75 or less had a review up for the following EP and the references stuck out - Built to Spill and The Jayhawks. Turns outall their recent output is available for download. Enjoy!

Spanish for 100 - Metric EP (2005) and Newborn Driving LP (2003).

New Built to Spill

New Shins

(Old) music from The Adventures of Pete & Pete - from Stylus.

(Old) funk covers of The Beatles' White Album classics.

You like REM. You like Wilco. Without hearing a note, you like The Minus 5 or at least of idea of any sort collaboration between the aforementioned bands. Former Young Fresh Fellow Scott McCaughey has brought folks like Peter Buck of REM and Jeff Tweedy from Wilco into his fold over the last several Minus 5 records with some critical and commercial success.

Their newest album is being released soon and there's some leaked tunes available. Songs:Illinois posted the Colin Meloy guest track: "Cemetery Row" as well as the album opener "Rifle Called Goodbye." Stream "Twilight Distlery" from the Yep Roc Records site.

It was a bit prophetic of the All Music Guide to say that several tracks from its previous effort, the At the Organ EP, should fill out an actual album - it looks like "Hotel Senator" will be on this new album as well.

From the great northwest, Three Imaginary Girls said,"the album is mostly a jaw-dropping juggernaut of brilliant lyrics, ridiculously good melodies, and sublimely soulful electrified busker rock that never fails to charm." I'd agree. These folks know how to fashion a great pop tune. It's deceptively "simple" with new twinkling music and lyrical ideas appearing with repeated listens. The title of this post comes from the opening lines of the new song, "Out There On The Maroon." It's irreverant words like these and a balance of the jangley and twangy elements that makes music FUN. Download another new track, "With A Gun."

Find tracks from previous albums, Down With Wilco and In Rock, here. (I'd definitely recommend "Groove Supply")

Pre-order The Minus 5's new self-titled album, which will "lock and load" on 2/7/06. (and get a free CD-R in the process).

The Black Mountain eponymous album with its single "Druganaut" was one of my most enjoyed LPs of 2005. They also seemed an unlikely opener for Coldplay.

From wikipedia: Leader Stephen McBean also heads another similarly-named band, Pink Mountaintops, who are the more experimental side of McBean's musical abilities.By day, McBean works in a needle-exchange facility for drug addicts, near Vancouver's infamous Main & Hastings intersection, widely considered to be the heroin capital of Canada, if not North America.

Pink Mountaintops will be releasing "Axis of Evol" in March but the label already has an mp3 up for mass consumption - "New Drug Queens." Another track, one that's considerably more stripped-down like the predominant amount of their output, is "Plastic Man, You're The Devil".

The first record "reworked" a Joy Division track - "Atmosphere." Their label, Jagjaguwar, has two other tracks from the self-titled debut: "Rock & Roll Fantasy" and "Can You Do That Dance?"

So, Pink Mountaintops = an occasionally more electrified New Wierd America band? That's a lazy comparision. The synths like those "New Drug Queens" rarely rear their heads in Joanna Newsome or Devandra Barnhardt records. Yet the totality of both records fits more within those confines of slightly fuzzed folk, but McBean or at least his label refuses to fit into boxes.

Enjoyable? Yes, but I really just wanted to post a cover of a Joy Division song that wasn't "Love Will Tear Us Apart."

Purchase Black Mountain and Pink Mountaintops music from Jagjaguwar.