Electro/hipster/indie/rock is the only way I could really think of to describe Ratatat, the genius duo of Mike Stroud and Evan Mast. There’s a good chance that if you haven’t heard of them you might of heard the track Tropicana in the movie Knocked Up during the time lapse pregnancy montages.

Their newest release LP3 is more laid back then ever with a very loungey groove throughout. No worries though, there are some definite breakout tracks on here. Instead of going into a review, why not listen for yourself? I posted all the even tracks of the album on my Muxtape. Why only the even tracks? Because I want you to be encouraged to purchase it and support these indie musicians.

Just updated my Muxtape with tracks I’ve been listening to recently. Notable tracks are “Pity and Fear” off the new Death Cab for Cutie album and “Echoplex” from Nine Inch Nail’s latest free album The Spin which was released last night. Also sprinkled in a few tracks from Ghostly Swim which I wrote about recently.

The full tracklist:

• Nine Inch Nails - “Echoplex”
• Michna - “Triple Chrome Dipped”
• Death Cab for Cutie - “Pity and Fear”
• The Beta Band - “Number 15″
• Santogold - “Lights Out”
• MSTRKRFT - “Easy Love”
• The Roots - Criminal
• Ben Benjamin - “Squirmy Sign Language”
• Mux Cool - “Night Court”
• Cut Copy - “Nobody Lost, Nobody Found”
• MGMT - “Kids”
• Vampire Weekend - “Exit Music (For a Film)”

This eclectic release from Adult Swim and Ghostly International has seen some heavy rotation on my iPod in the past few days and I wanted to share. If you don’t know Ghostly, they are part record label, part art gallery with an emphasis on digital forms of creation and distribution. Here’s what they have to say about the compilation:

A genre-busting 19-song collection, stretching the entire Ghostly International galaxy, Ghostly Swim explores the Avant-Pop style that the Ann Arbor/New York City label has been been championing for the past 9 years. Ghostly Swim features artists like Matthew Dear, Dabrye, Tycho and Aeroc and features new signings like UK cult band The Chap and NYC producer Michna.

I highly recommend giving this thing a listen, it has introduced me to some great artists and a new approach to music in general.

Check it out »

This is unbelievably cool. Robert Hodgin of Flight404 created this stunning visual interpretation of Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” using an application he built that incorporates beat detection. On top of that Hodgin went the extra mile by manually inputting every single snare hit, high hat, literally every beat and it took him over 6 hours. The result is really cool and trippy - I recommend viewing it in full screen.

Weird Fishes: Arpeggi from flight404 on Vimeo

[Via Jakob Lodwick]

Photo Credit: Phawker

Where else would one expect the hipster-funk dance party quintet of Hot Chip to play in Philadelphia besides the Starlight Ballroom? An inevitable traffic jam of road bikes inundated N. 9th Street but we breezed right inside the sold out show with a little friendly name dropping and made a beeline to the bar. The scene was every bit as one would expect and the venue as always was ablaze with pent up excitement. A few minutes and several beers later, the band casually walked on stage, picked up their instruments and got right down to it. We were there to dance, and Hot Chip brought the party.

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Muxtape is a simple, easy to use, social way to share your mixtape with friends. I found out about it a few minutes ago from Jakob Lodwick’s tumblr. Muxtape’s creator Justin Oullette writes, “My goal is nothing short of changing the way we consume, distribute, and discover music.”

You can upload 12 MP3s (which is a surprisingly fast process) then organize them by dragging and dropping. The interface for playing tracks looks like it plays nice on the iPhone and other mobile devices too. I threw together a quick Muxtape of songs I’ve been listening to recently. Check it out.

Justice got their start in early 2003 by remixing some popular French tracks that were eventually picked up by local radio stations. The duo released their first full-length album in June of 2007 and it has made several album of the year lists including Pitchfork’s Top 50 Albums of 2007. Many have compared their sound to Daft Punk due to their use of rock samples and flashy stage shows.

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Philly-based Jake Krolick, a writer for Glide Magazine and JamBase created a fun little video from the Marco Benevento show at World Cafe Live. Obviously the production quality isn’t very high but I’m sure Krolick wasn’t aiming for anything more than splicing a few clips together from the show for fun. The Marc Brownstein sit-in at the end (which I had no idea about until now) makes me angry I missed the show.

[Via Hidden Track]

For some reason I can’t stop putting this album on and loving every minute of it. Battles is considered ‘math rock‘ and is not my usual style of music but there’s some really fun and inventive stuff going on here with great rhythms.

Check out the track Race: In

San Francisco based producer Amplive has finally been granted permission by Radiohead to push out his hip hop remix of In Rainbows. The album, entitled ‘Rainydayz Remixes’ was completed in November of 2007 but suffered from a botched release due to legal troubles brought on by the band’s label.

It is now up for download, free in 192kbps MP3 format. I just started listening and so far, so good. The album features guest performances from Chali2na of Jurassic 5, Del the Funky Homosapien and more. Give it a listen and leave your thoughts in the comments, I’m curious to hear what you think.

Check it out »