♦  Vindata kicks off the mix, stretching and weaving waves of additional synths over Toro Y Moi ‘Still Sound’.  In a more understanding world I would be listening to this via underwater pool speakers.  Alex Metric and Dave Edwards, two up-and-coming electronic producers, both take turns interpreting Discovery-era Daftpunk. ’Anybody Else’ and ‘The World Is Ours’ are electronic crack-cocaine.  Great for the Elliptical ladies!

♦   The people hath spoken and they want more electro-swing.  Proleter ‘April Showers’ doesn’t completely match Odjbox ‘Birmingham’, but it carries a nice spring vibe and works well to slow things down.

♦  Penguin Prison ‘Fair Warning’ surfaces twice here with remix treatment from Robotaki and Muffin.  Admittedly this is a lazy move as both are fairly similar, but both are fairly great, so it works.

♦  My favorite lyric by far on this mix comes from the fantastic Mouth’s Cradle and their gem ‘American Boys’, which features excellent references to Peregrine Falcons (my go-to answer for any “What animal would you be” discussion).  Notably – ‘Sweet sweet baby / Sweeter than a soda pop / But your daddy’s meaner than the Robocop”.

Enjoy the playlist and check out the video below – excellent dancing + excellent editing = excellent music video fun success.  Check out the Facebook page or @bempology on Twitter for more music videos and what I’m listening to.

DOWNLOAD – SUMMER DE BEMP 2012

• ♦ Usually I like to pull my favorite track off a release for playlist inclusion but after a gluttonous, torrid romance with the Haim ‘Forever’ EP I just put the entire thing on.  Probably my favorite new group of the last few months and the indie-pop R&B fusion of ‘Better Off’, ‘Go Slow’, and ‘Forever’ comprise the strongest 3-track salvo since Foster the People’s eponymous EP in from early 2011 with ‘Pumped Up Kicks’, ‘Helena Beat’, and ‘Houdini’.   Also, props to KO KO ‘Float’, an effortless kite of pop music that should be coupled with some sort of jubilant, elaborate parade – ideally one of those phantasmagoric Heineken ads (that sentence was formed because I wanted to use phantasmagoric).

• ♦ I came to the realization this month I really enjoy hip-hop based around strong piano samples. I know, revelatory.  There’s a few of  them on April, but the most impressive goes to Kenton Dunson ‘Count On It’, a throwback hit that channels the greatness of Talib Kweli ‘Get By’ with the use of a Sesame Street sample.  ”Cause I’m versatile, I can shake up the floor /I will reverse the tile”.  Also, put on another track from Sol ‘Yours Truly’ which is quickly becoming my new favorite rap release of the year, despite being a mixtape.  ‘Yours Truly’ riffs off a sample from Jon Brion ‘Telephone’ from his genius  ’Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ work, a soundtrack that probably fueled 50% of my run-on sentences in college.

• ♦ These mixes are generally organized by tens of scrawled, vaguely-insane looking post-it notes,  many of which were trying to remind me to listen to new British bedroom folk-sensation Daughter.  Should have done this earlier.  With two EPs to her name, ‘Landfill’ and ‘Youth’ both easily convey why the music press is raving about her and why shitty house-dubstep acts are remixing her material all over Hype Machine.  After Daughter, be sure to check out 2forJoy ‘Choke’, a valium-tinged slice of plaintive electro-pop that seems built for diagnosing hangovers and poor decisions.

1 year in – Older.  Wiser.  Dumber.  Here’s what I like for March.

• ♦  Some excellent retro-pop from Tennis whose sophomore album ‘Young and Old’ stays true to it’s namesake – ‘Petition’ and ‘Origins’ blend equal parts Pleasantville and Motown.  Parentally acceptable + great, which is difficult.  Also continued looks for Lucius and You Won’t, two of my favorite new indie-pop groups.

• ♦  Wildcat! Wildcat! continue LA’s impressive dominance of indie chic with two tracks this month, peaking in the slow build on ‘Mr. Quiche’ that gorgeously slides off into an ambient electronic bliss.  Some other notable electro-pop from iamsleepless ‘Ciel Étoilé’(I imagine this to be the inner soundtrack to Carl Sagan’s mind), Madeon ‘Icarus’ (straight-up masturbatory homage to Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555, see below), and L’EQUIPE DU SON ‘Lesson 1′ (once again implementing the indomitable marriage of hot French chicks talking over calculated synths).

• ♦  For the monthly installment of ‘You Listen To Too Much Girlie Shit’, I’ve gone and selected Lucy Rose ‘Red Face’ (a more subdued folk-pop version of Ellie Goulding, hopefully no royal wedding appearances planned so I can avoid discussing her with mothers), Lady Lamb the Beekeeper ‘Between Two Trees’  (one of the better live shows I’ve seen in 2012 and possibly the best female lyricist I’ve heard in a few years) and another track from Charli XCX ‘Valentine’ (employs the electro-operatic effect a la Marina & the Diamonds, but doesn’t bludgeon it over the head like the latter).

Also if you haven’t seen Interstella 5555 there’s your homework  below, enjoy the mix:

DOWNLOAD – BEMPOLOGY MARCH 2012

• ♦  Electric Guest kick off this month’s playlist with “This Head I Hold”, a track that will be sync’ed to some dancing color silhouettes in an Apple commercial in the near future.  Incredibly fun soulful pop, too catchy to fail.  Also check out American Daydream, where the group tones it down a bit and Danger Mouse’s production sound bleeds through.

• ♦  Some other standouts I enjoyed this month – Philco Fiction ‘Horizon’ (toeing the line between Lykke Li’s flirty vocals and The Knife’s occult synth-pop,  Norway via Sweden), Blood Diamonds ‘Grins’ (absolutely insane that a 21 year old video-game producer can create this type of sonic landscape, going to sync it with this as it’s the only other piece of media grandiose enough to properly match), and Lucius ‘Shenandoah’ (currently battling First Aid Kit as my favorite double-girl-vocal folk-pop group).

• ♦  James Blake ‘Wilheim Scream‘ was one of the best tracks of 2011 and it resurfaces on the February playlist in two iterations – Poindexter’s electro-funk rework, a partystarter / RAC-homage of sorts, and a flawless soul cover version by The Bamboos and Megan Washington.

• ♦  Lastly, Das Racist succinctly figured out what it is I’ve been searching for in a female companion in the aptly titled “Girl”

Girl – you’re really cool
Smart – that’s good at school
Pretty – you’re beautiful
[slight pause]
And I heard you got a pool

If you’d like a DVD of the Bempolgoy year-end video let me know, still have extras.  Enjoy the playlist and check out the video for midi matilda ‘Day Dreams’ below, it’s a good one.

DOWNLOAD – BEMPOLOGY FEBRUARY 2012

DOWNLOAD – BEMPOLOGY VIDEO 2011

After a night of spirited debate with friends and disturbing amounts of alcohol-infused whipped cream, I will now title the mixes to the month ahead.  2012, already crazy.  Also I realize this cover art is similar to September’s atomic bomb-tree combination, but I liked this one too so whatever.

• ♦  Spent a lot of time in the last month or two working through Best of 2011 lists from other blogs (if you want an incredibly, downright insane overview of these lists, check out Largehearted Boy’s collection here).  Will continue to but found a lot of solid, slower down-tempo piano numbers thrown on here – Lia Ices ‘Love Is Won’, Megafaun ‘Hope You Know’, Bright Eyes ‘Ladder Song’, and Sampha ‘Indecision’ (soulful, timeless, and good).  ’Ladder Song’ reaffirms my growing suspicion that Bright Eyes Conor Oberst is a better writer than a singer.

• ♦  Truly loved Darkside ‘A1′, absurdly slick and atmospheric build to kick this one off.  Traces of The XX debut all over it.  Good for the times you’re awake at a stupid, ungodly hour on a weeknight.

• ♦  Other favorites here and strong contenders for artists to watch in 2012 – Theme Park ‘A Mountain We Love’ – more I hear of these guys the more I like, strong Talking Heads / David Bynre sound all over their work which has music critics writing about them with a masturbatory bent.  Said it before and I’ll say it again – employ the steel drum effect correctly and I am but putty in your hands.  The Rubens ‘Lay It Down’ – retardedly strong first single for a band and I’d buy a concert ticket just to heart this louder and live.  Guitar licks are Black Keys-worthy.  Sweet Lips ‘U GOT THE POWER’ – stadium-sized synth hook a la Naked and the Famous and one of the better music videos I’ve seen in the last few months, see below.

• ♦ The sappiest song I’ve put on a mix thus far is AZR ‘Thank You Steve’, which pairs quotes from Steve Jobs famous Stanford 2005 commencement speech with Apple computer sound effects.  This is essentially a techy career-focused version of Baz Luhrmann ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’ but it works well for those Mondays when my brain has a serious dopamine depletion.

Enjoy the playlist, also I put together a Bempology Video DVD for 2011.  It’s a combination of music videos, time lapses, and random internet awesomeness paired with Bempology favorite songs of the year.  I’ll send around a bit-torrent link and some physical DVDs to whoever wants em once I get home from vacation.

DOWNLOAD – BEMPOLOGY JANUARY 2012

Champagne and playlists for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends.

• ♦  Honorable mentions to both Childish Gambino and Slow Club for 6 tracks combined on Bempology November.  I was eagerly awaiting Donald Glover’s ‘Camp’ and it delivered, despite the most predictable Pitchfork backlash of all time (all this while Nikki Minaj’s debut turd receives a 6.5, right).  Included ‘Bonfire’, ‘Sunshine’, and ‘That Power’ here, all with plenty of hyper-literate pop culture white people rap to soundtrack your commute.  There’s a playful early Kanye vibe in the production with even stronger wordplay.  Notable standout – “And shit I’m doin’ this year? Insanity /Made the beat then murdered it, Casey Anthony”.  Slow Club often get shelved in the British-twee neighborhood of Allo Darlin’ or The Boy Least Likely To, but there’s a hazy pop-revivalism feel that transcends dating or genre, a comfortable tension guided by the siren of Rebecca Taylor’s vocals.  There’s three Slow Club tracks here and each one is strong indie pop, each different in it’s own right.

• ♦  Some new looks courtesy my favorite Australian blogs and Triple J Unearthed like most of the mixes I put together.  Argentina ‘Bad Kids’ is reminiscent of the early, youthful Mgmt, possibly to the extent of plagiarism, but that hook is hard to deny regardless of referential accusations. The Jezabels return with ‘City Girl’, the strongest track of debut album ‘Prisoner’, which doesn’t match the strength of earlier EPs but should still be a stepping stone towards very large, packed sold out venues down the road.

• ♦  More instrumental than usual this month, for no reason whatsoever.  The best of the bunch is Odjbox ‘Birmingham’, which is an infectious repurposing of swing music and electronic production styles.  More importantly, it allows you to be a douche and casually note that you’re really into electro-swing lately.  Inverness surfaces again for another piano-driven build as well, while Marius and Oliver both channel the ethos of late-night dorm bong sessions and Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555, in a good way.

• ♦  I have really high hopes for Cyrstal Fighters.  They’re a spastic, bipolar type of group – all over the map in terms of genre / direction and constantly changing personalities for better or worse, but occasionally (see At Home and this month’s inclusion Champion Sound) they hit a home-run.  For the foreseeable future Champion Sound will be a beach soundtrack staple.

Enjoy the mix below.  In December, the music industry essentially dies to a crawl and I’m heading to Brazil for a few weeks, so might do a short one and send out a year end project I’ve been working on.  Have a good holiday!

DOWNLOAD – BEMPOLOGY NOVEMBER 2011

I will not use my credit card points to buy a weather balloon.  Here’s what I liked in October:

• ♦  Good amount of folk numbers this month with a strong wave of new acts from the UK/Ireland – Matthew and the Atlas continue to channel the Mumford Nation Americana vibe on ‘To The North’, Lucy Rose breaks the laws of indie-twee adorabillity on ‘Middle of the Bed’, James Vincent McMorrow adroitly navigates the treacherous territory that is the Bruce Hornsby sound on ‘We Don’t Eat’, and Keaton Henson delivers one of the best acoustic tracks of the year with ‘You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are’.

• ♦  I could have easily copied and pasted the entirety of Portugal. The Man’s latest album ‘In The Mountain In The Cloud’ as it’s incredible – just a seasoned band hitting it’s stride and brimming with confidence – no genre tag necessary because it hurts my brain trying to fart one out.  Ditto for Youth Lagoon, whose ‘The Year of Hibernation’ is still my favorite album of 2011.  Every track on that album is a measure of patience, kind of a woozy melancholy that escalates in tempo 2-3 minutes in.  On ‘Daydream’, Perfect Lines skips past that deliberation and dives straight into the hook,  conscientiously/intelligently choosing to not tamper with the original material too much.

• ♦  I included the obligatory RAC remix, here with Sunday Girl ‘Love U More’, the usual electronica-girlie-awesomeness.  RAC is unstoppably good.  White Panda puts together possibly the best mashup I’ve heard in 2011 with Kanye flowing over M83 ‘Midnight City’, a pretty simple formula as that beat is probably the best standalone track of the year.

• ♦  Things end on a slower note with three songs that warrant mention – Wintercoats ‘Working on a Dream’ – a block of ice melting, 4 minutes and 19 seconds of reverberating strings and calm, No Ceremony ‘Hurt Love (Dawn Golden and Rosy Cross Remix)’ – demands to be played at moments when you should be asleep and the streets are shadowed and dead, an ambient funeral possession, and Caroline Smith & The Good Night Sleeps ‘Eagle’s Nest’ – incredibly impressive salvo from one of my new favorite bands – a modest beginning with Smith’s warbling acapella vocal as the sole element that gradually adds in successive layers of instrumentation at each step, like watching a time-lapse of as a wooden frame and cement foundation turn into a home.

I continue to post two music videos into the abyss of the Facebook newsfeeds on Bempology Facebook.  Also, in the menu above I’ve added in a subscribe section and drop down menu for all the old month mixes.  Technology!

DOWNLOAD – BEMPOLOGY OCTOBER 2011

• ♦  One of the first times I visited NYC after college I convinced a few friends (re: idiots) to follow me in what has become a long and storied tradition – hyping up an obscure concert and corralling a group, generally based on one Youtube clip e-mail with an impressive light-show. and having the concert fail horrifically.  This particular instance was to check out the nu-wave throwback 80s synth-pop of the Valerie Collective (College, Anoraak, Russ Chimes, The Outrunners, et al)  at Webster Hall in 2008.  The two standout memories of this event were 1) consuming substantial amounts of Wild Turkey Honey Liquuer on the Metro Rail North on the way in and  2) asking one Webster Hall employee when Valerie was going on and being told “1 AM” and then immediately asking another who replied “Around 5 AM”.  Never saw them or missed each act while browned out to honey flavored whiskey liqueur.  Long story short, fast forward 3 years and Valerie Collective is back on top thanks to the uber-babe Ryan Gosling’s ‘Drive’, one of the best movies of the year with one of the best soundtracks.  Two standouts are on this month’s mix with College feat. Electric Youth ‘A Real Hero’ and Kavinsky feat. Lovefoxxx ‘Nightcall’.  Both tracks strike a perfect balance between pulsating Nightrider synth instrumentation paired with airtight saccharine vocals gliding over every note.  The kind of music that makes you think you’re cooler than you actually are.

• ♦  Lot of familiar names on this month’s mix as September was a busy month at work and my downloading habits were nonexistent.  Typhoon continues to perfectly combine chamber pop with folk sensibilities on “Summer House”, a song that references the preceding season but whose tone resonates far more in autumn if you ask me.  Youth Lagoon also surfaces again with ’17′, an incredibly slow, muffled ballad that creeps along and manages to pick up at just the right moment with ascending keys, staccato drum sequences, and lush, sharp guitars.  Youth Lagoon’s new album “Hibernation” and his live performance = easily two of my favorite experiences of 2011.  Also tossed in additional cuts from Tyler Lyle ‘California’ and Papa ‘Ain’t It So’, two upbeat cuts that work in pretty much any crowd or situation.

• ♦  I was late on Lana Del Rey but lord does that floozy have some sultry pipes.  ‘Video Games’ lit the blog world on fire but I’d argue ‘Blue Jeans’ is even stronger.  Both worthy of any mix.

Per usual enjoy the playlist, send them to your grandparents, subscribe here, and drop by the Bempology Facebook page to see some neat music vids.

DOWNLOAD – BEMPOLOGY SEPTEMBER 2011

Yep, I’m late.  Here’s some neat songs:

• ♦  Tyler Lyle leads off my favorite tracks of August with ‘The Golden Age & The Silver Girl’ off the album of the same name, an absolutely brilliant and eerie reclamation of Paul Simon’s hallmark 2^nd self-titled release from 1965 (i.e. if you wanted to enjoy this year’s Paul Simon album but were confused as to why he was singing about cooking gumbo on SNL in this second clip down, buy Lyle’s album off bandcamp for $6, I did).

• ♦  Overall this month I gravitated more towards simple indie-pop and slower piano-driven numbers, with standouts in the form of Zach Condon’s baroque chamber-crooning on Beirut ‘Goshen’(his style always makes me feel as though I’m an extra in that Amadeus movie), Matt Berninger’s plaintive baritone on The National ‘Exile Vilify’(his style always makes me feel as though I’m an extra in someone’s intensely personal therapy session), and the complacently pleasant Air Review ‘Waiting Lessons’ (which made me feel like an extra in that Oh Brother Where Art Thou scene where Alison Kraus took over the soundtrack and nearly made me start attending mass again).

• Butcher Blades and Voltaire Twins both emerged as two of the newest names from Australia’s indie-electronic hype machine, both earning this vaulted exclamation through original material and remix production chops.  Some argue Butcher Blades essentially create and produce Donkey Kong Country video game beats a la Super Nintendo, but I err on the side of The Little Mermaid Soundtrack.  These are good things.  Voltaire Twins follow in the footsteps of one of my favorite and possibly most underrated bands Mew (I mean, listen to that guitar build), crafting their own brand of shrouded, haunted-house dance music with ‘Animalia’.  Along a similarly awesome vein, Niki & the Dove continue their rapid ascent to my favorite new group with a twisted, pan-flute driven synthesis of The Knife, Kate Bush, and Cyndi Lauper.  I like to think this is dark-basement pop for the point of the night where you don’t need to play any more Katy Perry.  There, I said it.

• ♦  Last, at some point sit down and play Wise Blood ‘Loud Mouths’ very loud.  It’s a disturbing, funky and occult blur, a religious hymnal hijacked by some sort of succubus.  That is fun to type.  On the other side of the spectrum / world, I wanted to end with Spirit Sisters ‘He’, a warm, nostalgic junction of strings, vocal samples, and faded electronic blips that undulates and churns over 3 minutes of calm.  A song built for the repeat button, not to measure time spent listening but to lose any reference or care for it.

If you want an e-mail reminder of when I get my sh*t together and actually post these mixes sign-up here.  I’m posting music videos about twice a day on the Bempology Facebook Page below as well and once in awhile my roommate comments on them.  Enjoy the Oh Land video below, it’s trippy in all the right ways and Nanna Øland Fabricius dances inside a chair.

DOWNLOAD – BEMPOLOGY AUGUST 2011