YG
“Who Do You Love?” (f/ Drake)
My Krazy Life (out 03.18 on CTE/Def Jam)

You’ve probably heard this song, and also you’ve seen the video a thousand times. That said, one of Young Angel’s best recent verses gets visuals, and YG and Mustard are putting my home state back on that map. That’s more than enough to warrant a post.

i do not love.
“i like you most”
idnl. (out now on limited 7″ on Beko)

I don’t know who he is, and I don’t know what he’s singing about, but the Mansfield, Massachusetts shoegazer’s new 4-song EP is an absolute knock-out. The singer/songwriter sets the way-back machine to the slate-grey Manchester skies of 1982 and comes out with four lovelorn, dreamy gems. I’m not going to tell you the bands the disc reminds me of, because it simply wouldn’t be fair to the kid. That said, it’s pretty obvious as soon as you hear his vulnerable baritone, the undulating basslines, the jangly guitars, and the buoyant drum patterns. One of the real hidden gems of recent times.

While you’re at it, check out the EP’s brilliant first single, “Dreams Please Too.”

Elbow
“New York Morning”
The Take Off and Landing of Everything (out 3/10 on Fiction)

After a few years away, Manchester’s kings of wide-eyed triumphant melancholia are back, and evidently they are returning with extra helpings of their life-affirming, windswept Elbow-ness. The lead single from their 6th LP, “New York Morning,” is exactly what you’d think Guy Garvey would write about falling in love with the easiest city to fall in love with in the world. As a somewhat recent NYC transplant, I’d be lying if I claimed that I don’t totally understand his wholehearted, earnest (read: cheesy af) love letter to the city, and I’m sure this will find its way into my earbuds on walks around the city. Simply put, it is Elbow at their unabashed best.

Memoryhouse
“Get Back”
Taken from NPR’s World Cafe

Since 2010, there are very few artists that I have devoted more words to than this resplendent Ontario-based dream-wave duo. Simply put, their near-perfect, celestial debut EP, The Years, is one of my favorite albums of the last five years. Its follow-up, The Slideshow Effect, didn’t glitter in quite the same gauzy way, as the group opted for a more upbeat approach, resulting in a slightly uneven effort. That said, I continue to have incredible hope for the duo, and this cut (and the other new ones played at World Cafe) show that The Years may have just been the sound of a young group scratching the surface.

Listen to the whole session, over at NPR.

Arcade Fire
“Afterlife”
Reflektor (out now on Merge)

First thing’s first, I like Arcade Fire. I do. However, I’ve found it incredibly difficult to get excited about their critically-acclaimed, fourth album. Yesterday, my good friend and old roommate (who has stubbornly refused to let me ignore Reflektor) finally sent me something that has made me sit up and take notice. “Afterlife” is the kind of engrossing, epic (vomit) statement that made me fall in love with their earlier work, and the video is as disarming and emotive as the track. Hopefully, it will be the foothold that I need to get into the (supposed) majesty of this record, but even if it doesn’t turn out to be, at least there’s now a part of the front-runner for Album of the Year that I understand.