passion pit: better things.

d/l: PASSION PIT - Better Days (YSI)

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I'm not going to lie. I've spent most of the remaining days of 2007 listening to nothing but Mary J. Blige. I mean, let's be real...2007 totally sucked. So I needed a strong black woman to bring me into the new year, eh?

When I was able to pull myself away from MJB, I was bumping the crap out of "Better Days". My friend Xue sent it my way for Christmas, and it may be my theme for 2008. My New Year's resolutions haven't collapsed entirely (yet), so such optimistic lyrics as "Baby don't be unhappy, Baby don't be sad. Better things are coming, I swear there's truth in that" really resonate with me in a total 9th grade gospel choir kind of way. Plus this is a totally hot dance-party jam. Kudos to Michael Angelakos.

I also can't get over how awesome this bio is:

"So like, get it out of your mind that this is yet another avant-retro scumbag project, some kind of 21st-century revival of that 80's electropop revival from the late 90's.

No, no, that's not it at all.

It's more like...well, remember when Peter Gabriel and Scritti Politti crashed your Christmas party sophomore year and did a set of Prince covers on your little cousin's toy piano? Do you remember how pure, how beautiful everything looked outside that night, the snowflakes caught in floodlight against the black of the sky? And that girl--what was her name--how gorgeous she looked in that weird white sweatshirt with all that fake sparkly stuff in her hair? It was NOW, right now, and there wasn't anything else but now.

Yeah, that's it. But that's not all of it."

New Year's resolutions for blogging: Stop using the word "awesome" to describe things. Stop copying and pasting, pretending it is content. Stop trying to pretend that a doodle of Mark Ruffalo with an eyepatch + a kitten with sunglasses has anything to do with this song. Stop forgetting to remind listeners that there are two other songs available for download on the space.

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bonus track: PASSION PIT - Sleepy Head (YSI)
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- buy it - space it -

bark bark bark: haunts.

BARK BARK BARK wasn't really the artist who I expected to take me out of my great blog depression, but thankfully he did the trick.

Bark Bark Bark's debut album Haunts was released May 22nd, and it's a collection of tunes about a lot of weird stuff made with a lot of weird toys and instruments. The album was released on Retard Disco records, a home to similarly odd but delightful acts such as 14 Year Old Girls, Totally Radd!!, and Gravy Train!!!! Their roster is kind of all over the place, so don't expect this to sound like any of those bands.

Comparisons have been made to Beck, !!!, Panther, Spank Rock, Liars, Chromatics, Final Fantasy, and Deerhoof...but Bark Bark Bark's sound is far too inconsistent from song to song for any of these to directly make sense. Haunts is full of playful chaotic numbers that are all over the place musically. If you asked the artist himself what he sounded like, his answer would be simple-- "baby kittens". Then you'd probably laugh a bit, noting in your head that these tunes may be good, but they're nowhere near as cute as baby kittens. As expected, the songs on Haunts are, well....haunting. Don't fret though. They're not haunting in a "holy shit this zombie is going to eat my brain" kind of way. They're haunting in a "if you don't motherfuckin' dance right now then this motherfuckin' zombie will eat your brain like my ex-girlfriend ate my heart" kind of way. Got it? Good.

If anything comes close to being as lovable as a pile of kittens, it's the "I'm Needy" remix, which pays tribute to the genius jam "Boom! I Got Your Boyfriend". I guess it also sounds a little bit like Beck. You can download that shit at So Much Silence.

d/l: BARK BARK BARK- Haunts
d/l: BARK BARK BARK- One Thing Stands
(chaotic tunes to make you dance and ponder)
- buy it - site it - space it - hype it -

BLOGWATCH: Pop Tarts Suck Toasted brings us some new tunes off of Architecture in Helsinki's sophomore album Places Like This. The Yellow Stereo and a few other blogs have the new New Pornographers' song "My Right Versus Yours". Arjan Writes points us in the direction of an exclusive acoustic podcast by Amy Winehouse.