Well, down to business.
This list begins and ends with a band I believe I first heard of from UnderTheRadar. I've described them as the chillest M. Ward you could hope to meet, and I'll add here that there's just a hint of creepiness to go along with that. Oh, they're called Timber Timbre, and their S/T record is severely good.
From there, things pick up. Some crystally, shimmery Velvet Underground leads into the electro-groove of Y∆CHT.
Some more slight creepiness envelopes Caroline Weeks, but she plows the acoustic road for the Swede Kristian Matsson, a.k.a. The Tallest Man On Earth. I've been absolutely loving this guy for the past few, and for good reason. He plays some real nice bluegrassy folk, and he's got the perfect bit of scratch in his voice.
Codes In The Cloud drive things back up with some excellent, beautifully executed, if not terribly original post-rock.
Dawn Landes follow with this fantastic track of coma-inducing sweetness. Entitled simply "Love," this song feels like a modern Rubber Soul (maybe Revolver) demo. I had to follow that up with another from The Tallest Man On Earth. I had to. I can't get enough!!!
This next song is maybe the sweetest song here, off Stuart Murdoch's brainchild, God Help The Girl. A Down And Dusky Blond just feels ideal. However, the lyrics are somewhat less than cheery. That kind of thing just kills me.
Now that you're all shimmery from that twee, it's time to get dirty. In the tradition of the JAMC and The Magnetic Field's Distortion, Pink Mountaintops sound like huge pop with mud dumped all over it.
I've been loving this next band almost as much as The XX lately. And that's saying a lot, since The XX have made their way onto their third consecutive list of mine, but well get to that later. Sleigh Bells are the talk of the country!! With a total of merely seventeen minutes of music floating around on the interweb, they've received tons of blog recognition, and were even featured on the oddest music show around, ABC's Amplified. Apparently, one of the journalists over there has a very respectable taste in music, and has turned it into a segment he does around his 'real' stories. And I'm beside myself with excitement, because I'm going to go see them open for Yeasayer on April 20th (nice...) (get yourself some tickets!). Which is why they're followed on this list by a song off of Yeasayer's new album, Odd Blood. It's deliciously strange; throbbing bass and drums, swirling guitars and keys and synths, and extremely enjoyable falsetto.
Yeasayer swirls down into a beautiful cover of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, done by Yim Yames (Jim James). It's simple and spacious and beautiful. The mood continues its slow decent with The XX, featuring one of their most sensual songs, Infinity.
The list is wrapped up with one more Timber Timbre song. "I was a spook for you, another ghoul." As always, the title is the download link.
