Balearic blue bounce

You'd think all songs would aspire to conjure up the sunset exit in a listener's mind. Who doesn't want the last word? Or be lucky enough to assume a weight that may be totally undeserved. I doubt these guys would insist that they're getting at anything profound with this tune. Just riding out on a lovely, if slightly ominous breeze.

Canyons — When I See You Again

What have I done to you?

Whining is intolerable. Especially whining about the state of your heart as a stand-in for emotional distress, not an actual medical condition. Unless you put it to a backing track that soars and swells with the verve of a heart that functions just fine (with bells even). Irony or fakery —  you tell me.

Loney Dear - My Heart

Underwater affirmation

God bless the boys of Animal Collective for reminding us that psychedelic sound mining can easily intersect with pop bliss. Panda Bear's Tomboy effort continued the gang's winning streak, with some excellent tunes that belong more to a hidden underwater world than a starry-night campfire. This one makes me a bit misty in that anthemic way. On the other hand, tears under the sea? That doesn't really seem possible.

Panda Bear - You Can Count On Me

Late night all day

I've got a soft spot for non-dance music made by dance guys. I haven't delved too deep into the dubstep and assorted beat stylings of Zomby, but I am very much into the subdued electronic moods of his Dedication record. Here's some spooky piano ambiance that reminds me of something I might have pecked out myself. Not a bad one for Friday the 13th.

Zomby - Basquiat

Grown so dark in the sun

I admit that the last week away from the 'blague was not the full-on vacation I'd hoped for. Like a phantom limb, I found myself fighting the twitch to share any passing musical thrill. Sometimes you have to enforce your time off, if only to break up your habits. But at the same time, I'm a lot happier serving up the love.

Here's an excellent specimen of slow-baked country soul. I'm often pretty iffy on rootsy-type bands, but these guys get those sun-dazed dirt roads just right. A nice one to help usher in the days of squinting at the sun.

Hiss Golden Messenger - Blue Country Mystic

Echo inside

Whenever I'm overwhelmed by dystopian visions, it's comforting to turn to music that suggests a future populated by some of our best things. Like this song. Woodsy vocal invocations, baby synths and weird textures, not to mention a riff that sounds hauntingly like a rockless "Baba O'Riley". Even if you're just living in the present moment, this Julia Holter is someone worth listening to.

Julia Holter - Fur Felix

Jaws

You know those days where the sum of events conspire to put a fierce tension in your jaw? You want to literally explode out of yourself, and even having recognized the childishness of that impulse, you still fail to have a laugh at it. Here's some musical therapy for that. Hey, it actually works! Fierce corrective rocking out, happily available over the proverbial counter.

The Men - Lotus

See thru

I'm a bit ambivalent about all these pale-face bedroom slo-jam dudes. Seems like an incomplete co-optation — solid pop and smooth enough, but something about the breathy slinky sexiness seems kinda by the numbers. Like they're taking seriously what was once a joke, but still not ready to go full-on R Kelly about it. Having said that, let's get those lights turned down....

Beacon - See Through You

Old Brooklyn

It's easy to do a lot of face-palming when you watch Andy Statman go animal on stage. In his case, of course, the animal is a gentle, smiling creature that just happens to be preternaturally fleet-fingered on mandolin and so deeply reflective on clarinet that you can practically see the shtetl in a thought bubble.

It's funny that it took him so long to combine his bluegrass and klezmer prowess, and it's so gratifying that the result is anything but gimmicky. Here are just a couple great tunes on his latest. Both are mandolin-based, so you'll have to take my word on the clarinet playing. Or, you know, go get the record yourself and find out.

Andy Statman - My Hollywood Girls
Andy Statman - Eitan and Zaidy

Audio peace

Intense workdays call for palate cleansers that don't kid around. I'd take floaty, skyward-looking synth dreams like this almost any day. But today, it's a special helping of audio peace. It also sounds like the soundtrack for curing diseases.

Steve Hauschildt - Already Replaced

Rising son

I don't much care for dynastic succession. In monarchies or any kind of business. But it is nice to see a young man inherit a fair bit of his father's talent. The son of Neil Finn clearly knows his way around a pop song. Based on seeing him perform a few weeks back, he also seems to know his way around looping pedals. And going apeshit on drums. And beards. And all that at once. Good genes at work.

Liam Finn - Cold Feet

In the ether

Reflecting on a tough day of hard economic realities in the working world and appreciating my good fortune (which is dependably undependable). Wherever the dice roll leaves you, it helps to wrap yourself in layers of ethereal sounds for a good while.

Grouper - Alien Observer

Space is only noise

Among experimental musicians, I'm often most drawn to the ones who can take familiar sounds and make them completely alien. Computers are great tools for that purpose, but it's still the re-imagination that does the heavy lifting. I recently got hipped to Nicolas Jaar, whose Space Is Only Noise album has been a staple of my living room ambience for a couple weeks now. Here's a track that takes somber, minimal piano and puts it in a landscape that only vaguely resembles any place on Earth.

Nicolas Jaar - ^tre

On the back of a new belief

Meanwhile...back in America, the kids are dressed up in their best reverb and dancing the dread away, like a perpetual Kevin Bacon motion machine. Of all the bands that rip off Bruce Springsteen, these guys make me like them with an equal degree of shamelessness.

The War On Drugs - Baby Missiles

Stirring strings

Some more sweet, unhurried waves of sound from a fine guitarist, however unfortunately named. But there's no juicing with this McGuire. Maybe it's because I'm so ensconced in my own digital recording fun, but I can't help smile out loud at a track-yourself-to-your-own-delight situation like this. Some may say it's vanity, but who can't be happy with a world that lets us be our own orchestras.

Mark McGuire - When You're Somewhere

Library ghosts

Some more Simon Reynolds-inspired ghost nostalgia. You don't need to have been raised on British educational television to have an old part of your brain snapped to rapt attention by this jam.

The Advisory Circle - Everyday Hazards

What the heck

Tim Hecker's sketches are more beautiful than many people's masterworks. I could live in his echoes for days without food or engagement of the other senses. That's some ambition. Let's start with a minute and a half and go from there. I think he and I accidentally wrote the same melody. Debating whether or not to sue.

Tim Hecker - Sketch 6

Bon voyage

It's weird that I never really got into Bon Iver, considering the ubiquity of the name-dropping. Or maybe that's been why. Anyway, I admit I'm quite digging the new album, the cheesy parts most of all. Here's one that seems very much of today's moment, what with the scruffy angel falsetto, seemingly mismatched instrumental colors, and general soaringness. Like watching the sunlight dappling on the snow.

Also, it's a good send-off for a much-needed vacation. Going down to the Southern Hemisphere. Back with you on December 6. Enjoy the time between.

Bon Iver - Towers

Real humans

So it seems everyone's all hot for neon-noir, Michael Mann-indebted sounds these days. And why shouldn't they be? I'm glad folks like the Chromatics are getting their well-deserved cinema time. Drive was exquisitely flawed — with a strange fetish for demolished heads — but it succeeded at least for bringing this fabulous track to light.

As much as the hook, I'm drawn to it for the tenderly delivered lyrical notion that to be 'a real human being' is itself a thing worth rallying around, as much as being 'a real hero'. Which is to say I'm at least halfway appalled that we expect a world of inhumanity, if we even know what that is anymore.

College (featuring Electric Youth) - A Real Hero

Meanwhile, I hate to waste anyone's time with a tune they're probably hearing a lot these days (though I do love me that M83 sonic overload), but this somehow feels like the flip side to the heroics above. The former was smartly used in a smiling, dreamy daylight sequence, while this one seems more the province of the stone-faced night driver that is the go-to mental image for this aesthetic.

Having said that, Anthony Gonzales gets a big high-five for his courageous saxophone deployment in the outro. A real human being indeed.

M83 - Midnight City

The truth about America

Thought I'd bring things to a grinding halt around here. Put another way, sometime a song offers no music at all except a well-constructed, multi-idea-synthesizing, passionate, and very human talk about the state of Things today. Give Simon's lecture an hour of your day and your socio-economic understanding will be much enhanced. Promise.