2009 Half Time Music Report

We're halfway through the year, and I'm just sharing the most interesting records I've managed for the last six months.



Forget that the group Passion Pit looks like the cast of Beauty and the Geek, it's the music that counts. Selected early this year as one of the breakthrough genre from BBC's Sound Of 2009, the album Manners delivers on the promise their EP Chunk of Change has made.

Synth-clap beats, a strangely innocuous falsetto, together with affable percussions; what not to like? Of course, an import from last year's EP, Sleepyhead is a catch, their first single The Reeling is an enjoyable hit, but my favorite is Little Secret. It's not a summer song (see previous lists), but it does stoke the happy fire on pouring afternoons.

French band Phoenix returns with a tribute to the classics, Frank Liszt and Mozart, and surely with references as good as the masters, expectations will be set high. I'm definitely impressed in the total feel on the album, it steps back from a Eurocentric exclusiveness, and opens its doors to a more global appeal. Lyrics are crafted as teasingly addictive (repetition abounds!), and an orchestration (sorry pun intended) of its beats to be sublimely catchy. Listen to the mysterious crescendo in Love Like a Sunset, the lovable singles 1901 and Lisztomania. Bonus points: Fences sounds oddly familiar. Anyone knows why?

Not really this year's release, but Friendly fires manages to bring the pulsating disco back into indietronica land. Listen to Strobe, Skeleton Boy, On Board and Photobooth.