skatterbrain!

Good morning, here’s a pretty perfect song for what’s shaping up to be a pretty lovely day.

A last minute cut from the June Mix, but too good to not just post anyway!

This “remix” version (read: alternate) of McCarthy’s “The Fall” appeared as the second track on the Frans Hals 12” put out by The Pink Label in 1987 (it also featured an almost equally great Peel Session version of “Frans Hals”). The main difference here is the alternate opening, which is a pretty damn immaculate minute or so of intertwining guitar jangle and melodic bass.

I will be getting around to some sort of NYC Popfest recap once I stop being a zombie with bruised feet, but since I listened to it almost on repeat for much of my bus ride home yesterday I feel very much compelled to urge you to listen to “Single Beds” from new London poppers Night Flowers RIGHT NOW. It’s a bright and dreamy indiepop gem of the highest order, with a brilliant hook that you’ll be humming all week. The dreamy fuzzed out guitar and hushed vocal harmonies will probably bring 2007-8 Pains to mind and I’ve got no problems with that! I think I’m ready for this sound again.

I’m starting the day with some coffee and this 1990 jangling classic from Love Parade. Maybe you should, too!

OMG OMG OMG! Attention! OMG! So Allison and Katie Crutchfield covering Grimes’ “Oblivion” for Rookie Mag’s May Theme Song is likely to be the best thing you’ll hear all week. It translates to their ragged, trebly guitar pop tendencies better than I could have ever expected and HELLO YES I’VE JUST CLICKED PLAY FOR THE 7TH TIME A ROW.

Cassolette’s new single (their very best yet, IMO) is out next week on Manic Pop Records and I can’t keep it out of my head! The mailbox mixup of “Return To Sender” seems to take equal cues from both the charming storytelling of Camera Obscura and the melodic growl of ¡Simpatico!-era Velocity Girl. YES REALLY. It’s popsicle-good for the sunniest days of Spring and Summer and you can order it soon!

The band will be heading out on tour on May 22 (next week!) en route to NYC Popfest! I’d urge you (if you haven’t already!) to pop over to their kickstarter page to help them get there, and get some fantastic Cassolette goodies while you’re at it! Postcards, custom mix cds, records, downloads, tshirts, cover songs, you name it! It’s a win/win!

Here is some first-class reverby jangle to start your day (and, if you’re me, to play on repeat for the rest of the day) from Melbourne-to-NYC band Free Time. The culmination of two years of Dion Nania’s trans-pacific back and forth (including bouts of bass duties for Twerps and moonlighting in Scott and Charlene’s Wedding), the self-titled debut of his very own Free Time is an effortless-sounding, but meticulously crafted record of sunny hooks and sprawling, hummable Malkmusesque solos with no shortage of melody. This song is a fucking dreamboat.

It’s out May 28 on Underwater Peoples! GET IT!

After a bit of a delay, English Singles’ sophomore outing for Slumberland Records is a finally out out out! A-side “Ordinary Girls” (along with the whole damn thing, truly) is an instant classic. If the immediately singable and, dare we, twee as fuck lyrics—”Ordinary girls, walking from the park on a Sunday / Ordinary girls, stopping at the shops on a Monday / Don’t you wish that they had a secret side? / And someday you could be together”—don’t reel you in then the jangling 12-string melodies will surely hook you by the lip.

A shambolic pop wave crashed on west coast rocks and our Summers will all be the better for it.

Order it asap from Slumberland or pick it up at your favorite spot.

I should have probably learned my lesson by now, but I’m still always delighted and surprised when a band from Japan sounds like, well, how Post Modern Team sound.

Since first coming across them early last year I’ve yet to hear anything less than stellar from them; but the three songs that make up their new Nite Life Lounge EP, out via the very consistently impressive Ano(t)raks Records, might be their best yet! EP bookends “Nite Life Lounge” and “Betterdays” are the type of twinkling dreampop gems I’ve come to expect from PMT, but it’s “Fade Away” that is most impressive here (and hopefully indicative of things to come). It plays like a Teenage Fanclub classic run through an indiepop filter (so basically it’s the kind of thing you’d have found on a Bus Stop compilation back when) and YES it’s exactly as good as that sounds.

Get the EP here!

Just going to go on record real quick and mention that Golden Grrrls’ debut self-titled LP is probably the most consistently rewarding record I’ve had the pleasure of listening to this year. I’m closing in on probably 30-40 listens straight through at this point and perfect little things like the coda towards the end (around 1:56ish) of “Older Today” still have a way of pulling my eyes and ears wide open and reminding me why pop music is my favorite part of almost every day.

Those of you that also follow my personal tumblr are probably more than a little familiar with the fact that I’m almost as much a fan of dancey confetti-soaked hooky electro pop as I am of the indiepop most predominantly featured here. That said, this song by Foxe Basin (producer Sanford Livingston and singer Joanie Wolkoff) is AMAZING and I am going to go listen to it 400 times in a row real quick.

The massively sun-soaked first single from The Mantles upcoming LP for the mighty Slumberland is upon us! And good god, it’s one hell of a jangler. Edging ever so slightly away from the garage fuzzbombs that were scattered about their Pink Information EP back in 2010, “Brown Balloon” floats by like it just slipped out of 1982’s Dunedin Double EP. And I swear if I didn’t know better, I’d pop it right back in, somewhere between Sneaky Feelings and The Verlaines. This is A+ pop right here. DIG IT!

The new LP, Long Enough To Leave is out June 18th! 

The third single from Dublin’s September Girls is out in less than two weeks and it’s about time I mentioned how good it is. If you’ve been on the lookout for a few tracks to round out your perfect Summer playlist, you’re gonna grab this brilliant little 7” ASAP. A-side “Talking” is led by a heavy organ drone ala Look Blue Go Purple’s “Curcumspect Penelope”, but is ultimately probably better suited for a caveman dance party than a romp through a field of flowers. On the flipside, though, we find “Some For Me”: A quick-paced pop song—perhaps their hookiest yet—marked by a great lead and loads of reverb-soaked harmonies. If you happen to get a mixtape from me this Summer, I can guarantee you that “Some For Me” will be on it. And that’s probably the best compliment I could give.

It out April 22 on Art For Blind! Get it here!