Animal Collective -

"Animal Collective's transition from startling freak-out act to reliably gratifying pop troupe is squarely mapped out on Feels – the conventions are presented in abundance and stamped with the official seal, from the propulsive beats galloping beneath billowy guitar chords to the guileless lyrics and tentative harmonies. Live, these songs move with all the intent of tectonic plates: giant trampoline expanses of sound saturated with jittery and frayed guitar tones, barely liminal shape-shifting ruptured occasionally by feral drumming and supremely pleasurable vocal melodies. On Feels, the flotsam is mostly brushed under the rug. What we get is Animal Collective playing a solid collection of Animal Collective songs, sans masks."
Dusted Magazine

Listen to "Grass"

Wolf Parade - Shine A Light

"There's no question the lonesome crowded sound is here, but when Wolf Parade dig in and dust off their influences, the band rolls like a Ritalin-deprived power-Bowie or 70s Eno flexing piano-based hooks over Pixified rhythms. Component ingredients include electronics, keyboards, guitar, drums, and two spastically surging, forever tuneful vocalists (Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug), but there are also surprises: A theremin cries in the slow-poke "Same Ghost Every Night"-- one of the longer tracks, it grows in pageantry as it swells to the six-minute mark-- and a spot of noise-guitar echoes throughout Krug's windy "Dinner Bells". And unlike most participants in indie rock's million-band march, Wolf Parade makes familiar elements mesh in special ways."
Pitchfokmedia

Listen to "Shine A Light"

Mix for a Cloudy, Cold Autumn Day

So making mixes for just about every occasion (or just whenever I like a bunch of new music at once) is one of my passions. If there was some way that I could turn my passion into a profession, I would. Who wants to hire someone who can make really nice-flowing themed mixes of (in my opinion) really good music, music the every day person hasn't heard before (but will probably like)? Anyone? Well, in the meantime I am gonna post the tracklists of my masterpieces just so you (whoever is reading this) can create them and pretend you are me. Enjoy!

Now presenting...

Mix for... A Cloudy, Cold Autumn Day

1. Blockhead - Insomniac Olympics
2. Elliott Smith - Clementine
3. Ugly Cassanova - Hotcha Girls
4. The Books - Smells Like Content
5. Big Star - Thirteen
6. Menomena - Oahu
7. The Eels - The Medication Is Wearing Off
8. Aphex Twin - Alberto Balsalm
9. Boards of Canada - Hey Saturday Sun
10. Gorillaz - November Has Come
11. Yo La Tengo - Little Eyes
12. Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day
13. cloudDEAD - Rifle Eyes
14. Broken Social Scene - Swimmers
15. Belle and Sebastian - Don't Leave The Light On, Baby

Subtle - f.k.o.

"Subtle are the latest offshoot hybrid lovechild of the anitcon collective, featuring Adam ‘doseone’ Drucker (cLOUDDEAD/themselves) and Jeffrey ‘jel’ Logan (themselves). After releasing four consistently experimental (yet inconsistently rewarding) EPs on Lex, they dropped the track “f.k.o” in October as a teaser for their debut album. It teased, indeed, for Subtle had decided to confound expectations in the only way still could; they recorded a pop song. Granted, it was a pop song which spread beatnik rumors that ‘the sun is flipped by hat tipped Private dicks’ over a backing track that veered from folky electronica to Beach Boys lush, folded over biscuit-box beats from jel. Simply put, it was fantastic, and the bar was raised way, way up for their debut album, A New White."
Stylus Magazine

Listen to "f.k.o."

DUAL UPDATE!

So, I just discovered this great site called Epitonic where there are tons of free mp3s for download. A lot of them suck though, so let me be your guide.
The first band I got real excited about on their website is called Lovage.
"Lovage is the supergroup of Mike Patton (Faith No More), Nathaniel Merriweather (Handsome Boy Modeling School), Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields) & Kid Koala." Think about sitting in the trashy, smoke-filled lobby of some sleazy European hotel with red lights and there's a fat, sweating French man hitting on you, but you're too drunk to care. That's kind of what Lovage is like, but better and cooler.
Listen to "Strokers Ace."

Additionally, while looking around Epitonic I was surprised to see that a local Florida band, Causey Way had made their way to the website. I heard about these guys from a good friend who sent me the album and lived in FL. According to Epitonic, Causey Way are a "willfully bizarre, relentlessly eclectic rock band whose music often sounds like a sentient science experiment in which whimsical machines have become masters of the humans who once controlled them."
Listen to my personal fav, "Te Como Vivo."

Slowdive - Machine Gun

"It's like watching film in slow motion: Everything goes watery-dreamy, but it also takes on a weight and a drama that can crush. And through every stage of their career, that's the heart of Slowdive. You're lulled into sleepy waves of melody, the hazy druggy beauty of it all, but just as you're drifting away, the whole thing squalls up into a big crushing storm or drops off into disorienting darkness. People try it with guitars and they try it with computers, and nobody does it quite like this."
Pitchforkmedia.com

Listen to "Machine Gun" (Live in Oslo, 1993)

Enon - Natural Disasters

"You listen and the hooks dig in, and as the record progresses an epiphany blindsides you: every song's got "it." Every goddamn track's got something--a memorable lyric, a melody that lingers after the track ends, an iconoclastic rhythm--such that when you look down at your hands, they seem to be moving of their own accord, like Enon's the Outer Limits and they're controlling the vertical, the horizontal and everything else."
Stylus Magazine

Listen to "Natural Disasters"

Calexico - Sunken Waltz

"Calexico have always been restless experimenters, juxtaposers and journeymen, crafting a unique fusion of bluesy Mariachi, desert-rock and jazz, and injecting healthy doses of experimentation into the otherwise straightforward records on which they've made guest appearances... A brief acoustic guitar figure and pounding waltz beat open things at a crisp gait. Joey Burns quickly intones with the lines, "Washed my face in the rivers of empire/ Made my bed with a cardboard crate," immediately establishing the tension of the borderline that pulls Calexico's music in its many directions."
Pitchforkmedia.com

Listen to "Sunken Waltz"