Stevie Jackson, “Just, Just So To The Point” get it on (I Can’t Get No) Stevie Jackson (2011) Pity poor Stevie Jackson. Sure he lives the life of a globe-trotting rock star, but he’s always been in the shadow of Belle & Sebastian’s primary songwriter Stuart Murdoch, one of the best and most beloved songwriters [...]

Florence + The Machine, “Shake it Out” get it on Ceremonials Every now and then, a band comes along that makes you use the phrase “every now and then, a band comes along”. Florence + the Machine (does anyone know the sum of that equation? I’m bad at math) is one of those bands, but [...]

Megafaun, “You Are The Light” get it on Megafaun (2011) Things I’m a sucker for that are present in this song: Horn swells. In fact, if I was to start up a band, I’d probably call it Horn Swells. You can use it on your own band, but only if you’re really awesome. A hymn feel. [...]

The Go! Team, “Buy Nothing Day (feat. Bethany Cosentino)” find it on Rolling Blackouts I slept really hard on this new Go! Team record. It was put out in January, but I just never bothered picking it up for some reason. Okay, so Proof of Youth didn’t really do much for me, but Thunder, Lightning, Strike [...]

DJ Shadow, “Scale It Back (feat. Little Dragon)” (2011) find it on The Less You Know, The Better Remember back in the 90s when the ubiquitous guest vocalist was Michael Stipe? Then, around 1999, Stipe passed on his mantle to Thom Yorke, who seems to have passed it on to Little Dragon. Seriously, this band [...]

Slow Club, “Two Cousins” (2011) get it on Paradise “Two Cousins” has been floating around me for a couple of months now, coming up on shuffle and lumped in with the rest of the album, but it’s only been recently that it’s seriously stuck in my head, and I find myself constantly wanting to hear [...]

Veronica Falls, “Wedding Day” (2011) get it on Veronica Falls Gossip! So. There’s this guy named Stephen, apparently, who one or more of the members of Veronica Falls have kind of a flirty, it-might-happen thing. The catch? Stephen is married. I know! Yeah! Married! Now, there may be some romantics in you that would actually [...]

Blitzen Trapper, “I Love The Way You Walk Away” (2011) find it on American Goldwing One of the casualties in these days of The Music Avalanche™ is straightforward singer-songwriter type stuff. I mean, music geeks have always tended to look for more adventurous music, but when you can find something new every hour, it’s easy [...]

St Vincent, “Year of the Tiger” (2011) find it on Strange Mercy I don’t know how September’s been where you live, but here in DC, the sun hasn’t come out once in the entire month. Not once! Don’t fact-check that, because I’m telling you that it’s a fact, and isn’t my word good enough for [...]

M83, “Midnight City” (2011) find it on Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming I didn’t go as crazy for the previous couple M83 records like some other people I could mention (but won’t because it would be completely pointless), but this song has been digitally filed into the HOT DAMN section of my iTunes library. The irresistible [...]