I have to clever way to begin this post about a band named the Moonbabies, so I guess I’ll just write my favorite space-themed pickup line.

P1: Are you wearing moonpants?
P2: Umm… no. Why?
P1: Because your ass is out of this world.

For the umpteenth time, I must again declare my love for Sweden’s pop scene on this little site.

Ten years ago at home in Malmö, Sweden, Carina Johansson and Ola Frick both discovered their similar taste for pop songs. After spending an entire summer performing their favorite covers, forming a band with original material just seemed the logical next step. Five years past, along with band members, until Johansson and Frink decided to continue as a duo, and under the moniker Moonbabies.

As you’ve hopefully come to expect from the pop songs I’ve posted before, Moonbabies sound is amazingly lush and melodic. Their album Moonbabies at the Ballroom can best be likened to an temperate spring afternoon outside with your closest friends. Every song has a romantic feel to it, as the melody swims in a sea of acoustic and electronic midtempos.

Moonbabies at the Ballroom is due May 29 on Hidden Agenda Records. Since switching labels, Hidden Agenda Records will also re-release their entire back library of material throughout the year.

Moonbabies: Take Me To the Ballroom

Moonbabies: Walking On My Feet

Moonbabies: The 9th

Check out Moonbabies on MySpace.

***

If you’ve noticed a lack of posts last week, it’s because my ISP has been less than reliable. My connection always seems to drop whenever I’m ready to write a post.

Also, for those of you who use Internet Explorer and Safari, the formatting problems have been fixed, so the site should finally be able to be viewed how I intended it be.

Ghosthustler: “Parking Lot Nights”

The newest band on the Austin scene. All they’ve got is this single, and it’s pretty darn good. A danceable beat, electronic blips, and a singer that sounds like he’s fronting a New York garage rock band. Success!

Refused: “New Noise”

Oh god, did I love this song when it came out. I listened to my picturesque little soundtrack of Collective Soul, Blink 182, Everclear, and whatever other crap was popular in 1998, until one day MTV2 unleashed this futuristic battering ram onto my scene. I love(d) the way the song builds a towering intro of riffage and thundering bass, only to further tease with mellowed out electronica staccato. Then the lyrics “Can I scream?” are shrieked through the mic, and the track explodes with the force of a small bomb.

Some time last year this song began getting some resurgence by people who were discovering it for the first time. This song, and album, were truly ahead of their time.

The Commodores: “Nightshift”

I’m not really sure I’ve been listening to this one so much, but according my playcount, it’s my number 1 most listened to song of the week. Maybe it’s the non-threatening sensual 80s groove, the story of Jackie, or the reassuring fact that I’m “not alone… on the nightshift.” Whatever the answer, thank you for all you did, Commodores.

DJ/producer Mark Ronson is quite the chameleon, hiding behind his bossanova horns and hip-hop beats that seem to transverse old school and new. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been a little skeptical of his work, because it always seemed a little too good to be true. Just listen to his production on Lily Allen’s and Amy Winehouse’s albums. Absolutely superb.

Ronson himself is again stepping up to the plate by releasing his second solo album, Version, next Tuesday. As the title may be some indication, it’s a collection of Ronson’s versions of alt-rock anthems, syrupy pop songs and alt-country favorites. Version includes cover songs by Ryan Adams, the Smiths, Kaiser Chiefs, Radiohead, Coldplay and many others. This means lots of horns, hip-hop panache, song mash-ups and plenty of guest vocals. It’s a combination that generally works in Ronson’s experienced hands.

Mark Ronson: Stop Me [ft. Daniel Merriweather]

An infectious combination of the Smiths’ “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before” and Kim Wilde’s “Keeps Me Hangin’ On.”

Mark Ronson: Oh My God [ft. Lily Allen]

The long-awaited studio version of Lily Allen’s Kaiser Chiefs cover heard at her concerts and in-studio performances. I personally miss the sounds of gun clips locking, gunfire and sinister cackling heard on some of her live versions.

Version can be heard in its entirety on Mark Ronson’s MySpace page.

For those of you that have ever looked at any pictures of Sufjan Stevens from his Illinoise era, you’ve undoubtedly noticed the attractive brunette beside him. Katrina Kerns, is more than just a pretty face though, as she serves as the glockenspiel player/backup vocalist in Sufjan’s touring band.

In late January Katrina began posting her solo work on her MySpace page. Each song is a folk meditation wrapped in an emotional dreamscape.

Though there is no album planned, Katrina told me she’d be posting several new tracks in the upcoming weeks, so keep an ear open for them.

Katrina Kerns: Run With Me

Katrina’s other songs can be heard on her MySpace page.

Odawas‘ Raven and the White Night best resembles an elaborate Japanese puzzle box that only begins to reveal itself upon persistent examinations, as the trio’s single “Alleluia” so aptly illustrates.

I won’t lie. Raven and the White Night is a grower that takes several listens before you can begin to appreciate its interstellar breadth. Eventually the album begins to unfold itself in its layers of ethereal beauty, giving way to one of the best listens of the year. It’s like some nouveau Pink Floydian experience that’s that’s so retro, it’s futuristic.

Odawas: Alleluia

Odawas: The Ice

The whole album can be streamed from this site. If you enjoy either of these songs, you should really give the album a listen.

It’s a bit of a challenge to write about a band I know absolutely nothing about. Every Google search I’ve performed on the Norwegian band Love Dance leads me to strange Japanese sites that that rant and rave about the record being “teeth,” some weird number thing, or just a jumble of English words. So as far as I can tell, America has yet to realize the existence this album?

According the group’s almost non-existent homepage, “Love Dance’s vision is to create expressions that represents condensations of their personal profile. Subtle mediations of identity…” I consider myself to be a fairly bright person, but frankly, I don’t know what the hell that means. My translation of this cryptic statement is that the group makes lovely guitar-pop songs akin to BritPop of the late 80’s/early 90’s (a more cheerful version of the Smiths or a more aggressive Belle and Sebastian).

In short, it’s an album that their label, Marsh-Marigold, needs to be made more widely available. For those so inclined on making a blind purchase, I did find that you can order their album, Result, here for $16 US dollars.

Love Dance: Ninety Six

Love Dance: Stay Handsome

Love Dance: Losing Faith

St. Vincent has been one of those artists I’ve wanted to write about ever since I began this site last September. I always held off because at the time there looked to be no full-length record in the near future. That, however, will soon change as her debut, Marry Me, will be released July 10 on Beggars Banquet.

For those of you unfamiliar with St. Vincent (Annie Clark), she’s a classically trained soprano who makes smart jazz-folk-pop. Outside of her solo career, she’s the guitarist for the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens’ touring band.

In listening to the Marry Me tracks posted on her MySpace page, this album sounds full of promise from a rising talent.

St. Vincent: Now. Now. (lead single from Mary Me)

St. Vincent: Paris Is Burning

St. Vincent: These Days

Man oh man. It seems like nearly everything those boys from Wolf Parade touch turns to gold — gold I tells ya!* Keeping with the tradition of great Wolf-related side projects (Johnny and the Moon, Sunset Rubdown) now comes guitarist/vocalist Dan Boeckner’s Handsome Furs.

The Furs’ debut, Plague Park, is an album Boeckner had long dreamt of making, but was unable to until he had the leverage of Wolf Parade. The Handsome band is comprised by Boeckner and fiancée Alexei Perry.

Compared to main band Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs packs a little less raw guttural umph than exhibited on Wolf Parade’s Apologies To the Queen Mary. While Boeckner and Perry keep the guitars and vocals a little more timid, they are more melodic and lyrically dark than Wolf Parade. Handsome Furs are their own beast, and is quite an attractive one at that.

Handsome Furs’ Plague Park is due in stores May 22 on Sub Pop Records.

Handsome Furs: What We Had

Handsome Furs: Dead + Rural

It’s nice to see that the video for “Dumb Animals” works perfectly with the song.

You can find concert dates and listen to more audio on Handsome Furs’ MySpace page.

*Exception: Swan Lake. See my best albums of 06 for further details.

First and foremost, happy Easter to all of you out there who follow this site!

Not only is today a special day because of its religious association, but also because for the first time, Audictive is featuring its first (of hopefully many) mixtapes. Now you too can have an Easter-themed playlist on your iPod to rock out to. The tracklist is as follows:

(01) The Shins – ”Red Rabbits”
(02) Neutral Milk Hotel – ”King of Carrot Flowers, Part 2 & 3”
(03) Lavender Diamond – ”Rise in the Springtime”
(04) Bright Eyes – ”Down A Rabbit Hole”
(05) The Magnetic Fields – ”Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits”
(06) Animal Collective – ”Sweet Road”
(07) Apollo Sunshine – ”The Egg”
(08) Of Montreal – ”Everyday Feels Like Sunday”
(09) Bishop Allen – ”The Rabbit”
(10) My Brightest Diamond – ”Magic Rabbit”
(11) Midlake – ”We Gathered In Spring”
(12) The Hold Steady – ”How A Resurrection Really Feels”

The mix comes as a zip file, and is correctly labeled (so it’ll show up right on your iPod). It also comes with a custom painted bunny cover. Enjoy!

Audictive’s “An Easter Sunday” Mixtape (59 mb filesize)

The Rolling Stones: “Thru and Thru”

I’ve mentioned before about my parents taste in music, and how thanks to them, while other kids were listening to whatever it is kids listen to, I was listening to songs like “Sympathy For the Devil” and “Wild Horses” with my Dad while he explained the importance of the song to me. We always disagreed over the Stones’ Voodoo Lounge as he didn’t like their less blues influenced sound, but I thought their grittiness remained intact. “Thru and Thru,” the second to the last song, was always the song I tried I tried to make him like, because it is, I feel, an updated version of their song “Waiting On A Friend.”

The reason I like this song is simple: it’s powerful. Keith Richards vocals (he sings on this one instead of Mick Jagger) sound raw and compliment the song’s climatic build until the wave of blues-rock crashes down. Today I can also appreciate the line “I’m a lover, baby, through and through,” as if Keith’s trying to convince himself that it’s true.

Hello Saferide: “The Quiz”

I just can’t help but find this song completely lovable. It’s just singer Annika Norlin rambling off a list of questions to a potential love interest over three simple acoustic chords and handclaps. Simple and honest. I also enjoy how underneath all of her quiz criteria her vulnerability begins to show through. Quite possibly one of the best songs I own.

Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul: “Inside of Me”

Another one of my all-time favorite songs. “Inside of Me” is a jubilant soul anthem about still being in love.