts and jangle pop in others. I like the cover art too. I didn’t put that first in the description because people think you shouldn’t judge something by its cover first, even though I think it’s a perfectly valid comment to make, even if it doesn’t qualify the content of the music. So yeah. Get it, because it’s funky. Funkytrippysmoothsparkle. That’s what I call it. What’s your genre? Put in in the comments.

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