School of Seven Bells - Alpinisms

Hazy but lyric.

Stars - Sad Robot; Set Yourself On Fire

Reminiscent of Shiny Toy Guns but more mellow and pop-y. (Also, Canadian.)

The Great Outdoors - Food, Booze, and Entertainment - If I Were a Car

I'd heard this song before, certainly, but as of last night I'm totally smitten with it. Yearning, plaintive harmony, in three, on the edge of country music, it's really obvious that I would love this song. And I do, so there.

Mason Jennings - Simple Life

Mason Jennings has released two albums since last I checked.  Simple Life and In The Ever are both solid albums, as far as I'm concerned.  They both have the same thing I liked in Boneclouds.  (Maybe that thing is Mason Jennings.)

Cloud Cult - Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes) - Journey of the Featherless

I've only heard this song a couple of times, but I just think it's fun.

Tilly and the Wall - O - Blood Flower

So I've been listening to the same random playlist for almost a month, and finally I was inspired to cull from it a disc's worth of awesomeness so I could hear these sweet tunes in my car etc. See my last.fm/user/atengwall for the whole list, but I figure I need to recommend a few of the songs that snuck up on me, in the good way.

Starting with this song. I think it's sweet. Annoyingly, though, it's mislabeled on yahoo music unlimited, the title switched with a somewhat less-awesome song called "Poor Man's Ice Cream." Excellent use of the tap-dancing-as-percussion in this tune, which I guess is kind of their thing.

Mirah - Joyride: Remixes - La Familia

So the central question posed by this song comes to my mind from time to time, of late particularly at roller derby after parties. I bitterly love the question's inevitable answer: no.

Okkervil River

I think Peter put me onto this band a while back. I didn't pay a huge amount of attention, but of late when their songs come up on my exquisitely crafted random playlists, I tend to get really excited and think "Hey, what is this?" and it's always them, and I think it's great. I need to actually sit and listen to an entire album and see what the deal is. Unless someone can just tell me what the deal is, in which case I'll probably listen to the album anyway.

Various Artists - I'm Not There Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

So I had been meaning to see this show, and then I heard about the soundtrack. It's for the most part a bunch of artists I'd normally listen to, except now they're covering Bob Dylan. I've been on a Bob Dylan kick the past couple of weeks, and I suspect this will carry it even further.

The Blow - Paper Television - True Affection

I'm not sure what it is about this song today, except that a couple of years ago I lost a longstanding argument with a dear friend about whether anyone was truly "out of my league." Sure, not everyone is for everyone, and there may even be broad based "types" to which and by which one may be attracted, but ultimately she convinced me that no one was out of my league, per se. This has since gone well for me. The end.