S4,E12: 7/09/07 (The Brunettes, The Phoenix Foundation, Marine Girls, Art Brut, Gonzales, Vampire Weekend v. Clipse)

First up, TSiMH favorites, New Zealand's The Brunettes have a new album and EP coming out before too long, and they've posted a new cut on their Myspace page, it's called "Her Hairagami Set" and it's both a departure from their earlier stuff, and also totally great. Next, also from New Zealand, the very fine Phoenix Foundation did "Let Me Die a Woman" from their American debut Horsepower (iTunes, eMusic, Amazon). Then Everything But the Girl pre-curser and quality 80's British girl-group Marine Girls did the song "Friday" from their two-albums-as-one collection Lazy Ways/Beach Party (iTunes, eMusic, Amazon) as a lead-in for the UK's Art Brut who were clearly influenced by them. We heard "People in Love" from their new album It's a Bit Complicated (iTunes, eMusic, Amazon). Then we heard three songs from one of my favorite instrumental records. The band is Canadian ex-rapper Jason Beck. He now lives in Paris and goes by Chilly Gonzales'. But his seemingly-unlikely side project is Chopin-y solo piano music where he goes by simply Gonzales on a record simply called Solo Piano (iTunes, eMusic, Amazon). We heard "Gogol", "Meischeid" and "Salon Salloon". And finally, mostly because I wanted to promote them again now that they are on tour and their 3-track EP is finally available for purchase in Other Music's new digital store, we heard NYC's up-and-coming incrediband Vampire Weekend's "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" mashed-up with Clipse's "Wamp Wamp (What It Do)" by Les Bank Robbers (you can download it from his Myspace page).

This episode features a clip from the podcast-edition of New York Times' columnist Paul Krugman's article Authentic? Never Mind (read it, subscribe).