Mvscles :: "Somethin"

Matt and Kim meets Wet, or Beach House meets Mates of State: The currently unsigned Mvscles bob along with effortless boy-girl vocals and bright synthesizers on latest single "Somethin". Recently freed from a difficult label scrap, the band craft this summer jam - seasonally inappropriate but perfect for a business model like the music industry who will get around to marketing this in a few months - with more than a little reverence for UB40's upstroke Caribbean synthesizer pop. The modulated call and response "oh oh ohs" need only three notes to worm their way into your short term memory and the small cavern of your heart reserved for inappropriately brief affection.

Bogan Via :: "TES"

Brooklyn by way of Phoenix (or something) Bogan Via continue to craft their love-sick synth slow jams on latest single, "TES". "Strange how it kills," mourns singer Madeleine Miller as an arrangement of synthesizer stabs and bass unfolds like a chemically compounded version of Beach House. The lonesome lyrics and the Dramamine-paced BPM add up to something completely broken and more than a little pretty. Miller sings at herself in a duet of layer vocals, occasionally adding band-mate Bret Bender in something that resembles Mates of State or Matt and Kim if either duo broke up and continued to make music in spite of and in homage to their lost relationship. Keyboards, like little lasers, point to the scene of the damage. Miller coos, "pray for better luck tomorrow," even though the best of what's around is already here.

Listen :: Bogan Via - "TES"

Phantogram :: "Don't Move"

With as much bombast as you've heard since Matt and Kim's "Daylight", Phantogram's surprise new single, "Don't Move" rises and falls, heaving with energy and possibility. The band's trademark guitars - here, think of the warmth of "Mouth Full of Diamonds" - creep in the back of the mix while a buzzing, snapping downbeat maintains a benevolent dictatorship amongst horn punches and vocal samples that spill from every angle like MC Escher free-hand drawing a waterfall. The edict is about stasis, a laughable prospect as the song comes out of its final break with the lyrics, "all I know how to do is shake, shake/ keep your body still, keep your body still". The arrangement swells and moves with a force of nature, your head now part of the equation, moving up and down in time.

Listen :: Phantogram - "Don't Move"

[Elevator] Matt & Kim :: "Daylight" [Video]

I'll cop to not really liking Matt & Kim. They always seemed like a roughed-around version of Mates of State and, frankly, Mates of State were (until the last album) just rough enough. I remember kind of liking "Yeah Yeah" but mostly thinking how one-dimensional it sounded. Just how far can you go with being cloying and super-elastically bouncy? Welcome to the limit of your own explosiveness.

On the heels of last month's "Good Ol' Fashioned Nightmare," which offered shades of bombast while still wrapping us in the cloak of cheeky piano-plinks and chant-along vocals, Matt and Kim are back with "Daylight." If "Good Ol' Fashioned Nightmare" was indie-rock's toe-dip into the pool of hip-hop beat and head-nodding dub-step, "Daylight" is a good ol' fashioned swan-dive. Same piano-plinks in instantly-memorable repeat, and then, smack, an almost go-go hip-hop drum beat. Maybe you saw it coming and maybe you didn't. Either way.

Shut your mouth and listen. This is going to bang along until it's done. There won't be a question and answer session. There won't be a negotiation. You won't consider your own existence. You won't feel sorry for yourself. Just shut your mouths and listen. It might be the best you've felt all day.