Besnard Lakes, “Albatross”

What I remember from the time I saw Besnard Lakes (at Schuba’s in Chicago) was a tiny room full of smoke and crazy lights and a bunch of hippie-hipster hybrids building a sonic wave of awesomeness. It is then with great anticipation that I turn to the latest single off their upcoming Besnard Lakes …Are the Roaring Night LP, “Albatross,” which lives up to the smoke-filled memories. They are the masters of the Beach Boys-esque slow-build—give it about 3 minutes and 3 seconds and you’ll see what I mean.

The Dismemberment Plan, “Ice of Boston”

I know, it’s been so long since I posted! Life, or whatever, right? 2009 was an awesome year, great job. I’m not sure if 2010 is technically the start of a new decade or anything—I kinda feel like it’s a gap year, not really 00s, not really 1-s—but at least that gives me some time to sort out how I feel about the last 10 years.

I think I posted this song last New Year’s Eve, too. It’s my favorite holiday tune, best enjoyed with a glass of champagne, or the whole bottle, depending on how you feel about sharing.

Jawbox, “Savory”

As we near the end of the decade, the indie world is riding a pretty hard wave of nostalgia—I think I’ve heard as many good reissues or bands who were big before “indie” was a thing people said as I have good new bands. For example, Jawbox just re-put out For Your Own Special Sweetheart, including “Savory,” which is 15 years old. Crazy! Pitchfork did their own long-winded dissertation singing its praises and elaborating on its place in the alt-rock pantheon that I won’t attempt to replicate here, the gist being that it’s pretty awesome, and we’re all excited to see them play one song (this one!) on the Dec. 8 Jimmy Fallon show. Jimmy Fallon: the unexpected hero of iconic 90s alt/underground rock bands. Who knew?

Surfer Blood, “Catholic Pagans”

I’ve seen so many bands that sound kind of like Surfer Blood recently—vintage-inspired lo-fi indie pop that sounds like it’s recorded half-underwater—that I may actually have seen them and not known it. That’s not to say that I don’t like the trend, I’m just saying that it’s everywhere, and sometimes I find it difficult to tell the difference between them, Holiday Shores, Real Estate and other similar landscape-inspired bands. The redeeming grace is that it’s good, fun, emminently listenable music. I just wish I could enjoy it on a beach, as was intended, rather than my dreadful morning subway ride (the worst).

Max Tundra, “Which Song” (Passion Pit remix)

Just that song/artist description alone signals that there will be lots of bleeps and blips and soulful electro pop made by dudes who are good with computers. And it’s right! I love that the remix craze has pretty much caught up to the pace of music today, so that as soon as you hear a great song (this Max Tundra track is a whopping one year so old) there are already half-a-dozen remixes that make it even more complicated, and sometimes even better.

(Don’t forget the strangely compelling video for the original song, which features a guy running around an apartment building wearing a Ben Folds Five t-shirt and headphones, stopping to check out randomly placed trays of sushi and play the keyboard on his leg hair. It’s like looking into a mirror, right?)

Mumford and Sons, “Little Lion Man”

For anyone like me just catching the wave of British folk (yes, they’re into folk now, go figure), Mumford and Sons is a delightfully poppy example of what the Brits can do when they set their mind to co-opting our country sound. They’re also playing at at CMJ showcase, for anyone in the neighborhood—Mercury Lounge on Wednesday, and Music Hall of Williamsburg on Thursday.

Mike Snow, “Cult Logic”

Mike Snow sounds enough like Passion Pit that it’s a pretty safe bet that everyone who likes the new Passion Pit album is going to like this song. And I assume that everyone likes Passion Pit now; you can’t walk into a trendy chain retail store without hearing at least half a dozen tracks off of it. But it’s still catchy and fun, and I vastly prefer it to the millionth rerun of “Pokerface” (sorry, Lady Gaga fans, I know you have your reasons).

Built to Spill, “Planting Seeds”

Few bands consistently do it for me like Built to Spill, and I’m super psyched to get my hands on a real copy of their new album on Tuesday (it’s up for streaming on their Myspace, although in frustratingly way-low quality). I’m going to resist the urge to quote all the memorable lines from this one at you, just this one: “Just because you love something/doesn’t mean it’s yours to buy.” Fortunately for all of us with functioning bank accounts and band crushes, that isn’t true.