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Now seems to be the appropriate time to be sharing this record, given its title.  The echo of the summer is heard louder than the echo of Sin Fang’s last album, Clangour, a delightfully scatty collection of ideas.  This one is more focused, more of an album and more folky.   

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 21 March 2011

The Rip Tide is an excellent album that, much like the rest of Zach Condon’s discography is something of a slow burn (whilst being characteristically recognisable).  Not sure why it took so long to get round to it here but with tracks like East Harlem and the title track, it’s strong enough to comfortably slot into the end of year lists.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 30 August 2011

Six years after Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!’s definitive, eponymous debut and four years after the disappointing, loud and nonsensical followup, Some Loud Thunder, came Hysterical.  A marvellous collection of quirky indie pop that returns to the lighter side of CYHSY! whilst bringing a more well-rounded maturity to the track list.  

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 

A universally epic sound, gradually swelling songs in a rare-double length LP and the controversial use of a saxophone marked out M83’s return to the public sphere.  Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming could have been the album title for about 40% of all indie releases since the summer of 2010 but at least Anthony Gonzales’s effort tries to capture the urgency in the beginning of that statement whilst letting the latter drift as your imagination wanders the way of the second part of the album (i.e. into the distance).  

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 18 October 2011

When the good people of Summer Camp go to sleep at an angle, this is what you get.  Beautiful, dreamy synth-pop that’s slightly too off-kilter to call pop and slightly to charming to call shoegaze.  The twisted dream state extends beyond the rather ethereal ephemera that is each song but into the content too, covering everything from the complications of time travel to the distorted videotapes of our history.  Blouse is ultimately the captured sound of our collective dystopian retromania disintegrating into something ultimately quite vivid.

Imagine the Moldy Peaches on their most introspective days.  The days when the wacked-out, crack-finding urges were gone.  Now imagine a pineapple.  Forget the pineapple.  What you’re left with is Gospel Music.  Anyone who listened to the EP Duettes will know how How To Get To Heaven From Jacksonville, FL is going to sound.  Charming little pop ditties with witty lines such as “I can’t be a man if I don’t have a woman, and I can’t get a woman if I’m not a man” show Owen Holmes poking fun at himself and “You don’t have to be alone (but you can’t be with me)” poking fun at others.

It’d be easy to dismiss Summer Camp as lazy 80s revivalists but beneath that veneer of sneer is a heart of gold.  Sounding like the soundtrack to the John Hughes movie that was never made in, let’s say Condale, this album is a pop masterpiece of sun-reflecting-off-the-newly-polished-surface-of-that-sailboat-you-took-out-once-as-a-kid-style-glistening quality.  This is an album about good times in the face of heartbreak, about memories that are more real than the sepia-tinged Polaroids they are now represented by, about life.  A really assured and vital release from Summer Camp.

In Light, the inaugural album by Louisiana’s young Givers, is not a new release but it has recently hit Spotify.  Fusing the indie-pop-afro-beat of Vampire Weekend with a more exuberant undertone and some lush, tropicalia-inspired rhythms, In Light is an infectiously-melodious record.  This is no more evident than on Up Up Up, their rabble-rousing album opener and set closer but also appears on In My Eyes and Saw You First.  Sometimes the songs take a while to ramp up but when they do it’s invariably worth it.  Maybe this won’t stand the test of time, but for now it’ll take you out of the darkness.

It may only be a 5-track EP but it’s been 4 years coming so we’ll take anything we can get from Mr Lekman, the mercurial and elusive Swede that he is.  Musically this sounds pretty similar to his last record, Night Falls Over Kortedala: a wide-ranging set of instrumentation garnishing simple and charming pop songs.  There are some iffy moments, New Directions so very nearly manages to make the unlikely fusion of Beatles-style trumpets with samba drumming an effective backdrop to a song about optimal route-planning whilst So This Guy At My Office is a bit too light, even for Lekman’s take.  But that’s all a side issue compared to the first couple of tracks (and in particular, Waiting for Kirsten, an odd ode to Kirsten Dunst and her visit to Stockholm) which are the most amusing he’s ever recorded.  For anyone else that might not be a good thing… for Jens Lekman, the master of the wry, comical story told in a charming and melodic way, it’s a great thing.

Veronica Falls… right into your inbox today you lucky reader you.  Because this album is so dark that it’s hot.  Like charcoal.  And like when fiery charcoal hits you in the face, this record is going to leave an immediate impression.  After releasing a string of singles over the last two years that were nothing short of glorious, Veronica Falls debut LP proves that they weren’t just flashes but a slow burning ember of driving, esoteric songs.  As much inspired by the other- or underworld-ly as they are by C86’s jangly, rapidly strummed guitars, this London quartet have innovated on a dying style to make a dead catchy record.

Pelle Carlberg is a master of the story and master of the never-ending song title.  Charming stories of procrastination, mis-spent youth, Smiths drummers and very, very occasionally love fill out this delightful album, originally released in 2007.  Anyone who likes Belle & Sebastian for their dry wit and endearing music will love songs such as Clever Girls Like Clever Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls and I Love You, You Imbecile…

The ever-consistent The Ladybug Transistor add another feather to their bow and fire in a pretty straight trajectory, without quite hitting bullseye.  Clutching Stems, the seventh studio album from the rotating cast of members that makes up TLT, is a fine set of indie pop songs but is light on the grander, psych-tinged elements that graced their finest work (see 1999’s The Albemarle Sound) or the gentler, heartwarming ones that graced others (see 2007’s Can’t Wait Another Day).  It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s still charming.

Let this be stated up front: Red Velvet Snow Ball has very swiftly become one of my favourite albums of the year so far.  It’s full of gorgeously orchestrated songs rich with layer upon layer of not-so-hidden depth and tapping a bounty of genres from the psychdelic pop of The Flaming Lips and Grandaddy to the cosmic folk of Sufjan Stevens via the New Orleans-ian use of the brass section and smart mixing of synths and echoed vocals.  It’s joyous, it’s full of soaring choruses and it’s such a marked progression from the first album, Beauregard, that it indicates a bright future ahead for this LA duo.

Though many of their songs take on different styles, the whole body of water if you will is consistently well made.  Sometimes songs highlight Meredith Metalf’s sweet and strong out-of-the 1960s voice, sometimes David’s almost theater-esq style and other times joining together for another full, orchestral gospel-indie sound.  What saves Bodies of Water from sounding like every other couple indie rock is a combination of unique styles, a consistent mix of inventive lyrics and story lines and the sheer quality of each of their voices.