The Courtneys - "90210"

Vancouver's Keanu Reeves-obsessed trio the Courtneys have released the video for "90210," their upcoming full-length debut album's lead single. They've blown up and cleaned up their sound, but their guitars remain fuzzy, and they still play and sing with beach-ready poppiness. I can already tell I'll have this one on repeat for days.

The Courtneys - 90210 from Courtney G on Vimeo.

Nardwuar vs. iceage

And here, related to the post below, is Nardwuar's interview with Copenhagen's iceage at the Waldorf. So severe. And awkward. I wonder if they're like that all the time. I've also never seen a band so unimpressed by Nardwuar. Not even musicians who've dicked off to him have been so lifeless (Blur, Sonic Youth, Henry Rollins).

Punk Music and Barbecue

With the exception of Cult of Youth, this must have been one of the most skull-crushingly awesome shows in a LOOONG-assed time. Scarcely a more stacked line-up than this. Don't know how I missed this one.

Friends in Montreal!

Can you keep your eye out for this poster? Will pay postage/etc! Do I even have friends who will be in Montreal before New Year's? :/

"Snowdrifting"

Snowdrifting from Jackson A. Ragg III on 8tracks Radio.

1 hr, 12 min, 20 sec

1. Azure Ray - "Favourite Cities"
2. Animal Collective - "Bees"
3. Jose Gonzales - "Cycling Trivialities"
4. Interpol - "NYC"
5. John Maus - "Hey Moon"
6. Miracle Fortress - "Blasphemy"
7. John Fahey - "Remember"
8. Kurt Vile - "The Finder"
9. Noveller - "St. Powers"
10. The Walkmen - "We've Been Had"
11. Nico - "The Fairest of the Seasons"
12. Nico - "I'll Keep It with Mine"
13. Roger Eno - "Dusk at Dawn (The Last Cowboy in the West)"
14. Roger Eno - "Field of Gold"

Favourite Releases of 2012: Nite Jewel - One Second of Love (Secretly Canadian)

One Second of Love, the second album by L.A.'s Ramona Gomez, A.K.A. Nite Jewel, has been one of my most listened to albums of the year. There was a period of about two or three months when I first got One Second of Love that I listened to it up to six times a day. The album really turned me around on some of the more recent synth-pop including Toronto's Memoryhouse and Brooklyn's Chairlift, both who put out full-lengths as well at the beginning of this year. However, only Nite Jewel has made it onto my "prestigious" end-of-year favourites list.

Hints of sorrow underlie many of the songs on One Second of Love, but grandiosely sustained synth and drums that seem to echo into space on the swooping opener "This Story" belie the melancholy the music and lyrics otherwise forebode.

The following title-track immediately takes One Second of Love to a starker place. More importantly for me, though, the track may have provided the catalyst for one of my most significant musical revelations: one of my favourite elements in music is tension. I like when elements that shouldn't go together are forced into the same auditory space and, for whatever cosmic reason, totally work. "One Second of Love"'s spire-shaped synths joust with deep bass notes and metallic, clanging, church-bell percussion for control, like Nite Jewel refuses to let negativity prevail. As a result, the song sounds choppy, at once stuttering but then flowing, some parts chunky and other parts fluid. This structure is perhaps most pronounced on the more cheerful "She's Always Watching You."

Despite such seemingly incongruous moments, One Second of Love is graceful as well in its minimalism and deliberation. Nite Jewel's magic is all in how and where she chooses to place every detail, never dabbing more than she needs. Just listen to the barely existent acoustic guitar, drooping, cuppy suction sounds and glimmering electronics on the glacial "Unearthly Delights." These sounds (with the exception of the acoustic guitar) are often only heard on purely ambient albums by artists such as Autechre, whom she cites as a primary influence, but none of the elements or motifs in Nite Jewel's arrangements become effaced by repetition as in so much pure ambience.

"Unearthly Delights" comes halfway through One Second of Love, thus marking the rather late beginning of listeners' realization that for such a relatively minimal album, One Second of Love is quite diverse. "No I Don't," which follows "Delights," slowly scours the cavern floor, hitting the album's lowest notes - notes so low, they're mostly distorted rumbles and warped, inharmonious electronic clicks and zaps. "Autograph," also coming so late in the album, kicks it into an unexpected downbeat, flirtatious groove. Think the New Deal's "Don't Blame Yourself" featuring Feist with its deep, bobbing bass-line. The blissfully celestial "Clive" immediately contrasts the cozy, intimate "Autograph," filling my head with nothing but clouds when I close my eyes. And just when I think One Second of Love couldn't get anymore heavenly, "Sister" sends the album through the earth's exosphere, closing the album on the highest possible high.

One Second of Love is spacious yet catchy, slightly melancholy yet slightly danceable (at least groovy). Nite Jewel successfully combines usually disagreeable elements to give what are pop songs at their cores the illusion of unpredictable structures by way of deliberate but unexpected arrangements. Perhaps the song that best demonstrates all of this, and for that reason is my favourite song on One Second of Love, is "Memory Man." If you're not hooked, don't give up. As I've said, One Second of Love is surprisingly diverse. Give it all a chance, and you too may never come back down.

Favourite Releases of 2012: Night Plane - Heartbeat EP (Soul Clap)

As I've said in my review of Dead Sound & Videohead's Murder EP, I'm not the most well-versed in discussing danceable music. But at least Murder contained some electronic and industrial elements onto which I could latch as descriptive fodder. Unfortunately, I have no such luck with Texas-born, Brooklyn-based producer William Rauscher, A.K.A. Night Plane,'s Heartbeat EP.

I've heard Heartbeat referred to as "nü-disco." I don't know what that is, but it sounds awfully cheesy, as most "nü"-anything does. To me, Heartbeat is just dance music through and through. I guess the title-track is a bit cheesy, but that's as much as I can churn from this EP, especially with my apparent lack of familiarity with disco.

Labels are trivial, though. Regardless of what one wants to call Heartbeat, it sounds good, and that's all that matters. The breezy tune "Gold Soundz" (featuring Harry Bennett and Heather D'Angelo) captures the relaxed spirit of drifting down the highway in an open-top car, in no hurry to get anywhere in particular as the song languidly stretches nearly eight minutes in length. The sky is blue, and D'Angelo's melon-sweet voice shines through the few thin, transparent clouds like rays of light. If the Chemical Brothers' "The Sunshine Underground" downshifted a few gears and jettisoned most of its busy, tunneling electronics, it may follow an even more similar route as "Gold Soundz."

The latter two-thirds of Heartbeat comprises of Wolf and Lamb's remix of "Gates of Dawn" (which again features Heather D'Angelo), an almost equally long Burning Man mix of "Gates of Dawn" and finally, the original version of "Gates." Yes, that's a lot of versions of one song on a five-track release, and the Burning Man mix doesn't differ much from the Wolf and Lamb version, but the original thumps more steadily, like day shifting into night from one version to the other (or night shifting into day, since the Wolf and Lamb version is the sunnier remix). Jazzy one-two cymbal hits and a higher BPI pick up the tempo and add extra groove to the more nocturnal original. Low, muffled post-dubstep piano chords pulsate in the same one-two pattern and fade into the night as the song drives on and electronics bubble and pop - swirl like the tails of a poi performance.

While closing Heartbeat with the original version of "Gates of Dawn" may seem like an odd choice (usually, remixes come last), Night Plane's sequencing actually makes sense: each version progressively picks up speed and incorporates more effects, eventually culminating in a nearly twenty-minute track with minimally varying motifs spread throughout. Running so many generally similar versions of the same song (in sound and in length) together can grow dull quickly, but "Gates of Dawn," no matter whose interpretation, and "Gold Soundz" are both so relaxing that I'm totally fine just drifting along until the road ends.

Favourite Releases of 2012: Group Rhoda - Out of Time, Out of Touch (Night School)

"Out of time, out of touch." That's exactly how I feel when I listen to the debut album of Group Rhoda, the solo project of San Francisco's Mara Barenbaum. Like fever dreaming, unsure if one is waking up back into reality or if the dream is just beginning, there's a disorienting sensation of having been dropped into the middle of an exotic, unplaceable, detached nowhere realm. Synthesizers hiss and rise like steam before tracelessly vapourizing into the night sky ("Virtual Dancer"); jungly percussion melts and drips out of the humid atmosphere ("Hi Rise"). I can't help but envision sultry, Surrealist dreamscapes painted in glowing neons that fade to soft pastels, like Henri Rousseau's jungle scenes doused in Dali's runny aesthetic.

On first impression, Out of Time, Out of Touch may seem thinly layered with very little to conceal. But listen closer, and you'll discover a bounty of life: warm beats patter like paws on the leafy, overgrown forest floor; electronics blink in and out of sight like fireflies; shakers rattle like creatures rustling in the bushes. You may feel an out-of-body lightness in this mirage-like environment, but the tender crackles of branches and bug-eaten logs beneath you remind you in your delirium of your weight. It's curiosity and intrigue over this microcosmic world of mystery - at the time when all of the unseen creatures of the night come to life and thrive (and feast) - that pulls listeners into Group Rhoda's fantastic world.

Though Group Rhoda presents an inviting scene into her tropical world on her Magritte-like album cover*, Out of Time, Out of Touch is not as innocuous as she leads one to believe. The open door and added allure of a comfortable bed are like the vivid spots and stripes on a frog: one can't help but be cautious of the poisonous dangers that lay in wait in her brightly coloured world. "Can you hear me call?," she asks no one in particular on "At the Dark," seemingly reading your mind. "'I'm looking at you / But you're not looking back," comes her reply on "Silence."

Though you still can't see or hear what's lurking in the dark, invisible to the naked eye, "Nightlight" seems to depict the moment you realize without a doubt you're being stalked. By then, it's almost too late: your pulse rises; panic intensifies; desperation sets in. With no escape in sight, album closer "Fire" best illustrates the frantic last dash for a way out after shaking free from whatever mystical force has tried to wrap its seductive, predatory spell over you. You stumble and trip - become entangled in vines as the unseen prowls, and all you can hear is the siren's call ringing behind you: "There is a light / You can stay, if you want to / Stay if you want to / Stay if you want to." But if you've found yourself this deep in the bush, you don't have a choice; Group Rhoda already has you where she wants you.

* There's a version of Belgian Surrealist René Magritte's The Human Condition painted in 1945 that I think Out of Time, Out of Touch's cover art more closely resembles. From what I recall, the painting depicts a room, a door and most similarly a bed. I saw the version at the Surrealism exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery last year but haven't been able to find an image of that version since, hence why I can't fully remember.

Favourite Releases of 2012: Naomi Punk - The Feeling (Captured Tracks)

Three words I would use to describe Naomi Punk's debut album The Feeling: unsettlingly crooked; agitated. Not that the album scares me, but it's just a bit off-centre; it constantly teeters, sustaining a feeling of anxiety that things could tip at any moment.

There's a primordial power to The Feeling that comes not only from its minimalism and rough recording but the way the Seattle three-piece bashes out its riffs and sing with abandon. Naomi Punk's bare, unconventional riffs are anything but smooth, and the sparseness of it all accentuates the space the already loosely recorded instruments have to ring out between each other. The result is an overall hauntedness to the cavernous album.

Naomi Punk aren't outstandingly unique - there has been a recent rise in the number of dank, sludgy bands with similar aesthetics on the West Coast - but they do what they do distinctly (and well) enough that The Feeling has been one of the cooler releases I've heard all year. And it was released by Brooklyn-based label Captured Tracks, one of my favourites. Hopefully, having signed with Captured Tracks as recently as in September, we'll hear more from Naomi Punk next year and on a more prominent level.

Marnie Stern - The Chronicles of Marnia (Kill Rock Stars)

Marnie Stern continues to be one of my favourite musicians whose music I don't really like by naming her upcoming album The Chronicles of Marnia (due March 19). Actually, "Year of the Glad," the album's first single, is pretty good. Definitely greater attention to song-craft on it than anything else I've heard by her, the focuses of which seem to have been just showing off how well she can play guitar.

Favourite Releases of 2012: METZ - METZ (Sub Pop)

One of my most frequent musical analogies for the hardest rocking music to me is the sound of fighter jets taking off and barreling through soot-filled skies. Nothing I've heard from this year - or ever, really - has sounded quite as turbulent as Toronto's destructive METZ. They play to kill, even if it means taking themselves down with you.

METZ' entire self-titled album bleeds the nihilistic despair of a pilot who knows he's on a collision course with infernal death. Downward spiraling, tailspin guitar opens "Rats," and the plane bursts into a ball of flames as drums and bass simultaneously inject themselves into the wreckage. The sense of panic in "Rats" is so overwhelming, I find myself wanting to radio for help, fully aware of the futility in doing so.

METZ is volatile, every song a ticking time-bomb. Every drumbeat explodes like stepping on a landmine. Bass notes launch like strings of mortars. Engine-roar guitars ring out relentlessly like glass-shattering sonic booms. The only cessation comes as stormy calms before METZ circle around and dive-bomb your ears again, penetrating all the way to your psyche, blanketing you with scalding sheets of corrosive napalm noise.

Though not stripped enough to sound punk in the purest sense, the actually demure Toronto trio delivers their F5 whirlwind of gusty hard rock with such an unmatched sense of urgency and alarm (perhaps nowhere more than on "Sad Pricks") that METZ has become one of my favourite albums of its kind period, let alone of the year.

"How The Spice Girls Taught Me To Be a Riot Grrl" By Mish Way

I remember watching the special "Girl Power A-Z" hosted by the Spice Girls. They named Courtney Love for C and showed a clip of the "Doll Parts" video. The Spice Girls commended Courtney for her anger, "Yeah Courtney! Throw that chair! Yeah! Raw! Courtney!" They clearly had no understanding of feminist politics, post-structural analysis or the fact that the inversion of gender roles is counter-productive and binary. But did I? Fuck no. That's something I figured out third year university. Deconstructing Spice was something I would do as a woman, not a girl.

Click here to read the full article.

Favourite Releases of 2012: Jack White - Blunderbuss (Third Man Records)

A no-brainer for anyone who knows me or reads this blog. This past April, Jack White, my favourite musician for the past eleven years, finally dropped his long-awaited debut solo album Blunderbuss. I tried to review Blunderbuss when it came out, but when it started becoming a God-damned thesis (after about day five), for the sake of my sanity and having a life, I scrapped it. So, I'm going to try to keep my thoughts on Blunderbuss short.

We've heard Jack in big-band situations before, most notably with the Queen of Rockabilly Wanda Jackson whose 2011 album The Party Ain't Over Jack produced, played on and released through his company Third Man Records, but we've never heard Jack play with a large ensemble totally on his terms, with him as the chief conductor.

Solo albums are usually hit or miss with me (mostly miss), but there isn't one sour note on Blunderbuss. It's everything Jack White fans could and should have expected from him: a blend of songs that touch upon most periods of his extensive history of work. Lead singles "Sixteen Saltines" and "Love Interruption" could very well have been salvaged from the White Stripes' surely bottomless demo-bin - "Hypocritical Kiss," "Weep Themselves To Sleep" and "I Guess I Should Go To Sleep" re-upholstered from leftover Raconteurs material. And no one can deny the influence of Jack's work with Wanda Jackson on the jumpy, swingin', impossibly, unfathomably cool Little Willie Johnson cover "I'm Shakin'."

But Jack White fans should have expected that he was going to tread new territory as well, as he has with every single full-length album he's released in his career. Jack has never saloon-rocked like he does on "Trash Tongue Talker." More notably, however, nothing he has ever done has trembled like the low-rumbling "Freedom at 21," and while Jack seems to stretch his vocals in new ways every time we hear him in full-length studio format, we've certainly never heard him rap as he nearly does on "Freedom at 21." Perhaps he once again drew inspiration, this time from his long-rumoured session (sessions?) with Jay-Z and his ill-fated session with RZA that never materialized because RZA no-showed but, with a full band already on hand, ultimately led to jamming and writing the songs that would become Blunderbuss.

Although I've identified particular songs on Blunderbuss with particular periods of Jack White's work, I do so non-definitively: I simply mean to draw attention to what I feel is the most prominent leaning of each song. Ultimately, Blunderbuss can be considered Jack's opus because for the first time, Jack has truly combined everything he has ever done not only across one album, effortlessly and cheaply mimicking a career-spanning "best of" compilation, but within individual songs as well. That is the success of Jack White's premier outing as a solo artist. Though I see most of the styles and motifs Jack has covered on Blunderbuss re-appearing on solo album number two (if and when that ever happens), that Jack has finally made his statement as to who is as an artist today - who his fifteen-plus-year career has made him - has finally given him the leeway - the freedom and possibly even the peace of mind - to move on and really tread new territory.

Big Boi feat. Little Dragon - "Mama Told Me"

Listening to every version of this song I can find:

Favourite Releases of 2012: The Intelligence - Everybody’s Got It Easy But Me (In the Red)

Although a familiar t-t-tat-ty drum machine beat opens quirky San Fran punk rockers the Intelligence's eighth album Everybody's Got It Easy But Me, after a few minutes, the first track "I Like L.A." suddenly halts. Singer and guitarist Lars Finberg announces: "Ladies and gentlemen: the band," and, like flipping a switch, suddenly, "I Like L.A." changes gears into a more colourful hi-fi performance complete with live drumming.

From the moment Lars introduces the band, EGIEBM never looks back to its trinkety beginning. Nor does the album ever falter. Anxious, jittery, hip-shaker/breath-takers "Hippy Provider" and "Evil Is Easy" shoot forth like jolts of electricity from the ends of cut wire. Even when the Intelligence slow down on the lightly strummed "Techno Tuesday," one of their rare songs with acoustic guitar and their only song I can remember that features horns, their respite is short-lived as more clamorous songs come in such quick succession that it feels like the band never slows.

Sometimes, a band's switch to high-fidelity can detract from their music, polishing the band's snare unremarkably slick and the production itself becoming a point of attention for the listener. But the opposite can occur, too: the high-fidelity of EGIEBM does nothing but favours in letting the Intelligence's off-kilter riffs and sharp, note-picked guitars, amplified by forceful, though not exactly tight, drumming, punch and stab more tactually than ever.

While not as streamlined as the Intelligence's previous album, 2010's Males, or as far out (sometimes seemingly for the sake of being far out) as pretty much all of their other albums, Everybody's Got It Easy But Me falls refreshingly right in the middle. EGIE even manages to sound cleaner than Males. I don't know how that is. Maybe it's because even though EGIE sounds equally clean, it literally has more details to hear, including more varied instrumentation and similar sound effects as their aforementioned eccentric, "far out" albums. Thus, I listen to EGIE more attentively and take greater notice of its production rather than let Males' comparatively simple songs bowl over me.

Despite falling between Males and the rest of the Intelligence's discography, EGIEBM features some firsts for the band. The surfy "Little Town Flirt" is pure acoustic pop, a complete anomaly for the band. "Little Town Flirt" is also their first female-led song. Lars sings in a key high enough that at first, it's difficult to believe (or at least tell) it's him.

"Little Town Flirt" should be about the only truly unfamiliar moment on Everybody's Got It Easy But Me for Intelligence fans. That the album combines the best elements of one of my favourite bands and somehow makes forty-four minutes seem brisk, lending to its endless re-playability, makes Everybody's Got It Easy But Me not only one of my favourite albums by the Intelligence but one of my favourite albums of the year as well.

Favourite Releases of 2012: Half Chinese - We Were Pretending To Be (Sad Game)

Don't forget about Half Chinese.

That's a note more to myself than anyone else. In the heaps of local bands I discovered in 2012, Half Chinese, one of the first local bands I liked, almost got lost in the shuffle.

Half Chinese's debut full-length We Were Pretending To Be opens in pretty standard indie rock fashion with "Horse Did Whinny," a catchy song that bounces along with the added sheen of plinky mandolin. But it's the following track "Hatchi" that better reflects the album's overall direction, tightly mixing melody with ripping guitar lines over propulsive drumming. Half Chinese also dissolve into more free-form explorations with songs such as the lyricless, essentially instrumental "China Creek" which creeps with subtle, lingering, slowcore guitars, creating a dim undertone before erupting in scorching, uncapped, discordant squalls.

In circular fashion, We Were Pretending To Be returns to pure pop with songs like the clarinet-backed "Boomerang" and the zippy "Little Moon Beam" which cruises along a singular synth-line and wraps up with another catchy, noise-infused rocker ("Goodbye Farewell") and finally bids adieu with another subdued ambler-with-a-big-chorus "Ever Crowley."

Perhaps my perception has been knocked awry by the force with which even the most free-form songs on We Were Pretending To Be hit, but even such songs can't help but feel concise - deliberate - like there's a palpable temperance to the album. Although Half Chinese pretty much bee-line to their point with full focus and seem to know exactly how to get there, they still sound very patient and unrushed. It's impossible to know how well thought out the songs on We Were Pretending To Be were, but with such rocking fun, it's best to just sit back, enjoy the feel-good ride and not think about it.

Download We Were Pretending To Be in full and entirely for FREE on Half Chinese's Bandcamp page.

Favourite Releases of 2012: Death Grips - NO LOVE DEEP WEBB (Self-Released)

Fresh thoughts on NO LOVE DEEP WEBB and Death Grips in general here.

Favourite Releases of 2012 - Grimes - Visions (Arbutus)

Okay, so after only six days, life got in the way, and I fell one entry behind. Luckily, though, one of those entries is Grimes' breakthrough third album Visions, and I don't have much to add (or much need to add) to the discourse regarding Visions because the album has already been talked about to death. Here's a re-post of Visions in full on YouTube:

Favourite Releases of 2012: Ex-Cult - Ex-Cult (Goner)

Jeez, almost every one of my favourite releases of 2012 I've posted about so far has grayscale cover art. Hardly bucking that trend is entry #6, Memphis punk band Ex-Cult's crude debut full-length Ex-Cult.

Like a milder early Les Savy Fav, complete with vocals by Chris Shaw that echo Tim Harrington himself, Ex-Cult bring the noise with an album full of fierce hooks and frantic energy - ballasted by flat drums and fuzzy production. For some, filing down the band's teeth and dulling the album's overall energy in such a way casts unwanted restraint over what are, in essence, exuberant songs. No doubt, cleaner production would bring Ex-Cult to different level of life, but for me, the bleary production - scratching out details - obscuring them - engages me more; it makes me want more, but it forces me to fill in the gaps with sounds that are certainly influenced by what I can hear (obviously) but that ultimately arise from nowhere else but my own imagination. To that extent, Ex-Cult is an exercise in engagement - call-and-response - and I'm ready to shout until I’m hoarse.

Favourite Releases of 2012: DIIV - Oshin (Captured Tracks)

Yesterday's entry was Death Grips' self-released NO LOVE DEEP WEBB, but I already posted about it last week, so I decided to skip to DIIV's Oshin.

Beach Fossils touring guitarist Zachary Cole Smith, better known as DIIV, has managed to put out a far more cohesive, enveloping album than his lo-fi indie rock counterparts with his solo debut Oshin. Underneath the layers of reverb and effects, there isn't much to the songs on Oshin, lyrically or technically, but that Smith manages to create a lot out of a little (at least in terms of feeling) is part of what makes Oshin impressive.

As Oshin's title aptly connotes, listening to the album is a submerging experience. I can see the tiny ripples every note makes, faintly undulating as watery guitars and Zach's washed out vocals in turn wash over me. Whether the songs in their fluidity trickle like riverbed runoff, swirl like a whirlpool or placidly shimmer after rushing forth like a windy stream, Oshin moves as a singular, amorphous entity. But instead of trying to learn the song titles or differentiate the songs from one another by ear, I'm happy just going with the flow, following the ever-changing current wherever it carries me.

I rarely prefer a musician's solo work over that of his or her primary band's, but Zachary Cole Smith has definitely made a bigger splash with me than any fossil I may find washed up on the beach.

Favourite Releases of 2012: Dead Sound & Videohead - Murder EP (Perc Trax)

I wish I could say more about Dead Sound & Videohead's second collaborative EP Murder, but I'm not the most well-versed in techno music. Too bad, because Murder has been one of the biggest blind surprises of the year for me; I'd never heard of either Dead Sound or Videohead prior to hearing Murder, but when I want some grimy beats, it's my go-to record. For thirty dirty minutes, locomotive beats chug alongside the churning sounds of dark, industrial soundscapes, creating a sense that you're trapped in the belly of an impenetrable machine. But when entrapment sounds this good, I don't want to be saved.

Stream Murder in full here.

Favourite Releases of 2012: Best Coast - The Only Place (Mexican Summer)

One of my favourite unapologetically simple and repetitive, lo-fi turned hi-fi pop-machines Best Coast returned this year with their "mature" second album The Only Place. The album certainly shows a band that has grown: it's a bit more musically complex, with more controlled noodling on the guitar and solos that feel more deliberate than ever, and Bethany Cosentino sings with a newfound confidence which she has cultivated over the course of the band's loaded tour schedule. All of these details are given greater clarity thanks to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Jon Brion's spacious production.

Luckily for fans of "the old Best Coast," Bethany and second core member Bobb Bruno have not abandoned their charms. The songs on The Only Place remain supremely catchy, and while their lyrical themes have shifted from weed, cats and puppy love to more serious topics including homesickness, the need to get away from the vices of life on the road and self-reflections on self-identity versus "how they want me to be," Bethany's lyrics remain straightforward.

Favourite Releases of 2012: Beats Antique - Contraption Vol. II (Antique Records)

My first thought upon hearing Contraption Vol. II, my introduction to Beats Antique, was, "I never knew music could sound like this." Even though I'd heard a lot of "eclectic," "genre-bending" music before, I couldn't help but feel that such overused terms could not do Beats Antique justice. The only alternative I can think of is "world music," and even that term is too widely tossed around as a broad stroke to refer to seemingly any music made outside of North America and Britain. Maybe "world fusion," which I've also come across in reference to Beats Antique, is more apt, as generally repulsive as anything that ends with "fusion" may seem without even being heard.

At least the word "fusion" gives a sense of how seamlessly Beats Antique blends a vast array of musical styles. One moment, you're being seduced by the sounds of the Far East. The next, elements of dubstep and drum 'n' bass join the polyphony, and you're cast into a trance by a steady, bold electronic beat on top of dramatic strings ("The Allure"). Or you're rocketing across vast dune vistas in the Middle East ("Skeleton Key"). Hip-hop scratches and fades also pervade Contraption, such as on the Indian-influenced "Crush," and by the end of the album, you may find yourself oafishly box-stepping to the fat, gypsy waltz of closer "Bloody Bones." Often, such shifts in imagery, scenery and mindsets occur organically, sometimes even within seconds of the same song.

At once exotic and familiar, antiquated (exactly as the group's name describes) and contemporary, Contraption Vol. II transports listeners into an atemporal space where concepts of culture and regionalism don't exist beyond the words we seemingly arbitrarily assign to their associated sounds. Where Contraption takes listeners, the world is one, truly a melting pot - truly a unique listening experience.