ASOBI SEKSU

The NYC quartet Asobi Seksu ["Playful Sex" in Japanese] will release their second album, Citrus, on May 30th. The band describes it as "eleven slices of guitar-swirling, sweet-and-sour, bilingual dream pop." Okay, sure, I can go with that. I especially like these ones right here...

[MP3] "Thursday"

[MP3] "Goodbye"

THE FUTUREHEADS

The Futureheads' new LP, News and Tributes, doesn't drop till June 13th, but the song "Skip to the End" has been making the rounds for a while now. I have to say that it rather easily qualifies as the best song on the record. Pretty much by default, then, the following tracks occupy the #2 and #3 slots for me...

[MP3] "Back to the Sea"

[MP3] "Favours for Favours"

LUCKY SOUL

I first wrote about London's Lucky Soul back in December. Shane over at the Torture Garden just posted on them recently and requested that I make the following links come alive like magic again. My pleasure, actually, as I can't get enough of their neo-'60s sound. Enjoy (again)...

[MP3] "My Brittle Heart"

[MP3] "Baby I'm Broke"

ROBERT POST

I went all ga-ga over the Robert Post song "Got None" way-the-hell-back in July of '05. I'd stumbled upon it while combing Beat the Indie Drum's excellent archives [recently updated!] and then subsequently discovered another solid Post song there just sort of squatting in the shadows. So, here they are - the first by request, the second courtesy of my own immense sense of generosity. (Ha.)

[MP3] "Got None"

[MP3] "More and More"

NEW RADIOHEAD (SORT OF)

The bad news: Radiohead won't be releasing an album in 2006. The good news: They're about to embark on their tour, and boots of their new tunes will soon be flooding the Net. In the meantime, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood played a set on behalf of Friends of the Earth at the Koko in London yesterday. The quality of these resultant recordings is less than perfect, I'm afraid, but Radiohead fans starved for a taste of the new tunes will likely forgive this.

[Had to use SaveFile because EZArchive's been an absolute bitch lately.]

[MP3] [SaveFile] "Arpeggi" [live]/Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood

[MP3] [SaveFile] "Bodysnatchers" [live]/Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood

[MP3] [SaveFile] "Cymbal Rush" [live]/Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood

GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORY

It can be tough to get a body going on a Monday, so I thought we'd crank the volume on a bit of semi-punky dance-pop today to get the juices flowing.

Ghostland Observatory is an Austin, Texas duo with a sound somewhere between Daft Punk and the Clash. And if you can't groove to that, then you can't groove at all.

From the LP Paparazzi Lightning, 2006 >>>
[MP3] "Piano Man"

From the LP Delete.Delete.I.Eat.Meat, 2005 >>>
[MP3] "Shoot 'Em Down"

DRAGONETTE

Dragonette is a London-based quartet that opened for Duran Duran during their last tour. They're supposedly working on their first full-length LP even as we speak. And they traffic in exactly the sort of infectious, silly-ass-superficial dance-pop that I feel like blasting from the rooftops today. Thus...

[MP3] "I Get Around"

[MP3] "Shock Box"