What We're Listening To: Day-Late-Dollar-Short Edition

Tuesday has come and gone, but unlike last week, there's a "What We're Listening To" in the works. This would have made the midnight Tuesday deadline, but I was out shopping for a new bathing suit in preparation for my weekend trip to Vegas. Alas, time spent at Filene's Basement can't be spent assembling music reviews for TNG. C'est la vie. Luckily, "I Just Got a Bargain" because this post is a day late and a dollar short, featuring Meredith Bragg, Emily Wells, Born Against, and Lykke Li.


Meredith Bragg—Silver Sonia

If you like your music both sad AND edifying you can hardly do better than DC's own Meredith Bragg. The man (who's not a woman) released Silver Sonya in December, gave me a copy on New Year's Eve, and it's remained firmly in my everyday playlist since. All eleven tracks are gorgeous, but my favorite is Plinian, Pliny the Younger's imagined eyewitness account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., naturally. And who doesn't love a concept album? Pick it up at The Kora Records. - Jenny Miller

Emily Wells—Joan of Ark

I heard Wells' song during Rami's runway show in "Project Runway" and spent forever tracking it down. Finally, it became available on iTunes this week. Wells' music has a great vibe, and is the sort of thing I would play during a cocktail party. I only have this single, but I've listened to her other stuff on her MySpace page, and it's similarly enjoyable. - Ms. Cavanaugh

Born Against—The Rebel Sound of Shit and Failure

I had one of those mornings where you don't want to listen to anything on your ipod. Instead of compromising with shuffle, I instead did the russian roulette method of spinning the click pad and playing whatever it stops on. At first try today, I landed on Born Against's "The Rebel Sound of Shit and Failure," which I don't think I have listened to in its entirety since I was 20, showering once a week, and sleeping on an air mattress. This long defunct radical hardcore outfit from NYC had a thicker sound than most of the their peers, with sludge-like guitars (a la Karp), ear-splitting bass lines, and politically-charged lyrics hurling from the raspy voice of Sam McPheeters. Caution: May induce the urge to have an abortion, remove the American flag pin from your lapel, and help poor people. Sidenote: former bass-player Melissa York went on to play in the queer-punk act Team Dresch. - Robert

Lykee Li—Little Bit EP

I rely on publicists for a lot of the new music I receive. I'm at their whim. A couple weeks ago, I received Lykke Li's four track "Little Bit" EP and felt a near-palpable wave of bittersweetness. Bitter that I didn't get her full length release "Youth Novels," but sweetened for her half-melancholy, half-loving odes to what I'm sure is a really cute Swedish boy. The title track actually makes her admission of "I'm a little bit in love with you" sound sad, even as you hope she's right about the subject being a "la-la-la-little bit in love with me." This mix of hope and longing makes her a perfect compliment to fellow pretty Swede El Perro Del Mar, and its a bloody fucking shame their joint summer tour isn't coming through D.C. - Zack