As if I need another Swedish musician to follow, out pops Molly Nilsson. Her songs are equally simple and beautiful, creating some dreamy synth-pop tunes that are sure to put you into orbit. All of the tracks below are from her new LP, History, but you can check out some of her earlier stuff from her label Dark Skies Association (founded by Nilsson herself).

Molly Nilsson // You Always Hurt the One You Love [via]

The good folks over at Bathetic Records decided to usher in the new year in style by releasing a killer 14-track compilation. Here’s what co-creator Alex Zhang Hungtai had to say about it:

I’d like to take this opportunity to say that we are truly grateful and thank you all for your support this past year. Let this compilation be a signifier of more fucking bad ass music thats to come in 2012 from our crew and family. We hope you enjoy this FREE compilation as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Work hard, play hard, get paid, fund new project, write, record, repeat until you succeed. Cumulate and cumulate and cumulate.

Couldn’t say it any better… Below are two of my favorites from the comp, and you can download the whole thing for free from Bathetic’s site:

Speculator// Picking Flowers

Latern// Where Are We Now?

[Directed by: Olivia Kastebring]

Apparently, there’s a ceo remix EP, appropriately entitled White Magic Epilogue, that has been teased on Sincerely Your’s website since November and is scheduled to drop any day now in the US (although I can’t find any info an a physical release anywhere; just digital it seems).

Second only to jj, ceo is one of my favorite Swedish neo-Balearic pop group (specific, I know) — in fact their debut charted on my Best Albums of 2010 list. Dan Lissvik, of Studio fame, takes one of the highlights of that album, the track Illuminata, and de-clutters it making a less frantic, more palatable version. Since I listened to the original about a billion times, I can’t help but feel that Lissvik’s version is bit neutered — slower tempo, no soaring strings, and an inexplicable throbbing bass line. I guess that’s tough criticism considering this is a remix (and I’ve undoubtedly praised similar reworkings in past posts), but when the original is as close to perfect as you can get, why mess with that? Check out both tracks below:

ceo // Illuminata (Dan Lissvik Remix)

ceo // Illuminata

Here is some local flavor for you from where I (still) call home: Lubbock, Texas. Growing up dead center of quite literally the middle of nowhere meant that we very seldom had any touring bands make a pit-stop in our college town. A plus to this otherwise negative isolation proved to be that local acts thrived. In fact, I would say that out of all of the places I’ve lived, Lubbock has had some of the most eclectic and better sounding local bands that I have heard. Not surprising, alt-country proved to house the best-of-the-best of bands, that being Thrift Store Cowboys. Although the group has toured extensively and recorded incredibly polished and delightful albums, they still have remained local at heart.

When I first started going to their shows about ten years ago, the core of the group consisted of singer/guitarist Daniel Fluitt and singer/fiddler Amanda Shires. Both are hyper-talented and incredibly hard-working and are deserving of higher acclaim. Below are two videos highlighting them individually (Amanda has since moved on and started recording solo albums, although her ties to Lubbock can still be seen in the video). Enjoy the best of West Texas!

Been super pumped for a Coasting follow-up every since the Brooklyn duo of Fiona Campbell and Madison Farmer dropped one of my favorite 7”s of last year. When Fiona blazed through Salt Lake City earlier this year, playing drums for Vivian Girls, she seemed just as excited as me about talking about the new stuff — and, after listening to the garage rock tunes of their LP Never Going Back, I kind of get why she couldn’t wait for the album to drop. “Portland” was the first “single” released from the record and earlier this week it got the video treatment, which you can check out below. You can cop the vinyl from M’Ladys here and be prepared to see it on a certain someone’s year-end list…

MLADYS 3 A4 – COASTING – PORTLAND by M’lady’s Records

One of the better remixes jj has put out in a while, this slow-motion take on Memphis rapper Don Trip’s “Cheers” highlights only the smokey vocal intro rather than any of the hot lyrics spit by Don himself. Needless to say, jj knows exactly what to do with stuff like this…

Don Trip // Cheers (jj’s Save Our Souls Remix) [Via: Fader]

A very poignant song by a very poignant songwriter. If you don’t know who Bradley Manning is, a simple google search will suffice.

Cass McCombs – Bradley Manning by DominoRecordCo

As priorly mentioned, I have a lot of random mp3s floating around my library. In an effort to highlight some of these often-forgotten, one-off tracks, I thought it would be best to put together an irregularly updated series entitled “Loose Tracks.”

The latest installment features the reworking of the stellar Smith Westerns song “End of the Night” by the Wisconsin (via San Fran) duo Peaking Lights. The remix centers around the periodic looping of the lyrics “everybody wants to be a star” with some guitar licks fading in-and-out of focus and percussive sounds bubbling up to the surface, creating a more droned-out version of the pop-rock original. I’ve only gotten a chance to listen to bits-and-peaces of Peaking Lights’ LP 936, but after re-discovering this remix, I’ll certainly be giving it more attention before composing my year-end lists. Check out the original and remix below.

By the way: Peaking Lights’ label Not Not Fun Records is doing a killer “Buy Three LPs get a Fourth Free” promo from now until the end of the year. Check out the details here.

Smith Westerns // End of the Night
Smith Westerns // End of the Night (Peaking Lights Remix)