Wow. This song/video from Laura Marling is the perfect soundtrack as the torrential rain pours down outside my window here in Seattle. It‘s as if she took what I love about the late great 16 Horsepower (minor, dark chords and eerie harmonies) and wrote new lyrics for it. Now to download the full album, Once I was an Eagle, which came out back in June of this year.

Michael K. Williams, best known as “The Wire”’s Omar Little, stars in this new video from MGMT (be sure to check out that band website). No idea what’s going on in this video.

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of Hayden before, but I can’t figure out when or how. From Ontario, Canada, Hayden Desser has been performing under his first name since 1995. Us Alone is his 7th studio album, and it came out back in February.

This song, “Blurry Nights,” is damn near perfect. It’s a duet, with Hayden performing along with his sister-in-law Lou Canon (the song’s chorus makes for one hell of an awkard family reunion between the two of them), who I have not heard before either. Will have to investigate more.

Just like that, Arcade Fire are back at the top of my musical rotation, with this lovely disco tune “Reflektor.” Their new album of the same name will come out at the end of October.

If you own a smart phone, and have a little time on your hands, do yourself a favor and go to the interactive version of this video. In the same vein of “The Wilderness Downtown” and “Neon Bible,” the band has worked with Google developers to create a Google-Chrome-only video for “Reflektor.” And it is mind-blowing.

I’m still kinda floored that Franz Ferdinand are back and they sound GOOD.

This video, for their song “Evil Eye,” is an awesome true-to-the-form B-movie short. Prepare for comical gore, which may or may not be NSFW in your world. Still, great song.

Their latest album, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action, came out earlier this year.

Yet another new awesome song from TV on the Radio (yes, their “website” is currently nothing more than the number “2” on a white field), who haven’t formally announced any new-album plans. This video, for the song “Mercy,” documents the crazy, stop-motion trip of a rock-alien of some sort. Mmmhmm.

Josh Tillman is squeezing everything he can out of last year’s Father John Misty album, Fear Fun. “I’m Writing A Novel” is a nice little country-rock tune, but this video doesn’t have the same great qualities all previous FJM videos have had. This is more of a tour journal-like video, but that’s just fine. I can watch Josh prance around jokingly over and over again with the best of them.

Foxygen, from Los Angeles, are bringing back psychedelic rock & roll in a big way. Here’s “We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic” in a fantastically blissed-out acid trip video.

Their debut album, of the same name, came out earlier this year.

Far out, man.

Every once in a while, a pure pop song hooks me and I find myself drawn back to the song over and over again. This song, by Copenhagen’s Oh Land, does just that. Oh Land is the nom de plume of Nanna Øland Fabricius, and she’s been performing in this particular guise since 2008.

I have a limited pop music vocabulary, but of what I do know, this seems to be even more deliberately kooky than, say Lady GaGa. I like the tune, as well. Oh Land’s third album, Wish Bone, comes out September 24.

This is mind blowing. I consider the medley from Abbey Road to be the single most phenomenal passage of music in all of recorded time. And I say that without hyperbole.

Here we have, through some fancy use of technology, the isolated vocals for the entire passage (except for a lone tambourine and piano that somehow crept in during “Mean Mr. Mustard”)

It’s amazing how much the music makes these famously disjointed parts feel of a family. Stripped down like this, the disparate nature of the song bits is painfully obvious.

Jaw, floor.

/via kotkke.org

NPR All Songs Considered’s Bob Boilen says:

The Tiny Desk has moved, and OK Go has helped make it so.

Earlier this year, we needed to figure out the best possible way to move my Tiny Desk from NPR’s old headquarters to our new facility just north of the U.S. Capitol. We wanted to go out with a bang and arrive at our new space in style, so our thoughts naturally turned to a catchy pop band we love: OK Go, whose unforgettable videos have been viewed tens of millions of times on YouTube.

Bandleader Damian Kulash used to be an engineer at an NPR member station in Chicago, so we figured he’d be up for helping us execute a simple idea: Have OK Go start performing a Tiny Desk Concert at our old location, continue playing the same song while the furniture and shelving is loaded onto a truck, and finish the performance at our new home. In addition to cameos by many of our NPR colleagues — Ari Shapiro, Audie Cornish, David Greene, Guy Raz, Scott Simon, Alix Spiegel, Susan Stamberg and more — this required a few ingredients:

• Number of video takes: 223
• Percent used in final version: 50
• Number of raw audio channels: 2,007
• Percent used in final version: 50
• Number of microphones: 5
• Number of hard-boiled eggs consumed: 8, mostly by bassist Tim Nordwind
• Number of seconds Carl Kasell spent in the elevator with OK Go: 98
• Number of times Ari Shapiro played the tubular bells: 15
• Number of pounds the tubular bells weighed: 300
• Number of times the shelves were taken down and put back up: 6
• Number of days it took to shoot: 2
• Number of cameras: 1

OK Go played “All Is Not Lost” from Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, with words tweaked by the All Songs Considered team. And so begins a new era for the Tiny Desk, after 277 concerts (counting this one) in our old home.

The Carl Kasell bit is my favorite part.

Here’s a nice electronic-plus-stringed-instruments song by Iceland’s múm. The band has always seemed to float around my radar, never landing squarely in it until now.

Their new album, Smilewound — their seventh — came out back in June.

Fun song and video from Scottish darlings Belle and Sebastian, from their rarities and b-sides album, The Third Eye Centre, that came out earlier this year. This particular song, “Your Cover’s Blown” was remixed by Miaoux Miaoux, also from Scotland.

Looks like TV on the Radio (HOW DO THEY NOT HAVE THEIR OWN ACTUAL WEBSITE?!) have a new album coming, but it‘s still not clear when. “Million Miles” will be on it, though.

Sleigh Bells are back, with the title track of their forthcoming third album, Bitter Rivals, due October 8.

I love this slow version of Mazzy Star’s 1993 hit “Fade Into You,” created by Tim Carmody from Kottke.org. He slowed the song down by 18.921%, dropping the pitch and tempo, making it even slower, and sounding like it’s sung by a man. He slowed down many other songs as well, all because of the slow version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” that was circulating around in early August.

Turns out Mazzy Star has a new album coming out on September 24, called Seasons of Your Day.

Another video from The National from this year’s Trouble Will Find Me. This time, the band is getting wasted on camera and apparently injuring themselves.

I love this song. I love the setting. I love the crowd murmur that dies down as the song goes on. And apparently I love Basia Bulat, although this is the first song I’ve ever heard of hers. The recorded version of “It Can’t Be You” can be found on Bulat’s new album, Tall Tall Shadow, which comes out October 1. This will be the third album for the Toronto-based singer/songwriter.

One of my favorites from this past weekend (Bumbershoot 2013) was seeing Superchunk play the KEXP Music Lounge.

Here’s a video for “Me & You & Jackie Mittoo” from the band’s new album I Hate Music. A nice little post-punk ditty.

Here’s a catchy little tune from an English band called Sky Larkin. The song is called “Loom,” and the band’s upcoming third album, Motto, out September 16.