I've long thought that Alice Glass could be chiptone's answer to the early, iconic form of Karen O. Which begs the question: what happens if you toss those electronic tones and squelches over the top of the overdriven guitars that immortalized YYY's Fever to Tell? It might sound something like Duchess Says. "Ccut Up" rips apart your speakers from the inside out, and vocalist Annie-Claude has the swagger to become an icon if these guys stick around. Grab Anthologie des 3 Pechoirs, out now on Alien8 Recordings.

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Electric President's "Monsters" seems similar to many things and not quite identical to anything. You could call it a darker Postal Service, but that would ignore lines like "you've got no friends and you got no heartbeat / your insides are rotten now, so there's nothing to fix." This is dark and hazy and dreamy - if outer space weren't a soundless vacuum, the atmosphere might emit a hum close to this. And the monsters in this world, far from fleshy and frightening, are weak and formless: "your backbone is soft because you threw it away...stick your head in the ground / you might just dodge the guns." Spooky, in a very refreshing way.

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Notorious twee-irdos Architecture in Helsinki bring us "One Heavy February 2008," a rearrangement of the opening track on Fingers Crossed. The original charmingly sounds like it was recorded on a nine dollar Casio (or a toddler's toy keyboard); in this version, AiH grows up a little - deeper sounds, extended arrangement, some growling vocals and a massive burst of energy. This is prime fodder for a spliced, cut-up version in a live setting - start with the childish charm and transition to the exuberant cowbells and guitar in the 2008 cut. A telling sign of the contrast here: the iTunes genre has transitioned from "Rock" to "WTF?" How apt, whoever is in charge of these things!.

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Mush continues to provide music fans with the best in electronic-pop, beats, and hip hop infused albums, never failing to impress old fans, and easily winning over new ones with each release. Whether it be left-field hip hop like cLOUDDEAD, more recent addition, K-the-I???, or more straight-up high-energy rapping from Busdriver & Radioinactive, Mush serves it up.

[ play ] | [ download ] Play our 18-song Mush Records sampler