I’m hearing this

04.22.08 Oracular Spectacular - MGMT

I have been listening to MGMT non-stop for over a week now. They are the shit. There’s not a bad track on their debut album Oracular Spectacular, and it’s got the perfect electro mashup rock synth feel. It’s one of those things where you think Justice is the ultimate shit and wonder how anything will top them, then you hear this. MGMT is going to be the sound of summer.

Best Track: Time To Pretend

03.12.08 Ambassador - Elliott Brood

I’ve been addicted to Elliott Brood ever since my buddy Travis sent me their mySpace. Their sound is hard to describe because, refreshingly, it’s not like anything I’ve ever heard before. “Deathcountry” and “Urban Hillbilly” are two of my favourite attempts I found on the net attempting to figure out what Elliott Brood’s genre is. Maybe they defy genre. From right here in Toronto, Canada, they recorded their first full-length album, 2005’s Ambassador in an abandoned slaughterhouse. Their music is twangy, beaty, and thick… almost dirty. I imagine it’s what Johnny Cash would have wrote if he was young today. You’ll be tempted to think country first, but resist the urge to conclusion jump. Listen closely and you’ll start to feel something much grungier, darker, and multi-faceted than anything a banjo has made you feel before.

Best Track: President 35

02.25.08 Great Lake Swimmers - Ongiara

Great Lake Swimmers are one of my fave bands ever. This disc isn’t new and it doesn’t have any videos. I listen to Ongiara several times a week because it’s just so fucking pretty. Their music is like acoustic air. It’s billowy and expansive and makes you feel like flying. I don’t have enough organic expletives to express my love for it. If I ever get married, it will be to track 4 - “Changing Colours”. It’s sunshine and fresh mown grass and cold beer and long eyelashes and that feeling that when you’re done what you’re doing you’ve got somewhere fun to go - all rolled into a song.

Best Track: Changing Colours

01.23.08 Cold War Kids - Robbers & Cowards

I’ve been listening to this almost non-stop for about a week now. I’d heard the first single, “Hang Me Out To Dry” a while ago and loved it but never got around to downloading the album. Now I have. And I’m hooked. I read their in the studio now writing their second album. Thank god.

Best Track: Hospital Beds

12.06.07 Dragonette - Galore

You may be tempted to think that I’m just now jumping on the Dragonette bandwagon. But you’d be wrong… and I’ve got the Dragonette EP to prove it. I’ve had a musical hardon for Martina Sorbara ever since her girl-and-a-piano days (if you’re in the mood for some wistful depression, you’ve gotta’ check out the track “Bonnie and Clyde” from her solo album “The Cure For Bad Deeds”.

But that was then and this is now. Now, Martina and her ridiculously hot husband Dan Kurtz head up the electropop lovefest that is Dragonette. There is not a bad track on this disc. Not a track you won’t listen to over and over, not a track that you won’t want on your iPod, and not a track that you won’t want to seriously bone someone to.

Best Track: I Get Around

12.05.07 Radiohead - In Rainbows

Let’s face it. Radiohead are fucking awesome. The music industry as we know it is forcibly evolving and the way we all purchase (and by purchase, I mean jack from Limewire…) music is changing faster than companies can keep up with. Radiohead, as usual, is the first ahead of the curve by offering their lastest album online for whatever price people wanted to pay. I paid $5. I felt guilty picking $0, but I still wanted it for way cheap. I’m assuming at some point karma will come to get me and I’ll flush a winning lottery ticket down the toilet or something.

Best Track: “Down Is The New Up”