We never thought we’d post a Scout Niblett song on this blog–it reminds us too much of former roommates and the heady days when we thought deerhoof might be listenable–but this little pairing with redeemer of redeemers Bonny Billy saves our soul a tiny bit more every time we listen.

Scout Niblett & Will Oldham - Kiss

Goodbye, Brooklyn, how you doing?

Some of us, increasingly more of us, are off to [un]faraway vacations for a few weeks, and at the risk of emitting too much like a military experiment gone awry we wanted to direct a big fucking thanks to all the transumers, brand butlers, New York police, judeo-christian moralists, dive-bar-killers, Fort Greene expatriate grups and piece-of-shit ex-girlfriends that made this year such a precious one. Here’s some nostalgia for ya.

Jay Z & Lil Wayne - Hello Brooklyn (The Knocks Remix)
Carlos Moura - Sou

No, it’s not that weird internet dude. Sometimes you wake up in the morning and before heading out to navigate the stroller Normandy Beach in your local historic neighborhood, you want a 1960s band from Brazil to adopt a 1950s American style and with some flourish. I’m not too twee, I swear!

O Terco - Yes, I Do

Wading through rainy days with a surfeit of latka oil makes one appreciate even less the thick layer of water that pours happily off the BQE every morning on your commute to work. With a bike so unrepaired it would make the bike snob blush I guess I can only be happy I made it home. Anyway, I like this song today because it inexclicably but wonderfully mixes austere Finnish sensibility, 60s jingli-ness AND a Tahitian beach painting. It also has some sort of weird David Lynch thing going on, but I can’t place my finger on it.

Renegades - My Heart Must Do The Crying

Who wouldn’t respect an erstwhile anthropologist drop-out from the University of Minnesota who decided to become a ranchera folk singer in Oaxaca? Lila Downs has a voice that sounds like it’s coming from a deep cavern of sparkling brass, but the production tends to go overboard with faux-indigineity, crossover electric guitar solos, and Sandra Cisnerosesque sentimentalism. These two tracks, from her newish album La Cantina “Entre Copa Y Copa…”, largely avoid those pitfalls.

Lila Downs - Cumbia del Mole
Lila Downs - La Tequileria

Imagine sutured ears listening to inane philosophical arguments. Imagine a pulse pounding beat so full of liquid gold it makes the Gowanus Canal seem like the fucking Aral Sea. Trip-hop double-duo single-quartet band Professor Murder kicks off their annual Italian Street Fair Festivals Festival with a piece so wonderful you gotta wonder where they got the drum samples to make the thing fall so quickly in line. Paired with a great drink, this new track has all the makings of a four-million-dollar condo, and then some.

Professor Murder - Flex-It Formula

it occurs to you as the nights get darker and the air gets colder that the bike ride becomes less tenable. you think of trains more during this time. it isn’t as easy to stand still outside.

Gal Costa - Vapor Barato
Kelly Hogan - Papa Was A Rodeo (Magnetic Fields Cover)

David Lynch and Donovan are both totally into Transcendental Meditation [TM(tm)]. Last week, Lynch went to Berlin and got up on stage with a Tranzendental Deutchmann who promised an Invincible Germany–awkward!!! Trentemoller’s (more tolerable) remix of Moby’s rave anthem ‘Go’ samples the Twin Peaks theme. We’re not sure if Moby is a TMer, but he does sell very expensive tea under the guise of cuteness. In 1996 I was at a corn-cob barbeque in upstate New York with the guy. He had a young blond girlfriend and my friends and I got drunk and danced the Macarena on the dock in the lake.

Donovan - Get Thy Bearings
Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks Theme
Moby - Go (Trentemoller Remix)