Tortoise - Prepare Your Coffin

clues:haarp

Patrick Watson - Fireweed

Nadja - Only Shallow

i didn't quite see this one coming - a covers album by the fuzzed-out Nadja! it kicks off, or rather meanders off, with perhaps a little too faithful rendition of only shallow (which of course means that it is still pretty damn good). it is not a stretch to see how Nadja's drone get's applied to gem's like Codeine's 'pea' but the real treats here are the covers of a-ha's 'the sun always shines on tv' (the album title cleverly combines the opening lines of 'pea' and the title and a-ha's 'classic') and elliott smith's 'needle in the hay'. and it goes far beyond being simply the 'oh look what they have done' sort of thrill. nadja actually adds something to a-ha's original and manages to preserve the spirit of elliott smith's song although it sounds vastly different. overall an unlikely success.

Papercuts - Future Primitive

white rabbits - percussion gun

Patrick Wolf - Vulture

Hmmm, interesting. After toying with orchestral pop on his last album, the Magic Position (see below), Patrick Wolf has now transformed into some combination of Marc Almond, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails.

Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position

St Vincent - Actor Out Of Work

The Horrors - Sea Within A Sea

Unkle - Heaven

Ungdomskulen - idunno

i had for some reason written ungdomskulen off for some reason but this calls for serious historical revisionism. this is as close to brilliant as anything i have heard this year - and i hate to admit it that the animal collective is in the running. but ultimately these guys win because they sound more like polvo. i gather this is from the newly released bisexual album.

Ungdomskulen - Modern Drummer

blonde redhead/devastations & sufjan stevens

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero

Handsome Furs - I'm Confused

deerhoof

Architecture In Helsinki - That Beep

what the hell happened to architecture in helsinki?! this just might be the worst song i've heard all year. i guess it came out last year and i can't say i'm surprised that i didn't hear it until now. and don't get me started on the video. watch and suffer...

The Rifle - Alela Diane

Tim Exile - Family Galaxy

starts of like a nice boards of canada, then for a bit it sounds like a bad postal service, then why?, then something else. brilliant and/or mad?