*** (6:23:45 PM): what's the sentence?

*** (6:24:00 PM): david est un asshole?

sothenjamesgoes (6:24:11 PM): We had to write about a vacation we wanted to take

sothenjamesgoes (6:24:20 PM): so I just wrote about last year in Paris and put it in the future tense

*** (6:24:38 PM): cool

*** (6:24:49 PM): by the way, i found a doper falafel place

sothenjamesgoes (6:24:51 PM): oh yeah?  I'll be right over

sothenjamesgoes (6:25:11 PM): Actually what's funny is in the essay I'm basically like, David is Chinese so we ate dope Asian food.  The end.

*** (6:25:30 PM): u know coriante? the green leaf vegetable?

*** (6:25:53 PM): they have falafel and you put coriante sauce over them...

*** (6:26:07 PM): it's so good, i swear between that and a blowjob, i'd hesitate

sothenjamesgoes (6:26:09 PM): luckily you can do both at once

sothenjamesgoes (6:26:13 PM): if you play your cards right

*** (6:26:29 PM): have u seen two girls and a cup?

This is Lekman's schmaltzy sample-based pop at its best. The horn hook is ineffable, the lyrics are sublime ("I took my sister down to the ocean / But the ocean made me feel stupid"), and the weird sped-up midsection teeters on the brink of not working at all. Squint your ears to hear the great mandolin line under the chorus.  (Here's a link stolen from someone else's blog.)

Like "Everything Falls Apart (And More)" from their first album Dorkrockcorkrod, this is a terrific 3-minute-plus powerpop gem hiding in the back half of a much louder, faster album. From the slightly-sour chorus harmonies to the phenomenal bassline to the cathartic sad-bastard coda ("And if you see him again / Tell him that you never wanna see him again"), it's classic Ergs.  (I couldn't find any mp3s online but here's a decent-sounding live video. The kids all go crazy for the aforementioned "If you see him again" part.)

I don't give a fuck about "trendy" this and "blog buzz" that; some of this dirty London electroclash stuff is a lot of fun. "Tu Connais" is two minutes of juvenile, clipped-out minimalist mayhem, a tribute to awkward teenage sex and deadpan bitchiness rendered in stripped-down laptop dialect.  (You can get it from the BBYYY Myspace.)

There's nothing new I can really say about this. I might as well be synopsizing "Hey Ya!". This is easily Jay's best cameo verse since he became Beyonce's hype man, and the chorus is... well, you know. I love Rhianna's presence on the track, all compressed and pitch-corrected and restrained; it reminds me of all those great early-90s dance hits by anonymous pop divas.  (Not that you need my help to hear this song, but you can watch the video here. Brought to you by Cover Girl!)

This was another song you probably heard a million times, and deservedly so. Wincing was a major let down, even for a casual Shins fan like myself, but this track is undeniable. I can't really top Pitchfork's description of it: "pure, lush pop, boasting a chorus that plays like the aural equivalent of that optical illusion where a staircase appears to ascend indefinitely." Yeah, basically.  (Borrowed mp3 here.)

I didn't even bother listening to this album until last week. I guess I kind of wrote this guy off as a novelty act. But this shit is the real deal. Just under twelve minutes long and featuring lyrics about a golden fountain guarded by a bear who plays in a band of animals who sing songs about "big sharks" and "mace lakes", "Wham City" is one part house party banger, two parts RPG battle sequence soundtrack. I wish it was twelve THOUSAND minutes long.  (MP3.)

Is it totally bullshit to include this song, considering I sing backup on it? I don't care. This is another minimalist laptop ditty: just a surround sound beat, a perfectly simple MIDI synth line, and a small pub's worth of hoarse voices.  (Download link.)

This is a really terrific elegiac little tune, peppered with inside jokes ("I never expected you to believe me when I said that dinos never died") that make the sense of loss really palpable. Everything on the track is laid back rather than restrained; the melodica is particularly lovely.  (It's streaming on the Whprwhil Records Myspace.)

This is really the wacked-out cut-and-paste Menomena formula at its best and most unpredictable. It opens with a typically wonderful singsongy verse melody, but instead of crashing in with the usual wall-to-wall Menomena drums, the rhythm changes up and layered acoustic guitars carry the song for a bit. But when those drums do come... man alive, it's fucking bliss.  (Get it on their Myspace.)

I am not exaggerating: the closing track on Aesop Rock's new album is the best, ballsiest, and most brilliant hip hop crossover song since "Bombs Over Baghdad". Every single moment is fucking phenomenal. Blockhead outdoes himself on the production; the live instrumentation on the breaks is thick as all get-out; Big Whiz's scratches are tasteful and deft. The whole thing culminates in a chant of "T-A-K-E-N-O-P-R-I-S-O-N-E-R-S" as Big Whiz scratches, "That's it... period... end of story," and everyone drops back to let The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle belt out dark inanities to end the track. Not many M.C.s, indie or otherwise, would be selfless enough to let a guest vocalist close out their albums... but Aes isn't other M.C.s.  (Stream on his Myspace.)