She’s from Philly, has collaborated with Santigold and her new album is streaming on MySpace. Just the other day I was lamenting the lack of a “summer jam” along the lines of a MIA or Santigold record. I’m not sure if this is it, but it’s likely to get some attention. The album is titled “I Love You” and comes out August 4.

I love their use of Seattle World’s Fair footage. (via Greg)

This definitely won’t be for everyone, but it is sort of like Junior Boys meets Burial, but not quite as good as that collaboration would be.

I caught a set from Birdy Nam Nam at FrancoFolies a few weeks ago. The show was pretty amazing for 4 French guys with turntables and while this track isn’t my favourite, the video is pretty insane. (via)

Anyone else noticed the similarity between Metric’s “Help I’m Alive” and Big Audio Dynamite II’s “Rush?” No? Just me? Every time I hear that Metric song I can’t help but start singing “Rush”- a song I’ve always found beyond annoying, which, needless to say, precludes any ability for me to appreciate “Help I’m Alive.” BAD has not only retroactively tarnished Mick Jones’ contributions to The Clash but now it’s ruining modern indie rock, too…

For the melodic similarity check about 1:40 into the Metric song versus the moment the BAD II video starts. The sound quality of the latter is, uh, bad, but the official video conveniently has embedding disabled.

Ok, two friends have now shown this to me, and it’s pretty amazing. You’ve always wanted to hear a Caribbean steel drum version of Joy Division’s “Transmission”, right? Well, here you go. Steel Harmony tips its hat to the local scene in Manchester with this extremely well-executed version of the Joy Division classic as part of the Procession in Manchester. I’m not sure the crowd knows what’s being played, which makes this video even more amusing. Not sure if Ian Curtis would be proud, either, but I’m positive the jittery camera work would have triggered a fit. [link via The Awl]

Must be getting close to album release day, since another free track has leaked from Paul Banks’ debut solo record, Julian Plenti is… Skyscraper (out August 4th on Matador). This one veers well into Interpol’s spiky, post-punk lane- so much so that it almost seems odd that Banks didn’t offer this one up to the band. At least “Fun That We Have” attempted a direction change with its electronic backbone. This one calls into question the point of a solo album at all, if it’s going to mimic the mothership so closely. But I’m all about this guy’s voice, so I can only complain so much. Plus, the picture that adorns this post is astounding.  You can do no wrong, sir.

Julian Plenti – Games for Days.mp3