Waxahatchee – Swan Dive I keep returning to the song’s opening words: “I cling to indifference.” They stick out in part because they don’t make sense: Clinging isn’t an indifferent act. But song after song, it’s what Crutchfield does. She pays keen attention to oblivious people, vividly renders vague feelings, and in general seems to care a lot about the paralysis of being too afraid to care at all. spin

Mikal Cronin – Weight is about waking up on the morning you’ve vowed to turn over a new leaf but lacking the motivation– or maybe the good night’s sleep– to actually make the change. “I’m not ready for another day,” Cronin sings, sounding effectively groggy, bleary, and unslept, “I’m not ready for the weight again.”… conjures the sort of bittersweet, soul-weary melodies Alex Chilton was writing on Big Star’s Third— the kind that found the sweet spot between polish and nonchalance. pitchfork 

Phosphorescent – Song For Zula It’s poetry, it’s purposeful, affecting and just pleasant to hear without intellectualizing pastemagazine

Alvvays – Archie, Marry Me Like many young people in the 2010s, singer Molly Rankin and guitarist Alec O’Hanley spent their twenties watching more conventional friends get engaged; unlike most, they wrote an instant indie-pop classic about it. “A lot of people ‘grow up’ and get mortgages and have big dumb weddings, and this song takes the piss out of that,” Rankin explained. With its wry references to alimony and student loans, “Archie, Marry Me” nails the satire. The funniest part? By soaking it all in sweet distortion and achingly pretty melody, the Canadian band wound up with one of the decade’s most romantic songs at the same. “I don’t want to get married,” Rankin said, “but I’m glad people can glean their own narrative from the song.” rollingstone

Colour Me Wednesday – Shut infectious indiepop doused with diy ethos, politics, punk and a bit of reggae. That is about of much as a review as you are going to get out of me but something about Colour Me Wednesday’s music reminds me of how I felt over half a century ago when I first started getting really excited about music recordsilike

It’s all about the jovial vibes mixed with relatable lyrics that will have you questioning everything again like you did when you were a curious adolescent goldflakepaint

Courtney Barnett – Avant Gardener A story about having a panic attack while gardening… The deadpan, relaxed feel of the track made its narrator sound almost nonchalant. It was a spirit of the age song, too – an ode to boredom and unemployment nme

Haim – Falling In 2013, lots of well-established R&B dudes—Justin, Robin, Pharrell—pulled on their sequin socks and aimed squarely for 1983 Michael Jackson territory. But three twenty-something sisters from L.A. opened their debut album with one of the year’s best takes on MJ’s lithe, dramatic funk-pop. “Falling” is a lot of great things, but best of all, it shows that the Haim sisters know, like Michael, how to carefully build tension and then gloriously release it. pitchfork

Young Galaxy – Pretty Boy The warm pitter-patter of drum machines bears the effervescent Balearic sensibilities of producer and former Studio member  Dan Lissvik. The track’s quickening pulse centers around the gentle yet rich vocalist Catherine McCandless. “I don’t care if disbelievers don’t understand/ You’re my pretty boy, always,” she sings, as twinkling violins nudge the song toward an resonant climax. pitchfork

Young Dreams – First Days Of Something What more can you say about the quintessential summer pop record? Norwegian? Of course…. Irrefutably a delightful release; if you’re into guitar pop or looking for a record to put a smile on your face  then this is the one. Alternatively, we can all just play it really loudly with the hope that the weather will hear us and summer might come just a little bit earlier. goldflakepaint

Local Natives – Colombia Hummingbird is, in a phrase, pretty damn bleak. Between Ayer’s heartbreaking recollection of his mother’s last breaths on “Colombia” to the man pictured on the cover futilely trying to resist being swept away from solid ground, it’s clear that the Los Angeles harmonizers are no longer brazenly jumping off the deep end together. This album is full of sober surrender consequence.net

Bill Callahan – The Sing In a world that increasingly rewards short attention spans and encourages distractions, Callahan’s music is well worth taking the time to patiently absorb filtermag

Veronica Falls – Buried Alive

Veronica Falls – Everybody’s Changing

Residing on a label whose roster has reimagined a myriad of influences ranging from UK Punk, Baggy, Brit-Pop, C86, Paisley Underground, and Shoegaze, Veronica Falls made one of the best pop albums in 2013. Waiting For Something to Happen succeeds because it reminds you of all of those genres at once, yet thoroughly possesses its own unique personality aquariumdrunkard

Talk about stepping up. Rack one’s brains and it’s still a struggle to come up with/hard to think of an album of indiepop – in the most purist sense of the term – anywhere near as good as the second from Veronica Falls. Dropped from their debut is the death fixation that gave them an air of the Cramps in anoraks and alice bands (let’s accept the excellent Buried Alive as a metaphor, rather than an observation). In its place, confident songwriting, and a sure grasp of how to make the limited dynamics of this music work their hardest… What an unexpected and wonderful treat this album is. theguardian

Night Flowers – Single Beds a sweet jangling pop song in the C86 Veronica Falls vein thevpme

Cate Le Bon – I Wish I Knew (feat. Perfume Genius) We don’t know what, exactly, Le Bon and and Perfume Genius man Mike Hadreas think they knew, but Hadreas’ poignant coo helps ground Le Bon’s cooler lilt in easily graspable emotions: They had the knowledge, but they’ve lost it, and now there’s only a sharp, exquisite ache. spin

John Grant – Glacier  the seven-minute long closer to John Grant’s much-lauded second album Pale Green Ghosts, tackles head-on – and with unflinching beauty and simplicity – the struggles overcome by gay people in everyday life. “You just want to live your life the best way you know how, but they keep telling you that you are not allowed” runs the opening lyric, as plaintive piano riffs and big swathes of strings rise and fall. But the song also offers hope, morphing pain into power in the chorus: “This pain, it is a glacier moving through you, and carving out deep valleys and creating spectacular landscapes.” theguardian

The National – Pink Rabbits maybe the most resonant song the band’s ever made. The song has almost no rhythmic motion—the drum rolls are mournful little stutters punctuating a falling sigh. It’s the first National song one could credibly imagine being sung by, say, Elton John, and in fact, there is a conspicuous trace of  “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” in its DNA. It’s their grandest, warmest expression of Berninger’s brand of wry empathy, one that recognizes the banality of our daily heartbreak and treats it with tenderness. “You didn’t see me, I was falling apart,” Berninger sings. But this song sees you pitchfork

Arctic Monkeys – Do I Wanna Know? one of the all-time great riffs, and a lick even Keith Richards would have to give a deferential grumble of approval to… predatory, lust-crazed, and slightly askew. nme

MS MR – Hurricane (Chvrches Remix) At first, it’s an assault on the senses – a cruder take on the Brooklyn duo’s dreamy pop synth but with that token line “welcome to the inner workings of my mind” suddenly it’s a sing-a-long… I’ve never heard a song about being afraid sound so cheerful. purplesneekers

Chvrches – Recover There’s nothing particularly complicated about Chvrches’ formula: the 1980s synth-pop palette buffed to a contemporary shine; the wide-eyed vocal, courtesy of Lauren Mayberry, that falls to just the right side of hysteria; the occasional shouty “oh” refrain. What makes it so good is the conviction with which it’s delivered—not to mention the ruthless efficiency with which this Scottish trio hits the emotional bullseye time and time again pitchfork

Parquet Courts – Stoned and Starving Fast, funny, outrageously catchy, coursing with New York punk-rock guitar heat – in short, indie-rock heaven. Brooklyn’s best new band takes us on a potted-out bodega tour of Queens while pondering the big existential questions: “I was reading ingredients/I was asking myself, ‘Should I eat this?'” rollingstone

Low – Just Make It Stop Asked what’s different about this album, Sparhawk pointed to the inclusion of “piano, lots of piano … and an acoustic guitar” as well as the fact drummer Mimi Parker sings lead vocals on five of the songs. All of these elements coalesce beautifully on Just Make It Stop with Parker’s gentle vocal guiding the song for the first two minutes before the whole thing bursts into pounding pianos and multi-tracked harmonies. There’s a gorgeous moment when the music falls away briefly and Parker sighs: “Now I’m looking up from a 10ft hole, seeing nothing but blue sky shining on my soul.” Lovely. theguardian

Yo La Tengo – Before We Run stuttering percussion, guitar washes and tasteful horns gently blur together with Hubley and Kaplan’s understated vocals into a minor triumph. pastemagazine

Mutual Benefit – Advanced Falconry Gather round and I’ll tell you about these things called “mix CDs”: plastic circles that shy, young men and women filled with the words and sounds of others to convey sentiments they couldn’t bring themselves to say out loud. Did you receive one of these things during their steady decline from 2002-2004?  If you heard a song similar to “Advanced Falconry” on it around that time, there’s a 100% chance that person really, really liked you pitchfork

Pure Bathing Culture – Pendulum might make it impossible to get a whole lot done when you hear it, but it gives you comfort in the realization there’ll be time enough for that some time later. pitchfork

Mazzy Star – In The Kingdom

Review one

You know what Mazzy Star sounds like? This is that.

Review two, where I meet my word count

In the ninth episode of The Simpsons’ twenty-third season – 2012’s flash-forward ‘Holidays of Future Passed’ – there’s a scene in which Homer visits a cryogenically frozen Abe and awakens him to wish him a Happy Christmas. Naturally Abe’s mind is frozen at the same point as his body, so upon reawakening he continues with one of his cantankerous rants. It’s a recycled joke, first used way back in season six with Mr. Burns during ‘Lisa’s Wedding’ (an episode which flashes forward to the distant future of 2010, those of you who like feeling old), and by no means one of the best in this episode. It is a neat allegory for the episode itself though: a warm, heartfelt and funny one that could have been made at any point during the faded show’s Nineties heyday.

It’s also a slightly more torturous analogy for Mazzy Star’s new album Seasons of Your Day. More than 17 years have passed since the glorious Among My Swan, the last of three gorgeous albums the full band put out first time around. Not that you – or apparently they – would know it listening to this record… opening track ‘In The Kingdom’ even kicks off with the same organ sound as Among My Swan’s closer ‘Look On Down From The Bridge’.

It’s probably worth remembering that whilst they were consistently a very, very good band, even their best and best-loved record So Tonight That I Might See isn’t held in quite the same Nineties nostalgic perfection esteem as, say, The Bends, Different Class or Summerteeth. At their best though, when Hope Sandoval’s gorgeous whiskeyed voice was brought to the fore and backed by David Roback’s druggy slide guitar, they were sublime. drownedinsound

The Pastels – Check My Heart could be the sound of summer as soundtracked by a modern day Phil Spector drownedinsound

Kacey Musgraves – Follow Your Arrow An anthem of self-determination suggesting you roll up a joint and/or kiss folks of your own gender if you feel like it. No big shock, except it’s a mainstream country song, and a great one. They bleeped the weed refs on the Country Music Awards, but they still let her sing it. Revolutionary. rollingstone

Caitlin Rose – Only a Clown tales of heartbreaks and love’s unkindness are delivered in a voice – midway between confident and coy – that’s to die for, and which makes them sound uplifting theguardian

Joanna Gruesome – Sugarcrush There are always exciting bands bubbling under the surface who challenge the cynicism of a corporate mainstream looking to pre-package and reproduce and this young band with an amusing parody name, far from wanting to create the perfectly over produced copy of the records they love, prefer smashing them up with gleeful abandon and throwing the pieces on the floor and seeing where they land, thumping you in the gut with brill bittersweet noise-tunes, head swirling kick ass bass/drum rhythms and an utter naive belief in what they are doing… Sure the influences are clear, the jangly c86 that slams into melodies, the rrriot girrrl yelps, the college rock influences of the late 80s and early 90s,the frantic punk of The Ramones, but most of all it’s the sound of growing up, breaking up and falling apart. godisinthetvzine

Wolf Alice – Fluffy marked their real arrival. The riffs squealed magnificently, but it was frontwoman Ellie Rowsell switching between soft coos and abrasive roars that made it. nme

Factory Floor – Fall Back  the closest the album gets to the band’s face-shredding live shows, where the constant shudder of their electronic backing hits as hard as a cold punch to the stomach pitchfork

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Sacrilege the pioneering New Yorkers realised, 13 years into their career, that they were big enough, bold enough and brazen enough to say, “Yeah, okay, we probably can get away with using a gospel choir” nme

Los Campesinos – Avocado, Baby! features a children’s choir and it’s still gloriously catchy and fiercely intelligent. When not even caterwauling kids can derail your song, you know you’re on top of your game. recordrewindplay

Light Heat – And The Birds… Last time we heard from Quentin Stoltzfus was 2005, when his band Mazarin released We’re Already There, a lovely little record of psych-pop that went overlooked by just about everyone… Most of that band joins Stoltzfus for his new project, Light Heat, and from the sounds of “And The Birds…”, he’s spent a good deal of time in the interim collecting even more instruments to flesh out his obsession with the studio wizardry of the late 60s– ringing tack pianos, enveloping electric organ drone, triple-decker harmonies, click-clacking hand percussion, to name a few. At it’s core, it’s a classicist bit of paisley pop, not too far away from what Mazarin once did. And that’s a good thing: while some artists thrive in progress, Stoltzfus’ music works best when it looks backwards to recapture a lost moment. pitchfork

Guided By Voices – Island (She Talks In Rainbows)  it’s memorable, which, given the prolificacy of this band, has to be the new barometer for greatness. “Island” has all the fixings of psychedelic bewilderment: subtle guitar modulations, the emphatic cymbal crash, and holy Simon and Garfunkel harmonies. The gorgeous two minutes feel like a warm beach blanket to curl inside. consequence.net

Kurt Vile – Wakin’ On A Pretty Day All he wants is for everyone and everything to slow down a little: let your phone ring, think up some good jokes, be fried. The worst thing that can happen, he intimates, is that it all ends, and there’s not much we can do to change that anyway. In our hyper-accelerated times, there’s something subversive about Vile’s live-and-let-live vibe. It’s been awhile since submission sounded this good pitchfork

Iron & Wine – Grace For Saints & Ramblers Uncomplicated, joyful stuff diymag

Amor de Días – Jean’s Waving There’s a sense of loss, of fading away, within these songs, but also sensory experiences, of the way our surroundings influence, and are refracted through, our mood. popmatters

British Sea Power – From The Sea To The Land Beyond British Sea Power’s rather schizophrenic identity has arguably been their commercial undoing. On one hand there’s the indie group capable of writing songs with rousing choruses… but possessed of just too much strangeness and smart to really cross over into the territory occupied by the more mainstream groups.

The band’s soundtrack to wonderful documentary From The Sea To The Land Beyond is therefore timely, uniting the two sides of BSP in one seamless, gloriously evocative and accessible whole. The film, made up of footage of the British coast and beyond taken from the BBC archive over the past 100-odd years, was something of a hit when first broadcast on BBC4, gaining record viewings for its Sunday night slot, sending Twitter afire, and getting a terrific write-up from Caitlin Moran in The Times. For many, it seemed that the film acted as an entry point for BSP, beguiled as they were by the graceful dynamics and thoughtful atmospheres conjured up by this most versatile of bands. thequietus

Serafina Steer – Disco Compilation opens with Steer lamenting the end of a relationship. Slowly, just as Steer seems to be getting over her loss an electronic throb bubbles up and the whole thing turns into a bit of a banger. The best way to get over a broken heart, she says, is to go dancing theguardian

Daft Punk – Get Lucky (ft. Pharrell) It’s one of the great trojan horse operations in recent pop history: A reedy disco song about dancing and getting laid disguised as something of far more import… the idea that a song need address anything besides dancing and fucking is one of the core fallacies that contributed to disco’s banishment in certain circles, a fate Daft Punk needed to avoid. So through some horseshit about a phoenix and a lot of stoopid repetition, Daft Punk ensure that their version feels bigger and more astral than it should. pitchfork

The Strokes – Tap Out tries on a new jacket for size – and this time, it’s got shoulder pads! thefortyfive

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Lariat “People look great when they shave,” Stephen Malkmus, nonchalance personified, insists a minute into “Lariat,”. There’s a pause, and then, a question: “…don’t they?” “Lariat” is a fairly unassuming thing, an easygoing strummer with a jaunty little backbone riff… Malkmus still seems to be heading off any “indie rock elder statesman” talk with a characteristic shrug. “I would not jerryrig or candy-coat your Latin kisses,” he mutters at one point. Have fun figuring that one out. pitchfork

Sweet Baboo – Let’s Go Swimming Wild this appears to be a song about how utterly boring life can be when you throw your lot in with someone else and discard all the spontaneity of early romance; it has lines about how Sweet Baboo is pleased that you categorise his life into ‘little tiny piles’, even though he still wants you to go and do something crazy – even though that’s not How You Live. drownedinsound

Vampire Weekend – Hannah Hunt with a searching Dylanesque melody, a beautiful Ezra Koenig vocal and vivid lyrics about an ambivalent couple on a cross-country road trip from Providence to Phoenix. At heart, it’s a song about getting older when all you’ve got is tested faith and shaky trust. rollingstone

Ry X – Berlin Australian falsetto crooner discovers commercial value in aching sadness and wintry desolation theguardian

Julia Holter – Horns Surrounding Me Based around woodwind, string, percussion and waltz time, Loud City Song sounds antique and elegant, like music from another age drifting through through a slash in time in drifting golden motes. It is slow and treacly, nocturnal and strange. It speaks of faded grandeur and creaking society balls, solitary late night coffees and chilly winters. drownedinsound

Beliefs – Catch My Breath Gruff and distorted, it’s like looking through a dirty window pane for the sunlight on the other side. consequence.net

Summer Camp – Two Chords has the delicate yearning of a break-up ballad (“some days I still find it tough, I think we both do“), mixed with the pace and feel of a 1970s soft-rock epic. theguardian

Lana Del Ray – Summertime Sadness (Cedric Gervais Remix) Del Rey was either the next coming of Feist or the harbinger of indie being fully co-opted by major labels; she was either playing with calcified ideas of femininity or playing into them; she was either a master stylist or a singer slightly less talented than the Shaggs’ Wiggins sisters. As with most online debates of two years ago, it all seems a little bit silly now. And it seems even sillier this week, Del Rey’s third with a song in the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. rollingstone

London Grammar – Wasting My Young Years trippy, translucent electronica, which outdoes even the xx in terms of veiled understatement – this record is essentially comprised of slow-build digital clacks and sighs. There’s a startling counterpoint in Hannah Reid’s fleshy vocals… This pairing of the ethereal and the visceral makes for an interesting enough album, albeit one that sometimes begs for a kick in the backside theguardian

Youth Lagoon – Dropla “You’ll never die,” sings Powers over and over again, sounding assertively fragile. With each repetition of that sentence, it becomes increasingly unclear whether he’s offering an easily broken optimistic promise or a fearful, anxious wish.

The percussive bulk in the beginning leads into the atmospheric outro, and in the last seconds, an acoustic stringed instrument (a mandolin, maybe), which sat quietly in the background of the track, comes to the forefront and pulls the song to a stop… an appropriately powerful finish for the song’s heartbreaking story. pitchfork

Seabirds – Real Tears Oh, to be in at the start of something special.

The genesis of this single seeing the daylight might well have been a semi-drunken conversation in The Dragon pub in Nottingham one late afternoon earlier this year. Ian Evans of pop tigers Horowitz and I were on one of our regular mid-week pub trips during which we get progressively pissed and try and put the world of football, music and politics to rights. We almost certainly talk complete nonsense.

However, this one particular afternoon, Ian let slip that his new band, Seabirds, had recorded a couple of songs in double quick time. He said he’d email me the demo when he got home, and that the band were looking for label to put the songs out on.

The rough cut of ‘Real Tears’ was stunning, and I hooked the band up with Jimmy at Matinee. The rest is a mystery… alayerofchips

The Proctors – Ember Days the UK band the Proctors last released an album in 1995… for about an hour these songs erase all notions of influence and familiarity from our brains, dropping us into an immersive, tuneful place where someone is singing softly to us about love, often in a deceptively optimistic way that soothes us even as we know everything is wrong. popmatters

Moby, Wayne Coyne – The Perfect Life After a teaser video and a casting call on Moby’s Facebook, it was possible to get the gist of what this work of art might look like. The casting call requested the following: “S&M gimp rhythmic gymnast,” “eight roller-skating ghosts,” “12 goth choir members,” “2 obese bearded bikers in red speedos,” “a punk rock brass brand” and “a drunk king: guy with beard age 35-50.”

Moby and Coyne are dressed as mariachis who lead a group of strangers of all forms (the king and some rollerskating ghosts) throughout L.A. to their final destination of a rooftop celebration. It’s about acceptance and giving love to those who welcome it. rollingstone

my bloody valentine – wonder 2 Of all the event albums released in 2013, this is the only one that made me feel sick: both nauseous with nerves it wouldn’t be able to compete with Loveless, and certain the hype surrounding it would kill all joy in listening to the music. It took me months to press play. Once I did, I needed a lie-down. That evocative, familiar sound – a wall of distorted guitars, layered like wobbling Jenga towers, vocals bobbing in the deep end – was not only invented by My Bloody Valentine, but sounds convincing only when it comes from them. Despite scores of attempts by multiple bands in the intervening years, nobody else has really achieved it since.

My Bloody Valentine even rigged the way we listened to them: m b v wasn’t available on iTunes, it wasn’t put on Spotify. If you wanted to really listen to it as Shields intended, you had to spend time and commitment; first, to get hold of the album on the band’s website, and then to experience it, ideally growing on you the old-fashioned way – on repeat, on vinyl through proper speakers, and lying down staring at the ceiling as most teenage obsessions would warrant.

Yes, he left it far too many years to let us know, but it turned out Shields could pick up exactly where Loveless left off and deliver a companion piece even more beguiling and just as timeless. m b v might easily have appeared in 1993 or 2033 and still stand alone, neither the sound of this year nor the last one he promised to release it in. Above all, it was worth the wait. theguardian

Wildhoney – Like Me The 2013 winner of best My Bloody Valentine recreation goes to Wildhoney… My Bloody Valentine, since you asked, are doing quite well in 2013’s recreation of themselves, but let’s face it, mbv is no Isn’t Anything. And using Isn’t Anything as year zero is what this game’s all about. didnotchart

Tullycraft – Lost In Light Rotation I was in the car the other day with my kids and this song came up on the shuffle play. When the chorus “ray-gun ray-gun” came in, both kids immediately began singing along to it like it was second nature. After it was over they both said that they didn’t like the song. Sometimes the genius of a pop song is its ability to get you to sing it even when you don’t admit to liking it. finestkiss

The Spook School – I’ll Be Honest Indie pop has always been a place where contemporary notions of gender can be discussed, discarded.

Even a casual glance at an indie pop crowd will suggest a casual revolution going on, with masculine / feminine identities breaking down. It’s an open environment, one where new ideas are welcomed, encouraged.

As the band explain: “We want to liberate the listener by lubricating their ears with noisy pop songs about coming to terms with gender identity and realising how silly the world is. We like to have fun, but we also really care about the things we sing and write music about. I think if anyone was to ever listen to one of our songs and think “hey, I’ve felt like that!” then that would make us very happy indeed.” clashmusic

Suede – It Starts And Ends With You  if Bloodsports stays faithful to Suede’s signature sound, it represents a refreshing evolution in spirit. This is not the place to go to indulge your student-disco nostalgia; rather than try to swagger back onto the scene and try to out-snort men half their age, Suede shrewdly draw our attention to those youthful indiscretions– ego, insecurity, obsession– that we never seem to outgrow pitchfork

Neko Case – Man This stomping bit of strap-on gender theory rides M. Ward’s uncharacteristically butch electric guitar lines. His mid-song solo is pretty awesome, but Case gets the final word: “I am the man in the fucking moon,” she howls, “‘Cause you didn’t know what a man was/Until I showed you.” rollingstone

Swearin’ – Dust In The Gold Sack Much of what is written about fuzz-pop outfit Swearin’ finds a way of mentioning that frontwoman Allison Crutchfield is the twin sister of Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield. The connection is useful in highlighting the siblings’ aptitude for guitar-driven melody, as the Crutchfield sisters churn out indie rock like Beyoncé churns out hair flips, and on “Dust in the Gold Sack”, the band makes it look easy, assembling tangled riffage and crashing cymbals. But for all that expertise, “Dust in the Gold Sack” is every bit as raw as it is cathartic, a place where “booze overnighted” and “grudges unrequited” loom large and then evaporate in the same exhale pitchfork

Sky Larkin – Newsworthy combines a joyous fist punching rambunctious melody with the sort of lyrical dexterity that has always marked Katie out as one of our finest songwriters. Why Sky Larkin haven’t enjoyed bigger commercial success in the UK is perhaps due to the unassailable fact that sadly unchallenging safe shite sells by the mother-load. See the charts for further reference. thevpme

The Fireworks – Runaround a hook-laden mix of fuzzy reverb soaked noise pop thevpme

Tegan and Sara – Closer  starting with Tegan’s coy, tightly wound vocal laying out what she’s after– “All I dream of lately/ Is how to get you underneath me“– the triumphantly shouted chorus coming off brash and charming, as if she knows she’s definitely going to get it. It’s a gloriously freeing, retrospective retelling of first infatuations, rewriting the script to articulate what you could only think about furiously back when. pitchfork

Fimber Bravo (feat. Alexis Taylor) – The Way We Live Today As one of the founding members of 20th Century Steel Band, Fimber Bravo’s influence on music extends further than simply his skills on a steel pan. The band’s 1975 single Heaven and Hell Is on Earth has been sampled by everyone from Soul II Soul to Jennifer Lopez, who used the vocal loop for her 2002 hit, Jenny from the Block theguardian

Steve Mason – A Lot Of Love his most rewarding release since The Beta Band, Steve Mason grapples with politics both public and personal, but in a warm, engaging manner that draws the listener in. theindependent

Blessa – Between Times Well, I didn’t expect that. When I was told that MJ, from our friends Hookworms, had produced an album with a band from Sheffield called Blessa, I was expecting lead singer Olivia Neller to be a screaming banshee with a Dali nightmare of a band for a backdrop. I am charmingly surprised as Blessa bring out a an educated, gentile touch to the shoegaze revolution… Apparently taking influence more from literature than music they deliver a dreamy, detached version of rock ‘n’ roll with Neller’s beautiful cracking vocals at the forefront of it all faroutmagazine

Lovelier Other – Leave This Behind best explored through listening than explaining blahblahblahscience

Flowers – Stuck features singer Rachel singing alone somewhat ethereally with just a one string bass for company. recordsilike

Eleanor Friedberger – She’s A Mirror sounds at once like Hall & Oates covering “Lust for Life” and the Peanuts shuffling to a Harry Nilsson tune– but its amiable melody and boingy bassline give an easy entry point to a song that’s lyrically devious. pitchfork

Desperate Journalist – Cristina They take tropes of a long established alternative scene and package it in a self-assured froth… Indie hymnals, just at home in the murk of a basement club and the strobe lit concert hall, as the solitary bedroom. drownedinsound

Deerhunter – Sleepwalking “I’ve been looking for some harmonies, some words to sing that could really bring the lonely-hearted some company“, he confesses on the jangly indie-pop of ‘Sleepwalking’: evidence that his desire to defecate on all things boring isn’t just a self-indulgent art project, but a means to connect with an ever-growing audience. And that’s always been Deerhunter’s best trick. For all their experimental tangents, they’ve always been able to write a decent hook. nme

Savages – She Will a perfect marriage of Savages’ fiercely intellectual agenda (female agency, sexual liberation) with the fuck-you swagger of one of 2013’s best guitar lines. nme

I Am Kloot – Some Better Day sits on a bed of warm brass and a bouncing chorus that most Britpop bands would have sold a rib for drownedinsound

Everything Everything – Duet a pensive depth and seriousness that reminds us that they’re not just a troupe of hook-crobats, churning out catchy earworms; they do have something to say behind all the complications and bombastic riffs thelineofbestfit

TeenCanteen – Honey So my sisters band release ‘Honey’ this weekend. Only it’s not a record, it is actually a cassette! Not just any old cassette but a delicious honey scented cassette!

Each tape comes wrapped in lino print on seeded paper which you can plant and when you do, a small patch of wildflowers will grow! A download link is thankfully included for those without cassette players.

‘Honey’ is a beautiful song, a cross between a polished 60’s girl group ballad mixed with the raw edge of punky Throwing Muses style guitar pop. The melody and lyrics hooked me instantly (not that I’m biased or anything). everythingflowsglasgow

Laura Marling – Undine the concept at the center of Once I Was An Eagle is among the weightiest Marling could have chosen: the timeless conflict between love and logic… The album tackles the central head-versus-heart conundrum by chronicling one woman’s journey from the end of one destructive relationship to dealing with the emotional repercussions of that experience and finally learning how to love again. pastemagazine

Yuck – Middle Sea reminiscent of Britpop nowhere men Gay Dad. Sure, that’s not the reference that they were looking for but it’s no bad thing… It’s hard to dislike Yuck as the care and detail is all there and it’s very easy to daydream fondly about bands of yesteryear while listening to them – and when was that ever a bad thing? goldflakepaint

David Bowie – Where Are We Now? Romance, power, depth, gravitas and bittersweet nostalgia. It’s pure Bowie

Tirzah – I’m Not Dancing a refreshingly wonky dance track based around a dodgy bit of recorder playing and some scrapyard percussion factmag

Homecomings – In Between Summer “Guitar pop” is a word that originated in Japan. In the United States, it’s called “twee pop,” but “Twee” can mean something like “sentimental” or “pretty.”

Formed by four Kyoto university students, Homecomings is a 120% pure guitar pop band. First album Homecoming with me? The high-pitched guitar sound absorbs not only the UK indie anorak sound of the 80’s, but also plenty of indie pop that passed through shoegazers and led to the Lo-Fi movement in recent years. Of course, it’s also packed with twee essences. tower.jp