Here’s Volume 2, chock full of 09’s monster pop/rock grooves.  Fashionable Kelis bookends, a couple songs about dying and murder.  Expect to see Royksopp, St. Vincent, AnCo and ASDiG again later.
[192kpbs mp3 | 74:33 | 103.4 MB]

1. Basement Jaxx “Scars f. Kelis” (XL)
2. Phoenix “1901″ (Loyauté/V2)
3. Yeasayer “Ambling Alp” (Secretly Canadian)
4. Memory Tapes “Bicycle” (Sincerely [...]

Here is a top 9 in alphabetical order, then a few more records I liked, then some other things:
1. Akron/Family Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free (Dead Oceans) Music doesn’t belong in boxes. Tributaries intersect regularly to create new styles and reinvent the old. But in the ’90s, the concept of genre-bending/splicing/smashing seemed to become [...]

Bat For Lashes Two Suns (Astralwerks/Parlophone) Sounds like a modern British and/or old American western version of the best Tori Amos album that never happened.
Bear In Heaven Beast Rest Forth Mouth (Hometapes) Post-wave-psych-pop-rock-tronica?  This album is great.  And I’m quite pleased the @marathonpacks review pointed it out to me.
Beirut March of the Zapotec/Holland EP (Ba [...]

My brilliant friends are preparing their year-end lists, which I’ll post here to showcase my good taste in friends (last year’s).  After that, I’ll post some longer thoughts (last year’s) and even-longer mixes.  For now, a bit of my stuff for that other place.  My take on Royksopp’s Junior, which I love, is at the [...]

What if Nine Inch Nails-inspired modern rock dialed in on Trent Reznor’s simmering synth-pop fixation, instead of begetting aggro mid-90s stuff like Filter and Stabbing Westward? What if Secret Machines bought vintage Korgs and hired Doug Martsch to sing? What if the M83 guy were less French and more alt-bro? These (and others!) are the [...]