The Trashcan Sinatras – People
I love the Trashcan Sinatras. I’m not sure when they went from the Trash Can Sinatras to the Trashcan Sinatras, but oh well, but I’m guessing someone at SPINart fucked it up when putting the artwork for Weightlifting together. Anyway, they’re a fabulous bunch of guys, and God love them for sticking with it after all these years of relative obscurity. This is the first single from their new album In the Music, and it’s another smoove slice of literate jangle pop. If you like this, you should know that the rest of the album is even better.

Kathryn Calder – Slip Away
The newest member of the New Pornographers (she’s lead singer Carl Newman’s niece, and she joined during the sessions for Twin Cinema), Calder is picking a curious time to release a solo album, since she’s tied up with touring with the New Porns for the summer. But one listen to this track from the album Are You My Mother?, due out in August, shows that perhaps Carl and Dan should bring her to the writing table, because I’ll take this over anything on the last New Pornographers album any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Donn T – Look At
Two words: Female Kenna. If that doesn’t immediate ring a couple bells, then I have one word for you: Kenna.

See Green – I Can Change
Well, that didn’t take long. Courtenay Green, who’s fast becoming a regular in these parts, covered “I Can Change” from LCD Soundsystem’s new album This Is Happening. Man, is James Murphy the new Neil Young, where his songs sound infinitely better when covered by other people?

La Roux – Bulletproof (Hyper Crush remix)
Armed with a bass line that will set off car alarms, this mix of La Roux’s “Bulletproof” is totally ADD madness, but it’s cool. And I still haven’t grown tired of that Macintosh voice program.

Clubfeet – Teenage Suicide
If you’re anything like me, you saw that title and immediately sang the words ‘Don’t do it’ in your head, since that was the name of the hit song the DJ played in the movie “Heathers.” Well sure enough, immediately after the breathy male lead sings “Teenage suicide,” two girls shout, “Don’t do it!” Bonus points for reading my mind.

Shadow Shadow – Is This Tempest in the Shape of a Bell
Gotta give some love to the guitar pop set. Man, this would have been huge in 1975.

RIYL: Eurythmics, Little Boots, Róisín Murphy

Already hugely popular on the other side of the pond, Britain’s La Roux – otherwise known as singer Elly Jackson and her synth-playing partner Ben Langmaid – might sound strongly familiar to pop fans with long memories: with an androgynous red-haired singer and a fondness for icy, clanking beats, they seem – visually, anyway – like the musical offspring of early-period Eurythmics. But where that band drew its heat from the spark generated from the collision of white soul and new wave synthcraft, La Roux stays on the dance floor, nestling Jackson’s thin, fluttery vocals in between a buzzing, whirring electropop army that sounds like it was stolen from the Human League’s synthesizer banks. All that artificial noise can get a little tiresome after a while – new wave did get old, after all – but La Roux walks the fine line between homage and pastiche by serving up a bevy of fresh-sounding, booty-shaking singles that sound equally at home in the clubs or on the Top 40.

The album’s first four tracks – “In for the Kill,” “Tigerlily,” “Quicksand,” and “Bulletproof” – are airtight, flawlessly catchy hits in waiting; in fact, “In for the Kill” and “Bulletproof” have been pretty much inescapable in the UK for months. Whether American audiences will respond is another story (ask La Roux’s Stateside labelmate Robyn about how hard it is to cross over as a dance artist in the U.S.), but however it goes down on the charts, this is an auspicious debut. (Cherry Tree 2009)

La Roux MySpace page