Friday Five: March 23 '07

Warning: Cheesy intro ahead

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This is the first installment of a weekly series that I've been really excited to write. Every Friday I'll share five of the best records I've had in rotation that week. These hand picked albums are the very best that the music world has to offer - served up fresh weekly.

Ok ok, enough of the sales pitch, let's get going. Because this is the first installment I wanted to include some of the stuff I've been listening to no just this week but for the past little bit. Enjoy!

Crystal Castles - Alice Practice EP

Noisy. Unpredictable. 8-bit sound.
Those five words pretty much sum up Crystal Castel's Alice Practice EP. Another way to describe it would be ''really good''. If you like electro crazyness like Miss Violetta Beauregard but want something a bit more accessible, this is it! Think Deerhoof meets nintendo (the original on..with duck hunt). Should you check it out just because it sold out of stores in a matter of days? No, you should check it out because I'm recommending it. Oh, it's only a few songs long, so no excuses.


LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

After his startlingly good first LP, DFA founder James Murphy's LCD Soundsystem has repeated with a great sophmore LP. Yeah, yeah, I know you read that type of thing on Pitchfork, but now you're reading it here. And here is just SO much cooler, isn't it? Belive me, despite an amazingly crap opening track, Sound of Silver really delivers on everything that was good about their first release. Tracks like ''All My Friends'', ''New York I Love You'', and ''North American Scumm'' make this one of the year's best...for now.


Menomena - Friend and Foe

I've been a fan of this Portland group since I first layed ears on their first album, I Am The Fun Blame Monster. Their music is a fine tuned mix of jazzy electro and acoustic guitar indie. All in all, it's a great LP, start to finish. I'm not the first or the last to praise this album so you might as well check it out. Cuz, yeah, all the cool kids are doing it. And you want to be cool, don't cha?




Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?

Kevin Barnes recent divorce sure had an impact on Of Montreal's 10th..no 11th..no wait, 12th release. But despite what some people say, this album's more towards a darker, harder electro sound is more of a natural evolution of where they've been going since Satanic Panic in the Attic. As I mentioned in my review of their live show, their new material is so far gone from the cheery innocence of Cherry Peel, but don't see that as a bad thing - see it as one of the better albums released this year. Top marks for Kevin Barnes!


Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position

Yes, this album really is as wierd as it looks.
Melding a day-glo circus vibe with cheery indie pop isn't as easy as you might think. I mean, look at the train wreck that was the last Scissor Sisters' LP. Where they failed, Patrick Wolf comes out prancing...victoriously. The title track alone makes this album worth listening to. If you're still too put off by the album art, then just imagine that Islands' frontman Nick Diamond had reeeeally let himself go. Hey, musically, you wouldn't be too far off.


Note: Sorry about the lack of MP3 links for these. I'll make sure to include them in next week's installment!