The California psychedelic/electronic band Fol Chen recently joined Asthmatic Kitty Records (home of Sufjan Stevens, the Castanets and Viva Voce) on their quest for psychotropic dominance. Some would say the music is similar to more popular artists the Blow or Hot Chip, and it is - but with slick and cooler beats. It’s also different due to it’s dark and light-hearted dichotomy. The beat to their song ‘Cable TV’ has a little bit of an early-nineties hip-hop feel (Snoop Dogg’s “Doggystyle” anyone?) after taking in some good ol’ fashion drug lines of bleeps and blips. Besides that, the song is full frontal electro-indie rock about a choice motel hook-up that relies on the television as backup if it goes sour. It even has a cool Indian style hook (sounds like a sitar, but probably not because that would be too haughty for this troupe).

stream: Fol Chen ‘Cable TV’
from Part 1: John Shade, Your Fortune’s Made

The group is scheduled to make an appearance at the LA County Museum of Art on Nov. 15 and will be at The Echo in Echo Park, CA on Nov. 18. Their first album on Asthmatic Kitty is called Part 1: John Shade, Your Fortune’s Made and will be released on Feb. 3, 2009.

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Looks like someone played a bit too much Oregon Trail when they were little and started making up new towns to settle in. That someone is Michigan’s Frontier Ruckus, who bring listeners on a trip through Orion Town with their new album The Orion Songbook. The album mixes folk, bluegrass, indie and more to create images of a part mythical, part factual town called Orion (which turns out exists as a breeding ground for lumberjacks just north of Detroit and inside frontman Matthew Milia’s head). The album was recently released through Quite Scientific Records and is their debut with the label. ‘Orion Town 2′ off the album is a perfect example of how Milia’s storytelling lyrics help the listener visualize his version of Orion Town. On top of his lyrics, the banjo and horns help contruct this bittersweet song that embodies the nature of Orion Town-both real and fictional. The frozen landfills and I-75 Milia speaks of can resonate with any midwesterner who’s driven 15 miles away from home.

Check out the track below and if you are in the Mitten State, check them out.

stream: Frontier Ruckus ‘Orion Town 2′
from The Orion Songbook

If Your In Michigan Tour:
11-14 Blind Pig - Ann Arbor, MI
11-25 The Ark - Ann Arbor, MI

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Merge recently announced that Lavender Diamond and Broken Social Scene will be a part of their 20th anniversary box set called Score! Merge Records: The First 20 Years. They will be featured on a disc with other non-Merge artists covering select songs from the label’s catalog. Other non-Merge artists to take part in Score! are Apples in Stereo, Bright Eyes, Okkervil River and the New Pornographers, among others. A planned second disc will contain artist remixes including Jason Forrest with his Polvo remix he calls “Dark New Ages”.  Fourteen of the other discs include the favorites from all the bands on Merge. The box set also comes with video footage, artwork and much more.

The service is planned as a monthly installment from Merge to send you a new disc one at a time. The box set is $199 but orders end January 1st 2009 and can only be done at Merge’s site.

For more information on Score! or to place an order go to www.mergerecords.com/score.

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In lieu of a new Postal Service album that may never happen, State Shirt fills the void with its sophomore effort, This Is Old, a recording that’s as romantic as it is dark. The mastermind behind State Shirt, Los Angeles’ Ethan Tufts, fuses fiery indie with beautiful, searching electronic melodies. The first single, “This Is Old,” combines the ferocity of reflective, self-examining lyrics and a pumping, driving beat, layered with ambient tones that might make Imogen Heap step back and say, “Damn. That kid is good.”

stream: State Shirt ‘This Is Old’
from This Is Old

This Is Old Tracklist:
01 This Is Old
02 Time To Go
03 Fell Out of The Sky
04 Computer
05 Up Up Up Up Up
06 I Hate California
07 So Weird
08 Chemma Chi
09 Hospital Hill
10 Conway Station Road

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You can finally take that goddamn Adam Sandler song off your iPod. Erran Baron Cohen, brother of Ali G/Borat vessel Sacha Baron Cohen is coming out with a Hanukkah album for all you hipsters who can’t relate to Sufjan Steven’s chosen holiday. Erran, who also composed original music for Sacha’s Ali G and Borat movies, is releasing Songs in the Key of Hanukkah on  November 18 via New Line Records. The album will have five re-interprations of Hanukkah classics and five original compositions. It also boasts guest appearances from Israeli superstar Idan Raichel and New York City-based rapper Y-Love, who rhymes in Yiddish. Oy vey indeed.

stream: Erran Baron Cohen ‘Dreidel’
from Songs in the Key of Hanukkah

Tracklisting:
01 Hanukkah oh Hanukkah
02 Dreidel
03 Ocho Kandelikas (8 Candles)
04 Spin it Up
05 Look to the Light
06 Rock Of Ages
07 Relics of Love and Light
08 A La Luz De La Vela (In The Light of the Candle)
09 My Hanukkah (Keep the Fire Alive)
10 Ma’oz Tzur

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What does an icy, peaceful winter landscape sound like? Ethan Rose will work on answering this question in January, when he embarks on a trip to Anchorage, AK to work in conjunction with Molo Design on field recordings of the snow, ice and general environment. Molo will be one of 12 teams of designers to build structures/designs out of snow, and Rose will be there to capture it. He will be performing the resulting piece at the Anchorage Museum. The ambitious artist will also release his third full-length, Oaks, on Jan. 27. “On Wheels Rotating,” the first single from the album, is an ambient, peaceful conglomeration with minimalist tones that evoke glorious dreamscapes.

stream: Ethan Rose ‘On Wheels Rotating’
from Oaks

Tracklisting:
01 On Wheels Rotating
02 Rising Waters
03 Grand Marcher
04 The Floor Released
05 Fortunate
06 Scenes From When
07 Mighty Mighty
08 Bottom

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After spending 2008 revelling in the sucesses of 2007’s Strawberry Jam and Person Pitch, Panda Bear’s incredible solo album, Animal Collective are starting 2009 just right with a world tour and a new album. The album, their ninth overall, is called Merriweather Post Pavillion and it’s hitting store shelves January 20 on Domino Records. If the music within is as mindblowing as the optical illusion cover-art, we’re in for a hell of a treat. The collective, still operating as an Avey Tare/Panda Bear/Geologist trio, are playing a few South American dates this month, taking December off doing a short tour of Europe and the US in January.

Fairweather Tour:

11-08 Planeta Terra Festival - São Paulo, Brazil
11-09 La Trastienda - Buenos Aires, Argentina
11-13 Centro Fundación Telefónica - Lima, Peru
01-12 Koko - London, England
01-13 Glasgow School of Arts - Glasgow, Scotland
01-14 Club Academy - Manchester, England
01-15 Concorde 2 - Brighton, England
01-16 Bataclan - Paris, France
01-17 Stuk - Leuven, Belgium
01-18 Postbanhof - Berlin, Germany
01-20 Grand Ballroom - New York, NY
01-22 The Metro - Chicago, IL
01-23 Henry Fonda - Los Angeles, CA

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The world-infused rapper M.I.A. must have been reading Jay-Z’s and Michael Jordan’s guide to retirement, because that gal is busier than ever. As ‘Paper Planes’, sits pretty as a Billboard Top 40 single, (and provides the hook for the very badass T.I. single ‘Swagga Like Us’) Miss Arulpragasam has dropped a digital EP, How Many Votes Fix Mix, which features a remix of ‘Boyz’ with fellow bad-retiree Jay-Z and two other bonus tracks, ‘Shells’, and ‘Far Far’. As far as new music goes, M.I.A. is concentrating more on her clothing line (because who hasn’t wanted to dress like her?) and her label, N.E.E.T. and its first signing, Baltimore’s Rye Rye. Rye Rye’s debut is due next year.

sample: M.I.A. ‘Boyz’ Remix
from How Many Votes Fix Mix

sample: M.I.A. ‘Shells’ Jay-Z Remix
from How Many Votes Fix Mix

sample: M.I.A. ‘Far Far’ Jay-Z Remix
from How Many Votes Fix Mix

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As the leaves start fall and the temps start to cool down, inevitably, the soft-spoken folk-pop records start getting pulled from the shelf. But in Australia, its summer, so if you regard winter as that terrible time inbetween summers, you might find ‘The Lighthouse Song’ from Aussie singer-songwriter, Josh Pyke’s upcoming disc, Chimney’s Afire as a warm distraction. Over finger-picked guitar and light ochestral flourishs, Pyke sounds bit like The Swell Season (that band from the movie Once) as he sings about escaping. Going with the seasonal theme, he’s not looking forward to the winter anymore than you are. “Though our doors may knock and rattle in the wind,” he sings in the chorus, “I’ll just hold you tight and we won’t let those fuckers in.” Nothing like an f-bomb in a light folk song is there?

You can check out the song below and also in our mixTape player - which detaches so you can whistle-while-you-surf.

stream: Josh Pyke ‘The Lighthouse Song’
from Chimney’s Afire

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NYC’s Mascott is flashing her feminine flair with her third full-length album, Art Project, set to arrive on Nov. 11. Mascott layers a twist of Aimee Mann-styled attitude between hopeful harmonies and walking bass lines, creating a rich and uplifting sound that’s sure to turn the heads of soul, pop, and indie fans alike. The first single from Art Project, “Press Play (And Then Repeat),” walks but doesn’t crawl, pops with sparse, wiry guitar chords, and follows the bass up and down mountains of happy pop sweetness.

stream: Mascott ‘Press Play (And Then Repeat)’
from Art Project

Tracklisting:
01 Live Again
02 4th Of July
03 Press Play (And Then Repeat)
04 Red Flowers
05 Opposite
06 Dream Another Day
07 Like Letting Go Of The Sun
08 Nite Owl
09 Wildwood Flower

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