na: Girls, Big Pink, and MUCH more

OH HAI THERE, WE DIDN’T SEE U BECAUSE WE WERE TOO BUSY BEIN YOUNG AND TRAGICALLY BEAUTIFUL PLZ SIT DOWN

Nine million titles of note on the site — here’s a quick, sometimes-breathless run-through as many as I could find:

Girls, Album – I cannot get over this album, at all. Yancey wrote the review, and Yancey pretty much said it best:

“Girls’ Album is not hip, stylish or inventive … The songs are focused and uncomplicated. Objectively, it’s all very ordinary. And yet Album is ridiculously listenable and likable …The music may be straightforward, but Girls themselves are oddballs — and weird people making normal music is always an excellent thing. It sounds like the California you see in movies, a dreamland ruled by simplicity, bright red lipstick and a lover’s shoulder. It sounds perfect.”

Also, whether you know the backstory on these guys or not, Barry Walters’ Q&A with singer/guitarist Christopher Owens is required reading. His childhood is the stuff of Augusten Burroughs and JT LeRoy novels, but he talks about it, and about his music, with an unguardedness so disarming that it’s like he has no skin. Please check it out.

Listenlisten, Hymns from Rhodesia: My pick for sleeper hit of the year — dark & gloomy folk music with cobwebs in the corners. Read Melissa Maerz’s excellent profile here.

The Big Pink, A Brief History of Love If you’ve found yourself with “Dominoes” lodged in your brain recently, they you already know: These guys have the big-dumb-fun rock thing down COLD, mixing up Britpop, stadium-rattling Big Beat, and Be Here Now-era Oasis. Undeniable stuff. Also check out this Q&A that Andrew Perry did for us.

Volcano Choir, Unmap Justin Vernon gets out of the cabin and makes some new friends! Bon Iver returns, this time minus the “It’s cold, I’m sad, get over it” attitude that our dear Amishi so perfectly articulated.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Higher Than the Stars: New Pains! New Pains! New Pains! More great pop songs from everyone’s favorite breakout band. PLEASE check out “Falling Over,” — their first Orange Juice song!

Twilight Sad, Forget the Night Ahead: Scottish shoegazers return with another album of mighty, toothy rock songs limned with melancholy.

The Hidden Cameras, Origin: Orphan: New one from Hidden Cameras finds them ramping down the sex jokes in favor of sweeping, elegant, slightly dour pop songs.

Times New Viking, Born Again Revisited: Timeless trash — even lower-fi pop songs from these masters of the unmastered.

Pastels/Tenniscoats, Two Sunsets: Scottish legends the Pastels team up with lovely Japanese pop band Tenniscoats for a record that draws on both of their strengths, splitting the difference between ragged indiepop and lovely atmospherics.

Various Artists, Soulkitchen: What’s Cookin’, 2nd Serving: Vintage R&B fans, this one’s for you: grand, steamy soul music with that filthy vintage sound. Excellent!

Milton Nascimento, Travessia: Lovely Brazilian pop music, a little more sumptuous than, say, Seu Jorge, but fans of his will certainly enjoy.

Peanut Butter Wolf, 45 Live: Excellent new Peanut Butter Wolf mixtape that blends together his favorite old-school hip-hop jams. Truly worth the credits.

Track a Tiger, I Felt the Bullet Hit My Heart: Fans of the Postal Service will dig this tender pop band on Deep Elm.

Various Artists, Vintage Cuba: As the title advertises, this is a compilation of classic Cuban music. A winner!

Why?, Eskimo Snow: Yoni Wolf, everyone’s favorite hyperliterate, self-lacerating Jewish indie-rapper, returns after 2008′s lauded Alopecia. This one is a lot more songful, with far less of Yoni’s fractured beat-poetry rapping, but his writing doesn’t sound like it has dulled, nor has his poisonous outlook softened.

Various Artists, Electro Punk Escapades: When’s the last time you saw “Electro clash” pop up in the Style field? As advertised: this compilation hits all the right sleazy/fun buttons — aggressively cheap 808s, coke-up synths, dead-eyed divas droning come-ons and all. Killer.

White Denim, I Start To Run: Intriguingly spazzy-sounding new single from the young Austin rockers.

Alberta Cross, Broken Side of Time – Raucous, grizzled Brit-blues rock that should appeal to Gomez fans.

Gui Boratto, Atomic Soda: Devotees of Chromophobia rejoice: he’s back! Two songs here, both textured, diaphanous, quietly busy.

Cymbals Eat Guitars, Why There Are Mountains: One of 2009′s most popular indie-rock records comes back to us, this time via Sister’s Den. Classic Pacific Northwest indie rock, which is rarely a bad thing. Helps when it’s pitched at this epic scale and done this well.

Castanets, Rose The Thaw and the Beasts Sweetly strummed backporch folk, gently crooned vocals that spiral up into a starlit sky. This sounds gorgeous.

Vic Chestnutt, At The Cut: Gorgeously stark, misanthropic, black-as-pitch; Vic Chestnutt is back on his gothic-Appalachia shit.

Muhal Richard Abrams, Afrisong: A top solo outing of piano pieces recorded in 1975, an impressionist swirl of stride, bebop, blues, and Erik Satie. The man could play the keys, a fact often lost in his more recognized role as arranger, composer, and bandleader.

Irony, Boycott Blues: Unshowy but rocksolid street rap. Fans of Termanology, Finale, or that last Torae record should peep.

Breakestra, Dusk Till Dawn: Super-sharp vintage funk from the incredibly solid Strut! Label.

Ray Charles, The Genius Hits the Road: Self-explanatory. “The Genius” gets repackaged seemingly every other day, far too often shoddily, but this is a real-deal comp of great stuff. “Long and Winding Road” cover!

Apathy, Wanna Snuggle: New releases from rappers named Apathy AND irony! Reality Bites, amirite? This sounds like the new Cage album (which was horrible) mixed with recent Anticon output (which is not at all horrible, but not to my taste.) Fans of themselves or Doseone, check it out.

The Cinematics, New Mexico: Choked Jarvis-y vocals, Echo and the Bunnymen dramatics … Joe-bait, anyone?

E-40, Original Master Peace: A classic West Coast rap document from the Bay Area giant E-40. This guy is the definition of a rap nerd’s acquired taste, but if have a thing for distinctive voices, brain-teasing slang, or regional rap arcana, it’s more than worth the effort. E-40 is a gummy, elastic rapper, a guy who raps in tricky duples and triples and over-enunciates every syllable; he’s not trying to make it easier on you. This one, though, is earlier and more hard-hitting and straightforward – a good entry point.

David Gray, Draw the Line: Lots and lots of David Gray. I am glad I am not a cashier at a supermarket anymore for oh so many reasons, and not dealing with David Gray anymore is possibly numero uno.

The Gates of Slumber, Hymns of Blood and Thunder: Straight-up throwback power metal — Ozzy vocals, Judas Priest riffage. More Conan-the-Barbarian metal than Hail-Satan metal, as evidenced by the cover. Cue up “The Bringer of the War” and hear the lamentations of the women.

Kite In the Air, S/t: Chilled-out electro-pop – sounds solid, but not my beat.

Hurrah, The Sound of Philadelphia: Hugely misleading album title! Not the sound of Gamble of Huff: this is the sound of Glasgow, the sound of The Shoes meets Orange Juice meets any other number of fabulously limp-wristed and dreamy power-pop strummers. So, so good.

Kasabian, Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum: And, fellow Big Pink fans, here’s the dark side of coked-up big beat anthems.

Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, Tirsdagsjam: These guys are so brilliant together. Another awesome intersection between druggy psych and perpetual-motion dance tracks.

The Mantles, The Mantles: New, from Siltbreeze. You might want to sit down for this: it’s crud-caked, jangly psych rock revivalism. I kid because I love: these guys are several degrees further up out of the shit swamp from Sic Alps or Eat Skull, and there are some woozy valentines on here.

Overmars, Born Again Subterranean, bowel-loosening death-rumble from the pits of hell.

Rose Melberg, Homemade Ship: Hope Sandoval fans, take note: lovely soft folk.

Shannon Wright, Honeybee Girls: Aaaaaand this is ALSO lovely soft folk, with a healthy side of college-rock jangle a la Bettie Serveert. Perfect rainy-day Pacific Northwest rock.

Subarachnoid, Space Eight Bells: Metal-gaze for Wolves in the Throne Room fans; a Monet watercolor of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Various Artists, Cote D’Ivoire: West Africa Crossroads: West African pop and funk? You had us at hello.

Various Artists, American Dust Crayon Angel: A star-studded tribute to a singular voice: Rox Sexsmith, Beth Orton, Bill Callahan, Fryda Hyvonen, Daniel Rossen, and many more make appearances.

Danger Mouse and Jemini, Ghetto Pop Life: Loopy cartoon-funk and dusty-fingered Dilla beats from Danger Mouse, pinwheeling and playful raps from Jemini; a minor classic.

EPs:

Sene & Blu, Quarter Water Supporter/Please Don’t Rain: New Blu! This single is everything we’ve come to expect from Blu — limber rhymes delivered against big beats. That the B-Side features excellent R and B vocalist Kissey Asplund is a major plus.

Peter Rock, Collector’s Item: Veteran hip-hop producer drops a brief EP of classic hip-hop beats with loose, fluid rhymes.

Loscil, Strathcona Variations: New minimal ambient EP from Loscil sounds soft and tragic.

Beth Jeans Houghton, Hot Toast, Vol. 1: Do you like quirky folk songstresses? Do you wish Regina Spektor weren’t so damn sober and grounded? Did the Juno soundtrack just beg for an extra infusion of preciousness to you? Meet Beth Jeans Houghton, aka, my new nightmare.

Ellen Allien, Lover: A soft coo turns into a synth line turns into the beat in the first song on this EP: on the second, a rigid backbeat rocks back and forth for a full and surprisingly absorbing 7:38 minutes.

Magnolia Electric Co., Rider Shadow Wolf: EP cast-off from Magnolia’s understated and seemingly underrated latest full-length.

Brodsky Quartet, Brubeck/Stravinsky/Weill: Excellent selection of works on this CD, pairing Weill’s impossibly sophisticated Berlin cosmopolitanism, Stravinsky’s equally relentless urbanity, and a gorgeously liquid classical work from jazz legend Dave Brubeck. The Brodsky Quartet are distinguishing themselves as uncommonly thoughtful curators and programmers.

….You still here? Congratulations: it’s just you and me now. What did you find?