I recently described this artist to my wife as “Girl Talk, but jazzy”. While not 100% accurate, it’s pretty close. If you’ve heard the Get Shorty soundtrack (highly recommended), you have a good idea of what RJD2‘s latest work sounds like. It also reminds me a bit of some Propellerheads songs.

Find You Out, from the album Your Face Or Your Kneecaps, has some nice vocal samples in Spanish, laid over a jazz-lounge beat. One of RJD2′s signatures is horn samples, and he has plenty of them here. Fortunately, I love horn samples, so count me as an instant RJD2 fan. In fact, I liked this song so much, I went out and purchased one of his (many) other albums, Magnificent City Instrumentals. That will probably be reviewed in another post in the near future.

Similar in concept to much of Zee Avi’s music, Camera Obscura‘s “French Navy” features a female lead singer and feels like it should be a very old song when in fact it’s brand new. However, where Ms. Avi has a jazzy acoustic/island-girl vibe from the 40′s, “French Navy” is more like a 60′s song. To be honest, I’m having quite a hard time describing it – it’s very hard to define. It’s upbeat, has a great hook, and some nice violin work.

Some might call it a girlie song, and it does have mass female appeal, but I think guys like it too. Strangely enough, I heard it playing in Home Depot lately! That was definitely a surprise.

The rest of Camera Obscura’s new album, My Maudlin Career, is pretty good, but this is the standout single for me.

It’s been a while since I’ve listened to rap. I used to be really into it, but lately I’ve been all about indie rock. Well, every Tuesday, Amazon releases a fresh batch of free MP3 downloads. This was in the latest batch. I’m not sure what made me check it out, but I’m glad I did! It has a great old-school vibe to it, but modernized well with an up-tempo, danceable beat. Imagine RUN-DMC fast-foward.

It’s virtually impossible to listen to this song without moving some part of your body. In that sense, it reminds me a bit of Girl Talk. They also make heavy use of samples and artificial beats, though of course not quite as much as GT.

If you like this track, also check out their excellent 2004 release, The Multi-Platinum Debut Album [Explicit].

Check out the full track preview over at Last.fm.

A note to those with sensitive ears, the explicit version of this album is the only one I’ve been able to find, so don’t be surprised if you hear some curse words or sexual references.

Enjoy!

“Masquerade” is a great little track. Besides their trademark tempo shifts all over the place (which takes a getting used to), it sounds like “Dead Man’s Party“, but from a parallel universe where Oingo Boingo was a punk band. Being an old fan of Elfman and company, I really like this song. So far, it’s my favorite on the album.

An interesting fact about MSHVB is that their drummer is the 13-year-old younger brother of the lead singer. He’s already amazing – I can’t wait to see what his career turns out like! I’m predicting greatness.

Unfortunately, I can’t find any full-length previews online for this song yet, so you’ll just have to take my word for it for now. Enjoy!

Anyway, back on topic… if you’re looking for a mood-heavy, slow-paced song to chill out to, this would be a good choice. Surprisingly, my young son also liked the song, which I take as a good sign. He usually only likes more danceable stuff, so for him to like it means it has a pretty good cross-market appeal.

The video is also very well done.

Enjoy!

It opens strongly with a catchy synthesized horn riff, then gets right to the drums and twangy guitar goodness. I dare you to listen without bobbing your head. The only negative part about this track is that it does get a little repetitive, but overall an excellent tune. Look to be hearing this one more as time passes.

Make sure to pick this song up, along with all the others, on the excellent Barsuk Records: 2009 Amazon Digital Sampler while it’s still available! It’s an amazingly good sampler, free or not.

Deerhunter changed all that. I heard their songs on XMU and fell in love. Only after I was a fan did I hear that they’re a jam band. Two of their songs are on my list of all-time favorites, and of those two, today’s Song of the Day “Nothing Ever Happened” is the best. It’s close, though. (The other will have its own SotD in the future.)

Enjoy!

You can preview the full track of “I Know What I Am” over at Last.fm.

If you like this song, you’ll probably like the whole album, Baby Darling Doll Face Honey. It’s all pretty consistent, which sounds bad but I think is a very good quality to have. At the time of this writing, Amazon has it on special for five bucks, so definitely make a point to pick it up asap if you’re interested. If you don’t want the whole album, another good song off of it is “Patterns“. Last.fm also has a full-track preview of this song.