I know I’ve been taking the “summer hours” concept a little too seriously, but it’s hard to do anything but enjoy summer when you have something stuck in your iPod like Top Ranking, Diplo’s “mixtape” treatment of Santogold’s debut album. Diplo’s dub-bass-electro-hop concoction provides a textured playground for Santi White’s angelic and sassy brand of new wave. Unreleased mixes of Santi tracks bounce in and out between cuts from Three 6 Mafia, Benga, B-52s, Ratatat, and Sir Mix-a-Lot—there’s a smile around every corner. (If this sounds familiar, Diplo did the same for the last big indie “it” girl, M.I.A., on the eve of her debut album with the 2004 mixtape Piracy Funds Terrorism.)
Now, if you’re picturing me just swaying away in a shady hammock you’re only partly right. Top Ranking also got me off my butt and running every morning (five weeks and counting!). And it’s been the soundtrack to some spontaneous summer grill action… I don’t mean to overpromise but I guarantee it will make your life better—even if that means you forget to update your blog for over a month.
These tracks are some tasty Santogold remixes featured on Diplo’s Mad Decent label, though they’re not even on Top Ranking. For that, you’ll want to head over to turntablelab.com and drop $12 for the 75-minute mix.
I’ve already written about how Mac has been my personal shrink. Portastatic’s got a double disc of demos, singles, B-sides and covers — Ryan Adams, Galaxie 500, etc. — coming out in a week. Some Small History: sign me up!
I dig the quick and dirty track Clay posted yesterday from The Real Losers. Good and raw. It reminds me of a knockout Kafka saying (for the original quotation replace “listen to” with “read” and “records” for “books”), “I think we ought to listen to only the kind of records that wound and stab us. If the record we are listening to doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we listening to it for?”
No matter if you speak español or inglés, you’re gonna get a kick out of the new Plastilina Mosh tracks. That is unless, you’re completely lacking any sense of fun. For those of you unfamiliar with P. Mosh, the duo out of Monterrey, Mexico first imported their bombastic, south-of-the-border-B-52s-meet-Beck party tunes just about a decade ago. They worked with the Dust Brothers and Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf (all of whom worked with Beck early in his career). They enjoyed a healthy amount of commercial success with the track “Mr. P Mosh.” Staying true to their divergent sound, Plastilina Mosh once again mix it up on their new album, All U Need is Mosh. The band can cross styles and tempos just as easy as they cross cultures and languages. One fantastic groove to get on.
It never hurts to have the right friends in the right places. Inara George takes full advantage of an old family friend on her new album An Invitation, out now on Everloving Records. Lucky for her, and us, the friend she’s collaborated with on this album is Van Dyke Parks, the arranger of the last forty years. Haven’t heard of him? Certainly you’ve heard him. Suffice it to say he arranged songs and wrote lyrics with Brian Wilson for the Beach Boys’ ever elusive Smile album. His work with Ms. George is quite different however. Parks arranged airy, playful compositions for a large orchestra to accompany George’s rich vocal performance. The album is an organic foil to Inara George’s work with her electronic work with Greg Kurstin as 
I’m kind of busy right now watching Canada vs. Cuba in Olympic baseball on CBC, but I will say this: Chad VanGaalen’s trembly, trippy, falsetto-ed pop makes a lousy soundtrack for watching athletics on television. (For the most part: the rocking “Graveyard,” available for free download below, might fit in during the half inning breaks where t-shirts are tossed into the crowd.) VanGaalen, of Calgary, crafts stylish and hip songs with a strong D.I.Y. vibe. With these tracks below, borrowed from VanGaalen’s three ablums, all your lo-fi friends will be wanting to know what you’re spinning. Tell them you’re busy — water polo’s on in ten minutes.
I know, I know… If you’re at all like me, you were probably pretty stoked about a band named after Thomas Jefferson’s intrepid explorers of the Louisiana Purchase, until you noticed the “e” up there that’s not really on the end of William Clark’s name. Then you realized the band’s name refers to the correspondence between C.S. Lewis and Arthur C. Clarke, not the Corps of Discovery. (Ok, the band website helped me out on that last part.) And then you download the ten minutes of “Before It Breaks You” and listen to it, and then it’s over before you realize it and the whole time you’ve been bathed in the musical equivalent of sunlight filtered through a grove of aromatic, soft-needled southern pines, or something similarly tranquil and pleasant. Lewis & Clarke call their sound “avant chamber folk,” but don’t let that turn you off. Give them more than a few minutes, and see if you like what you get back. I did.
Time to return to my Memphis roots with Andy Grooms, and his album Greatful to Burn under the Andy Grooms Living Room moniker on Memphis’s Makeshift Music. “Mary Or Mephisto” is a genre blending song, jumping from trippy blues-tinged psych guitar to jazz piano leaning toward 70’s pop.
It’s been three years since The Wedding Present re-emerged from the ashes of 
It’d be safe to say we’re all mad fans of Stereolab. A quick search of our archives reveals nine references to Stereolab as we introduced you to new artists by appealing to your taste in international, space-age pop. There are many more bands that aspire to Stereolab’s neu-lounge sound, but few can keep up with the quality and quantity of output. Never wandering far from their signature sound or formula, Stereolab astonishingly remains relevant and refreshing. For this, their 11th, album the band once again used Sean O’Hagan as producer and arranger. According to Tim Gane, the album began as seventy tiny drum loops on top of improvised piano and vibraphone chords. They sped up some tracks, slowed down others and worked their way to “a collection of purposefully short, dense, fast pop songs.” The track here is definitely one of my favorites from the album, a groovin’ romp where horns and organ build to bursting point, threatening to release contagiously good vibrations. All the while Ms. Sadier keeps her perennial cool, which always melts my butter.