______________________________ ____ Anyone else notice there are so many songs that mention ghosts? Well, I did last night. It's no groundbreaking discovery, I know... Anyway, all these songs have the word 'ghost' in the title. That's pretty much it. Nothing more to it. I mean, they are all pretty great too... but yeah... ghosts'n'stuff. Enjoy.

My top ten for the year, with a brief explanation/comment. Enjoy & Happy New Year! ...... 1. Grizzly Bear – Shields The guys in Grizzly Bear killing it, once again. This record is almost perfect. The compositions are strange & beautiful, and they complement the haunting singing styles of Ed Droste and Daniel Rossen. If you didn’t get this album – you missed (but there's still time!). Check Out: Yet Again [mp3] [...]
Here we are, on the cusp of our 100 Best Songs of 2012; a four-part series of only the best and top songs from 2012. After a busy year here ...

2012 - the year in which the Mayans saw it fit to end all days would make a pretty nice conclusion to all things, or well when it comes to music at least. I would gesture it's been a good year from the fact that I had particular difficulties in narrowing down my favorite releases, and it really has been a good year. Never mind even ranking them, just whittling down to these 10 was a challenge enough. This past year was great in that it saw plenty of newcomers take hold, and even better, the new guys from last year firmly [...]
For The Key’s year-in-review, we asked our trusted sources – our writers and photographers, XPN’s on-air staff, fellow bloggers in the Philly scene and even a few musicians – to send us their Top Five Whatevers. Could be the traditional music route – albums, songs, concerts of the year – or it could be only ... Continue reading

Yes, that's right dear reader: such was the overwhelming amount of top music this year we've given our end-of-year list a dose of max enlargement pills and extended it to a mighty top twenty. Those that didn't make this engorged run-down and hence reside in our honourable bubbling under category include: Swans – The Seer ; Toy – Toy ; Monolake - Ghosts ; White Manna - White Manna ; Easter - Innocence Man ; Bass Clef - Reeling Skullways ; Umberto - Night Has A Thousand Screams ; The Eccentronic [...]

Yesterday's good highlighted some of the year's best debuts, which makes today the perfect opportunity to highlight tracks from some of 20122s most impressive sophomore efforts. I can only imagine how difficult it is to follow up a debut album, especially when the sophomore release is in high demand. The bands below most definitely avoided the dreaded "sophomore slump", none better so than The xx. Coexist was my most anticipated release of the year and it exceeding all of expectations. Easily my favorite album of the year. And like yesterday's good, the tracks below are a very small [...]

Every week we will be featuring The Sweet Five! What's The Sweet Five you may ask? Well I'll drop you five sweet songs that you should listen to once a week, that will help you get over your mid-week slump and set sail towards the ever-nearing weekend! Ready? Okay! The Dirty Heads - Driftin' I have had his track stored away in the depth of my music collection for a few years now - and it's a neglected track that I should [...]
Each day this week, in anticipation of the deadline for voting on the Festive Fifty 2012 Shortlist , I'll be listening to the Contrast Podcast Festive Fifties of yore (2012's will be the 6th!) and trying to track down the videos of the Top 5! The 3rd year was the first year where I had a guess for what would be #1. My pick made it to #4 and I got to introduce it! This was also the beginning of the several years where there were lots of songs from 1 or 2 albums. [...]
Estes são os To Kill a King , banda cujo som foi construído à volta das músicas acústicas de Ralph Pelleymounter. Com o ponto de partida nesses esquiços, formou-se a banda e toda a alegoria em termos de percussão, baixo, guitarra, sintetizadores e muito mais, dando corpo a esta orquestra indie-folk. Recentemente fizeram o EP Word of Mouth , que está todo ele disponível para download através do bandcamp e lançaram este videoclip para "Howling". Se são fãs de Fanfarlo, isto é claramente o vosso tipo de música. [...]
Urban Verbs - Angry young men(isque) (dans mon cas personnel, on peut enlever le young ) (on a causé des Urban Verbs vite fait ici) (1980/WB) (achat) Fanfarlo - Drowning men(isque) (= In Between days + Shine on) (à l'époque les ... Suite
Fanfarlo fue uno de esos grupos que nos dejaron un muy buen sabor de boca durante la segunda jornada del Día de la Música 2012 , donde completaban el cartel junto a otras bandas de la talla de Metronomy o la propia Azelia Banks, sin ir más lejos. La banda, procedente de Londres y que llama la atención por incluir elementos poco habituales en el rock como pueden ser el violín o el saxofón, nos sorprendía anunciando nuevos conciertos en España, y más concretamente en Barcelona, Madrid y [...]

When I was in college, I took a course on developmental stages in aging and learned about how every person is born with the innate ability to conform to every phonetic sound in every language in the world. I also learned that our memories of these phonetic sounds is what sometimes allows us to hear something we can understand in pure and utter gibberish – it’s a phenomena also known as mondegreen, and everybody’s been guilty of it. Mondegreen, simply said, is the misheard lyric, and over the years I’ve come to accumulate many, many , many [...]
A finales de junio estuvimos comentando los primeros detalles del Deleste Festival , que se celebrará el próximo 20 de octubre en Valencia. La organización ha dado a conocer las nuevas confirmaciones para la que será la primera edición de un evento que pretende distinguirse del resto de festivales de música españoles. Entre todos los nombres destaca el de Fanfarlo , que también actuarán en Madrid, Barcelona y Santiago de Compostela en el mismo mes de octubre. Aunque lo tenéis indicado en la [...]

With the Olympics going on, I've been watching way more live TV than normal, which has given me plenty of opportunity to see which of the latest hip, indie tracks are being harvested for mass consumption via car, beer and cell phone commercials. So that brings us to another edition of my long-running Commercial Watch series, where I watch the ads so you can keep skipping them with your fancy DVR-machines. There's twenty commercials embedded below with MP3s / streams of the songs included. Make sure to click the continue reading link to see them all! [...]
Fanfarlo fue uno de esos grupos que nos dejó muy buen sabor de boca en El Día de la Música , un festival celebrado en la capital de España que además contó con la actuación de grandes como Metronomy o Azealia Banks. Ahora, esta banda londinense vuelve a España y pasa por otras dos ciudades además de repetir en Madrid. Desembarcando en Barcelona , donde pasarán por la mítica Sala Apolo el 15 de este mes de octubre que hoy empezamos, la mini-gira de tres conciertos les llevará a [...]

So far this year, we've had some pretty amazing developments in the world of indie music. The meteoric rise of rookies Purity Ring , Alt-J (more so in the UK), and The Neighbourhood , matched equally by the return of Passion Pit , The Shins , fun. , and Hot Chip , have already ensured that 2012 won't be a dud. Below, we've listed in order our top 50 songs so far of this fine year. CLICK HERE FOR OUR TOP 15 [...]
You may have heard their name recently, but trust me, this album is one that should be moved to the top of your "music to check out" list...