New Hands :: "Whichever Way You'll Have It"

Cheery synthesizers and rolling drums announce the arrival of New Hands' latest single, "Whichever Way You'll Have It." Finding its legs behind a bass line and vocal that owe a great deal to New Order, "Whichever Way" ebbs and flows between a more skeletal series of verses and a swirling chorus. The hook is the an offshoot of the title, the provocative and maybe pedantic, "Would you have it any other way?" Answering their own question in a final movement that recalls elements of the sublime Future Islands, the band insists, "I'm alive and I can't say no," a resigned bit of fatalism with a glistening post-punk veneer.

Boys and Girls Living Together :: An 8tracks Mix

Boys and Girls Living Together from 32feet on 8tracks.

Last summer 8tracks asked us to curate a summer mix for them, which we did and got us involved in their personalized take on Internet radio. After a long layoff, we returned to 8tracks this afternoon with a mix exclusively concerned with boy-girl pop music. Not surprisingly, most of this music is about break ups. Called "Boys and Girls Living Together" it comprises some of the best pop conversations between male and female vocalists (a trend that we traced to Human League's sex-power treatise, "Don't You Want Me"). The requirements were that each vocalist had to sing at least a verse or a bridge, not just the hook in the chorus. If you enjoyed the Postal Service's brutal "Nothing Better" or the masochism of Stars' "Elevator Love Letter," you already know this aesthetic well. Stream the mix above and take a spin around 8tracks and let us know what we missed.

Mirror Talk :: "Choose Life"

A half-haunted and precious thing, Mirror Talk took to the backyard to bury their synthesizers and melodies. Heavy-handed metaphor though it may be, the first moments of the band's single, "Choose Life" are muffled and blurry before a cloud-clearing burst of sound, soaring synths and drubbing bass lines. The hook is very much reminiscent of Future Islands, a slice of fuzzy and slightly off-kilter keyboard orchestra. While the fuzz indicated a hidden self, the topical thrust is even more fatal. Underpinning the whole thing is a terrible interrogative lyric, "Is it true, love?" followed by the most mournful, "ohs" you'll hear this week. A long-form projection, "Choose Life" unfolds over nearly five minutes, ebbing and flowing between verse and chorus with a tidal certainty. The central question, whether "it" is true, is left parenthetically unknown. We are left to assume, yes, and the worst, our options to dig a hole or explode upwards.

Listen :: Mirror Talk - "Choose Life"