O Mother Where Are Thou

Mother Mother have done the impossible. With their 2007 Last Gang debut, Touch Up, the Vancouver quintet won over the templar of indie discretion, Pitchfork, AND vapid celebrity blogger Perez Hilton. Upon reading Perez's love of the band Lindsay Lohan ran down to Amoeba and bought a copy

Not really, but that would be pretty funny. Lilo w/taste.

With all the accolades at their back, Mother Mother returned to the studio to work up their sophomore answer to Touch Up. The result is the nostalgic, novel, profound and playful O My Heart, recorded by Howard Redekopp and overflowing with 80s new wave energy, Brit Pop cheekiness, and indie rock's rough edges.

Download: O My Heart
Download: Body of Tears

How The Broken West Was Won

It was in a backyard of their L.A. neighborhood that Ross Flournoy, Danny Iead, Rob McCorkindale, Brian Whelan and friend/writing partner Adam Vine developed Now or Heaven, The Broken West's second full-length album. While many bands' second albums end up being about the road, Now or Heaven originates from home, the longing to get there and all that comes from being there. The perspective generated from the time spent on the road and the distance traveled led to a new, unnameable development.

Drummer Rob McCorkindale and bassist Brian Whelan tempered and extended the rhythms and the tone of longing first explored on I Can't Go On, I'll Go On. Each song on Now or Heaven contains clever guitars and sublime harmonies, while the drums and bass deliver driving, deliberate rhythms that are more than metronomic; these pulses literally and figuratively power the album. Now or Heaven also marks Brian’s songwriting debut with the dynamic romp, "Got It Bad."

The Broken West spent a year searching for "a diamond in a bag of ice," only to find what they were looking for in their own backyard. Ross, Danny, Rob, and Brian may have returned from their travels with a more sinister perspective on the world, but despite everything, each song on Now or Heaven is infused with an immediate burst of catchy familiarity and unquenchable charm.

Download: Perfect Games
Download: Auctioneer

An Old Wolf Is A Good Wolf

Amongst the slew of frickin' Wolf bands out there, perhaps the best of the bunch is We Are Wolves. (yeah, so Wolfmother is ADDICTIVE as hell on guitar hero and every time I hear I feel the need to reach for a five button axe but We Are Wolves are better)

We Are Wolves spit and hiss and growl and scream just like their furious name might suggest. Animalistic to the bone, their sound is decidedly unique, melding the frantic buzzsaw energy of electro with the angular intensity of post-punk to create a fiery, primordial din or, you know, the sound of the Cramps making nice with Add N to X.

But no matter how you describe it, the Montreal three-piece sure has wowed a throng of people on its way to creating 2005's Non Stop J rte Plie en Duex, delivered to endless fanfare via Fat Possum, and the equally energetic (and one of the best albums of last year) Total Magique, issued last year by Dare to Care.

Amazingly the band is STILL supporting this record and if you happen to live in Canada you can catch them live. (10-17 El Mocambo Toronto, Ontario10-18 Mavericks Ottawa, Ontario) For those of you in the States they were just on the west coast last month and they didn't even head east so tough cookies...and well if you're here in Florida..there's no chance in hell they'll EVER come here, but the Doo Wop Cruise does depart nightly from Miami, Cocoa Beach, Tampa, AND Jacksonville.

So unless you like walkers and arthritis, relive a classic and...

Download: Fight and Kiss

That's Konrad to You

Konrad is just one of many different musical persona's employed by studio savant/song constructionist Jeffrey Konrad. In the past he's recorded as an 8-bit obsessed electronic musician by the name of Robot USA, an emo indie rocker known as eggspout, and a folksy singer/songwriter called "Nigel Jeffrey" who cut an album titled Struggle in the Hive with Patrick Stolley of Marlboro Chorus and Daytrotter.com. And those are just his "official" credentials, he's also released dozens of underground mix tapes and collaborated on a countless number of other projects with musicians from across the globe.

Now he's dropping his full-length solo debut as Konrad called Loose Canyons; a seeming amalgamation of all his past and present musical personalities all mashed into one meticulously produced package. Combining the old school synth sounds of Devo, the ironic b-boy style of Dan Deacon and the sardonic wit of Hot Chip, and a bit of more recent blur for good measure Konrad is poised to be an underground pop hero or another reason why Jeffrey Konrad needs serious mental help.

Download: Osh Kosh
Download: Canyon Blue
Download: These Nights

The Volcano Erupts

Volcano Suns were founded in Boston in 1983 by former Mission of Burma drummer Peter Prescott. In 1985, the band, with Jon Williams on guitar and Jeff Weigand on bass, released their debut album, The Bright Orange Years, and followed it up a year later with another classic, All Night Lotus Party. Both albums were originally released on Homestead Recordsbut have never been available on CD.

The Bright Orange Years is so chockful of catchy songs that it could be any other band's greatest hits album. The opening track, "Jak", is an addictive head-nodder from its opening bassline to its chiming chords and lyrics. By contrast, All Night Lotus Party is a heavier and darker record, with more distorted guitars and bass-heavy production.

Merge will make both albums available on CD for the first time on January 27, 2009, with reissues remastered by Bob Weston and featuring loads of bonus tracks including radio sessions and other rarities.

Download: Jak
Download: All Night Lotus Party

Rebelling Against French Horns

FRENCH HORN REBELLION are brothers Robert Perlick-Molinari and David Perlick-Molinari. Residing in Chicago and the other in New York, the two create fun boombastic electro induced pop. With Robert as a French Horn major in Chicago where as David is a producer in New York (he produced the first MGMT EP), the duo are prepping to release their next full-length.

Their track from self-titled and self-released full-length "Up All Night" (download below) has been featured by the likes of MTVu and CMJ. The track is twee pop synth heaven in a kooky Magnetic Fields meets Paul Simon sort of way. The duo are also set to release this tune as a single with some extra bombastic remixes.

Download: Up All Night
Download: Bad Arse
Download: Ivy League - London Bridges (French Horn Rebellion Remix)

Kicking Ass

We would love to be able to say that the Donkeys are simply four California beach bums who love to surf, drink cheap beer and jam as the sun sets over the Pacific. The long legacy of music hailing from California – from Bakersfield to the Beach Boys, Sweetheart of the Rodeo through Slanted and Enchanted – has shaped our sense that everything and everyone "out west" is laid back, comfortable and cool.

And to be fair, when it comes to the Donkeys, some of this mystique is true – two of the band's members are indeed surfers, and all four have been known to down a six pack or two. But like California, the real-life Donkeys (best friends from Southern California, Timothy DeNardo, Jessie Gulati, Anthony Lukens and Sam Sprague) are much more... real. If their back story contains those top-down cars and suntanned Utopian surf tableau's, it also contains the malaise and the escape fantasies familiar to all suburban kids of the 80s and 90s. Miraculously, the music manages to comfortably communicate both moods at once. Any expression of existential ennui – "is this all there is?" – is simultaneously soothed by an unrushed guitar lick and a harmonized twang that becomes almost, dare we say, meditative.

Their album, Living on the Other Side is about rolling down the windows, cranking up the stereo, and hitting the open road. Maybe you're running away, and maybe you're not, but either way, every thing's going to be alright.

Download: Walk Through A Cloud
Download: Nice Train