I Don't See The Light Behind Me

Havana Guns, "She Always Goes Down" (link fixed) - You might be forgiven for thinking this is Yet Another Cool New York/London Bands - lord knows this Havana Guns single sounds close enough to some hypothetical Karen O.-fronted Clap Your Hands Say Yeah side-project to make you snarf up your Yuengling - but you'd be doing an awful disservice to one of the few songs I've heard from this year that genuinely sounds like a hit. I hasten to add that it's about as far away from being a commercial hit as you can get - which is of course a crime, but probably not too surprising when you press a limited number of 7-inches - but I'm way less interested in hits like "Candy Shop" than I am in hits like, say, Metric's "Dead Disco" (another obvious midwife to this song, I might add), brilliantly cohesive nuggets of pop music that threaten to electrify a roomful of people at a moment's notice. And this song is unquestionably electric; it's one of those rare songs where every chord change seemed to unlock serotonin receptors I'd all but left for dead capped off with the kind of chorus you wait the whole year to find. Naturally, the only place I would have ever heard these girls in Los Angeles would have been on Rodney Bingenheimer's insufferable KROQ show (he was apparently caning "Vivan Los Angeles" all summer); all I can hope for is that they don't remain his little secret for long. (Click here to buy the "She Always Goes Down" single from Sister Ray)

Max Sedgley, "Happy" (Blackbeard rework) - The fuck? Did I miss a memo or something? Last time I checked in with broken beat, it was still all tedious bullshit - did someone throw some Earth, Wind & Fire bouillebaisse in without telling me? I still haven't been able to dig up much info about remixer Blackbeard yet (this is where you all tell me everything in the comments box), but having checked out a few of his other remixes, I feel pretty confident that he's one of those remixers who (1) has a pretty wide range of stances he can throw (try to track down his Best-Jill-Scott-Song-Ever-ification remix of Verna Francis' "Twilight" if you can), and (2) merits a download whenever you see his name. Still doesn't make up for all that Pepe Braddock nonsense, though. (Click here to buy the "Happy" single from City16.com)

ELSEWHERE
- The awesome To Here Knows When is officially back and badass now that the transition from YSI to regular hosting seems to have taken place. Go forth and get new stuff coming out on Ze Records (~!~!~!~!) .