I felt like a kid at Christmas today when I learned that one of my favorite artists, Montreal DJ Michael Silver (aka CFCF), will be releasing his debut album ‘Continent’ through Paper Bag Records on Oct. 27. It ranges from mid-tempo nu-disco to balearic and house to ambient. Also look out for ‘The Explorers’ EP that’s out Oct. 6 and features a collaboration with label mate Sally Shapiro.

CFCF first made a splash on the scene with his excellent remix of Crystal Castles’ “Air War.” Below are a few of my favorite tracks CFCF has had his fingers in. Enjoy!

CFCF: Invitation To Love

The Teenagers: Sunset Beach [CFCF Remix]

HEALTH: Triceratops [CFCF Remix]

CFCF: Monolith

The Presets: Talk Like That [CFCF Remix]

Sally Shapiro: Time To Let Go [CFCF Remix]

The City and Horses is the work of Brooklyn songwriter Marc Cantone.While firmly steeped in the indie tradition, the songs traverse many genres of pop: from twee to power to psychedelic to chamber to folk to lo-fi (and back again). The common threads are idiosyncratic vocals, often accompanied by surprising harmonies and clever and heartfelt lyrics.

‘I Don’t Want to Dream’ is the group’s debut album. The best way that I can describe it is a head-on collision between Teenage Fanclub, Belle & Sebastian’s ‘Tigermilk’ and a Wes Anderson film.

The City and Horses: A Thousand Lashes

The City and Horses: I Love The Girls

Be sure to check out the group on MySpace while you’re at it.

Frankly, this is one of those posts I’m surprised I’m writing. However, when digging around through my unlistened music folder, I found a strange folder marked “Bondage Fairies.” Struck with the name, I googled it to see what I had downloaded. Turns out Bondage Fairies is also the name of a popular hentai manga about, you guessed it, fairy fetish.

Silly name aside, the Swedish duo of Elvis Creep and Deus Deceptor (love the names) craft poppy chiptune/Nintendo-punk that’s influenced by Southern gothic mysticism and sound experiments of the 70s. Really, I can’t make this up. Recommended for those of you that liked Of Montreal’s ‘Skeletal Lamping.’

Bondage Fairies: Girls Are Sick

Bondage Fairies: Nv4.dll

For his new project with what he’s called his “favorite band,” Wisconsite Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) teams up with Collections of Colonies of Bees to form the indie super-group Volcano Choir.

With the occasional dip into auto-tune aside, Bon Iver does much to demystify and escape the loner-folkie backwoods aesthetic that’s colored his material to date. Instead, we get an album that pulses with a warm intimacy over a hypnotic little world of loops, synths, percussion and aural ephemera. Don’t worry though, you can still hear Bon Ivor’s falsetto, though slightly less gut-wrenching this time around.

The album comes out on 9/22 via Jagjaguar.

Volcano Choir: Island, IS

Volcano Choir: Still

Tickle me pink. Or an off-shade of purple at least, because The Pains of Being Pure At Heart have released an EP full of new songs.

In case you don’t know them, the Brooklyn group put out a wonderful self-titled album earlier this year via Slumberland records, which includs the singles “This Love Is Fucking Right!,” “Come Saturday” and “Young Adult Friction,” all of which are a toss-up for some of the year’s best songs.

As the group’s name might suggest, their sound hearkens back to 80’s second-wave. It’s full of fuzzed-up songs about love, suicide, incest and the stuff of life. Emusic called the group’s album “[an] effervescent pop debut celebrating the exuberance of youth in all its John Hughes glory,” and that’s an apt description.

My point is, check them out if you haven’t already.

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart: Higher Than The Stars

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart: Young Adult Friction

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart: Stay Alive

If you’ve been (un)fortunate enough to follow this site, you may have realized that I’m a fan of discoy-pop songs, especially from the New Jersey label Italians Do It Better. Normally I’d write a bit about history and my take on the group next, but Resident Advisor did such a good job, I just couldn’t help by copy and paste.

Somewhat frustratingly for the rest of us, Portland-based producer Johnny Jewel seems to have found his niche recruiting attractive singers to his various disco projects. Having already released albums with Chromatics and Glass Candy (fronted by Ruth Radelet and Ida No respectively), Jewel formed Desire after spotting vocalist Megan-Louise singing in a Montreal bar. Joining them is drummer Nat Walker from Chromatics, making Desire a kind of supergroup of musicians from New Jersey label Italians Do It Better. Under the stewardship of Mike Simonetti, the fledgling imprint has become synonymous with blissed-out disco, and now boasts quality acts like Bottin, Tiedye and Professor Genius in its stable. But its Jewel’s projects that feature prominently: Chromatics’ 2007 album Night Drive, along with the After Dark compilation of the same year, first brought IDIB into the limelight.

This offering is very much in keeping with Jewel’s style: sharp piano stabs and synthesizers form a subtle, icy backdrop to sultry vocals. What sets Jewel’s work apart from many other disco acts is his reluctance to use computers and new equipment in both production and live performance, thus giving the music an analog quality that is infinitely more arresting than most contemporary disco counterparts.

The majority of the lyrical content is bleak; this is not an album that grabs you on the first listen. Instead, I found myself slowly succumbing to its charms after several runs through. “Mirroir Mirroir” is the most accessible and dancefloor-orientated song on the album, with Louise echoing that well-worn fairytale phrase, “Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all.” Then her dark lyrics come to the fore: “I worked so hard and for what?…Show me your heart and I’ll show you my blood.” After “Don’t Call,” a classic piece of disco-noir, the album takes a noticeable spin towards the melancholic, with prominent Italo beats replaced by slower, moodier synths and high-end piano.

On “Dans Mens Reve” a saxophone solo follows an introduction reminiscent of a needle running over vinyl (as previously used by Jewel in Chromatics’ “In the City”). Jewel’s instruments take a back seat to Megan-Louise’s vocals on “Oxygene,” while “If I Can’t Hold You,” with three minutes of static after the track is finished, brings II to a moody, wordless close.

Desire: Don’t Call

Desire – Mirroir Mirroir

Be sure to check out the rest of the tracks on the group’s MySpace page as well as their concert schedule.

This little post originally started out as my mid-year’s best list. That’s pretty boring though, and the mid-year’s over. So instead I chose to focus on some of the more ignored albums this year. It’s not that these records haven’t gotten glowing reviews, most have, but for some reason they’ve never really caught on with that many people, which is sad as they’re all quite good.

See below for a little taste of what you may have missed this year by listening to your Animal Collectives and your Grizzly Bears (both whom dropped killer albums).

Think About Life: Havin’ My Baby

Ducktails: Backyard

Passion Pit: Little Secrets

The Antlers: Kettering

JJ: From Africa To Málaga

Delorean: Deli

Guido: Way You Make Me Feel

When Saints Go Machine: Pinned

Memory Cassette: Asleep At A Party

Pictureplane: Goth Star

The Big Pink: Dominos

Washed Out: Hold Out

Wild Beats: We Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Tongues

Well if this just wasn’t odd.

I don’t know how I feel about this, truthfully. A part of me really likes it because it makes me feel dirty, but then there’s that part that of me going “wtf man!”

“While You Wait For The Others” is hands-down my favorite song off of Grizz’s sensational ‘Veckatimest.’ If having this particular guest wasn’t strange enough, the song was actually inspired by the movie ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.’ Anyway, enjoy. Or don’t.

PS – I know this is about a week late, but getting back into the swing of classes hasn’t been too easy.

Grizzly Bear: While We Wait For The Others [ft. Michael 'F***king' McDonald] Seriously.

Grizzly Bear: While We Wait For The Others