Passion Pit + OHWNT MegaPost

Cambridge, Mass's Passion Pit is mostly this guy, Michael Angelakos. He likes to sing like a girl and, apparently, flail his arms in the air while he does so. 

I don't really care what he does with his arms, or voice, just so long as he keeps pumping out the sweet poppy jams like he does the Passion Pit debut EP Chunk of Change [which was, allegedly, first recorded as a valentine for his valentine].

At times the Pit sounds like Prince, and on "Smile Upon Me" I hear Ben Gibbard, which makes it sound a bit like a Postal Service track, and just as emo. But that's not a bad thing.

Standout track "Sleepyhead" has been blogged to death lately, but don't be afraid of the hype. I've had this song on repeat for two straight days, and been passing it along to everyone I know.

Passion Pit - Sleepyhead

Passion Pit - Better Things

Passion Pit - Smile Upon Me

Buy Chunk of Change:

Strictly Discs : iTunes : Amazon : InSound

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Here is a random bag of other goodies that I've been listening to over the past week. Some are old and questionable, but they take you on a rollercoaster ride over the course of an hour or so. As always, download all, and the Passion Pit tunes above, in one handy ZIP, linked at the bottom.

Beach Boys - God Only Knows

constantly listening to Department of Eagles the past couple months really made me want to listen to their sunblissed harmonizing inspirators

Beach Boys - Kokomo

DJ/Rupture - Mirage

I've been listening to this album/mix of Rupture since I got it a few days ago. Solid dubstep beats and collages

Eagles of Death Metal - Wannabe in LA

I'm not sure about this whole EoDMetal thing, the QotSAge side project, but I like this track

Girls Aloud - Fix Me Up

Yes, srsly

Hugo Montenegro - In the Hall of the Mountain King

Ever since I heard "In the Hall" on Mad Men a few weeks back, I sought out the great tune [which was employed au parfait in the MM scene], and this version is one of my favorites

John Legend - Everybody Knows

Junior Senior - Move Your Feet

Love is All - Give it Back

R Kelly - Ignition [remix]

Squarepusher - A Real Woman

I'm not yet convinced the new album Just a Souvenir is a masterpiece, but this is good

Steely Dan - Hey Nineteen

The Onion made fun of SD this week, and I had to pay some homage

Steve Perry - Oh, Sherrie

Journey frontman rocks solo, too

Sufjan Stevens - Sister Winter

One of the best holiday songs penned since 1845

The Great Mundane - Collecting Rain

Awesomely chilled beats from my man in Chicago, sequenced to perfection

Go download the OHWNT 1114 MegaPost zip

Go buy:

Strictly Discs : iTunes : Amazon : InSound

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If you happen to be reading this Friday the 14th and are in or around Madison, come round to 152 E Gorham to celebrate, among other things, two birfdays.

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sister, oh sister

A crazy friend I met in Buenos Aires as he carefreely nomaded his way across South America, photographer colorstraordinaire Dan of danzim and urbanatural.sh, regularly sends out some of his pretty sweet photos.

Dan usually likes to play around with lights and words, messing with things like f-stop, ISO, shutter speed and probably many other things I've forgotten in the thirteen years since I took a photography class in high school. And then sometimes he does some minor post-snap work. In any event, he regularly does cool things like this [click all photos for larger images]:

And this:


I usually find his stuff to be somewhere between photography/design icon Ed Ruscha and lights fantastic photographer and designer Chuck Anderson, aka NoPattern [you've seen Chuck's work all over, just never known it].

But in the latest installment from last week, he played like one of les freres Lumieres and simply caught one tiny moment of everyday life. Below is the masterpiece, unofficially titled what happens when you fall in San Juan.

I can't stop laughing at this picture. It's brilliant. I think I found it even funnier because the copy I received was about seventeen times bigger than the screen, so I saw it piece by piece, first seeing the hermana caida [fallen sister], and then the hermana perra sonriendo [laughing bitch sister]. I can relate-- my big sister would have reacted in the same exact manner.

And so here's a bunch of songs in the theme of the photo.

Sufjan Stevens - Sister
New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream
Muscles - Ice Cream
Interpol - Evil
Menomena - Evil Bee
Colin Meloy - Sister I'm a Poet [Morrissey cover]
Urge Overkill - Sister Havana
Weezer - Troublemaker
Lil Kim - Queen Bitch 101
Bangers 'n' Cash - Bitch
Teiam Player - Kid Sister on my Shoulders

And yes, I did eventually note that she's holding some sort of candied apple or something and not ice cream. Oh well. I already had the ice cream songs uploaded and posted. Besides, the only apple song I could think of was "Bonita Applebum", and you can find that on someone else's blog.

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