It’s Friday afternoon, which means that we’re off to see a celebrity psychic in a few hours (no, really), and also that we’re going back through all the new music we heard over the last few days to pick out our ten favorite tracks of the week. This week we warmed slowly to the new Deerhunter single, took substantially less time to love the new Mykki Blanco track, thoroughly enjoyed BEAK> covering Pink Floyd, got all woozy to Maria Minerva, discovered Manics-sampling pop from Istanbul, remembered why we liked Balam Acab, and more. All these tracks await you — get streaming and/or downloading, readers!
Deerhunter — “Monomania” The new Deerhunter single, in all its Fallon glory — and seriously, Bradford does look kinda terrifying, doesn’t he? As we noted earlier this week, we weren’t entirely sure about this track when we first heard it, but it’s grown on us somewhat. For the record, we still prefer Atlas Sound over Deerhunter, but this is all good. (Also, if you missed it, read Deerhunter teeing off on Morrissey in hilarious style.)
Mykki Blanco — “Bugged Out” This literally just dropped, because Mykki Blanco decided to leak it via Twitter this afternoon. It bodes very nicely indeed for her upcoming EP, which we’re hoping is going to be heading our way sooner or later.
BEAK> — “Welcome to the Machine” A pleasantly bleak, kosmische-y take on Pink Floyd’s jaded critique of the music industry. Yes. Awesome.
Maria Minerva — “Black Magick” We’ve written plenty of times here about how much we love 100% Silk, and we’re particularly partial to the work of Estonian neo-disco queen Maria Minerva — so we’re delighted to see that her entire EP is streaming right now. “Black Magick” is the title track, but the whole thing’s worth hearing. [via Spin]
Flying Lotus — “About That Time/A Glitch Is a Glitch” In which FlyLo gets all 8-bit in the pursuit of making a song for animated TV series Adventure Time. It’s… well, if you like early Crystal Castles and/or the sound of someone pressing all the buttons on a Commodore 64, this’ll be right up your alley! [via Gorilla Vs Bear]
Kim Ki O — “Grounds” Melancholy synth po with motorik beats, straight outta Istanbul? And it samples an interview with Manic Street Preachers’ Richey Edwards?! Um, yes. We’ll have a piece of that action. Abso-fucking-lutely. [via Dummy]
Dan Deacon — “Konono Ripoff No. 1” Dan Deacon rips off Congolese band Konono No. 1 (hey, he admits it in the song title) for Record Store Day, and emerges with something that sounds vaguely like an Afrobeat that’s eaten the whole bottle of Adderall. We can endorse this. [via Stereogum]
Black Bananas — “Hey Rockin” This is Jennifer Herrema, once of professional junkies Royal Trux, now out on her own and making pleasantly seamy rock ‘n’ roll. The mix is all “Sister Ray”-esque, with everything (especially the guitars) turned up to 11, but somehow the whole mess works and sounds pretty damn awesome. Huzzah.
Balam Acab — “Luminescence” The hype around young Alec Koone seems to have receded somewhat, but he can still make a pleasantly atmospheric production when he puts his mind to it. This unmastered new track is very much Balam Acab-by-numbers — spooky atmospheric sounds, vocal sample from old record, etc. — but still, it’s a reminder of why we liked him in the first place. (And hey, it’s better than “ASS POP.”)
At the Drive-In — “One-Armed Scissor” (The Field remix) This isn’t so much a remix as a radical deconstruction — if you didn’t know the original source for this driving, percussive instrumental was At the Drive-In’s coruscating 2000 single, you’d never guess, since all you’re really hearing is the kick sound, a brief drum loop and some streeeeeeeeeetched-out samples — but as a standalone piece of music, it works beautifully, all brooding and dark and atmoshperic. [via Ad Hoc]