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10 Albums You Can Hear Now: Youth Lagoon, the Men, Major Lazer, and More

the men, new moon

It’s Tuesday! Grab a pair of headphones and plug into the 10 ready-to-stream albums below.

1) Youth Lagoon, Wondrous Bughouse. “[One] of the most arresting headphone records you’ll hear this year. Trevor Powers, the band’s sole member, layers strange but alluring synth textures under quirky melodies and simple pop beats, in the process creating an expansive and endlessly engrossing world of sonic curiosities.” (via NPR)

2) The Men, New Moon. On “Electric,” the album’s eighth track: “[Exudes] sweat and grit, setting frantic guitar-and-drums swells sure to induce crowd-surfing between elliptical, urgently delivered lyrics. The energy and some of the chord changes bring to mind the late, great Exploding Hearts’ ‘Still Crazy,’ and anyone who ever raised a beer at a Japandroids show ought to flip for this, but the Men almost definitely have in mind older idols. The Stooges and the MC5, anyone?” — SPIN (via Pitchfork)

3) Simian Mobile Disco, Live. “Armed with a battery of machines, and having honed their knob-twiddling chops during years of gigs in clubs big and small, [Simian Mobile Disco have] got the art of live techno down to a science. They show us how it’s done on Live, the 15-track document of one night of their 2012 tour. The album connects the dots between the duo’s best known singles and album cuts… with sleek sequences and propulsive drum programming that sweep you off your feet.” (via SPIN)

4) Herbcraft, The Astral Body Electric. “Their strongest outing yet, [The Astral Body Electric is] a six-song, 40-minute meander through varying modes of vagabond psychedelia, the Matt Lajoie-led band managing to conjure a thick haze of flutes, rumbling percussion, and pedal indulgences, aided in part by friends in MMOSS, Woods, and MV&EE.” (via SPIN)

5) Airstrip, Willing. “After the dissolution of Veelee, his promising girl-boy pop duo, Raleigh, North Carolina’s Matthew Park set out to start something new… [started] developing a blend of garage-ready ‘nightmare pop’ far more sinister and sludgy than the Research Triangle would have expected from him. On the foursome’s debut full-length, Willing, ’90s-indebted guitar rock signifiers abound. But this time around, they’re coated in a film of grime.” (via SPIN)

6) The EmbassySweet Sensation. “A decade ago, the Swedish duo of Fredrik Lindson and Torbjörn Håkansson helped midwife a globally acclaimed hometown scene that includes Jens Lekman, the Tough Alliance, Taken By Trees, Studio, Air France, jj, the Honeydrips, and more. They’re still in vintage form here, mixing aching indie pop and glossy house for a record that once again comes across like an invitation to join something special and exclusive.” (via SPIN)

7) Com Truise, Check Yo Ponytail 2. “[The] galaxy-crusading, synth-loving beatsmith… [combines] obscure elevator funk with arpeggiation-heavy club tracks and some Com Truise originals.” — The Fader (via SoundCloud)

8) Major Lazer, Lazer Strikes Back Vol. 1. “With fans eagerly awaiting the release of Free the Universe, Major Lazer… [dropped] a collection of four remixes that stretch EDM, White Boy Trap, and new-reggae into a tight, slightly over fistpumped-in shirt… The tape’s finale, an extended Lazer remix of Hot Chip’s ‘Look At Where We Are,’ is a particularly delicious amalgamation of reggae, Trap, dubstep, and (vaguely) R&B elements.” — Complex (via Major Lazer’s Facebook)

9) Helado Negro, Invisible Life. “Brooklyn’s Roberto Lange has recorded two previous albums of atmospheric, Spanish-language synth grooves as Helado Negro… [his] latest… marks Lange’s first time singing in both English and Spanish. Guests include Bear in Heaven’s Jon Philpot, Mouse on Mars’ Jan St. Werner, and Devendra Banhart… it’s sultry, headphone dance music, in the vein of Arthur Russell if he’d survived to hear the Sea and Cake.” (via SPIN)

10) Young Thug, 1017 Thug. “Young Thug has a style that echoes some of Lil Wayne’s older vocal manifestations (see ‘Eat U Alive’), but with an unmistakably fresh and vicious sound. With features from Brick Squad’s founder Gucci Mane as well as Young Scooter, this one is sure to be compelling.” (via Complex)