9.4.12
I went on a last minute binge with last month's Amazon MP3 albums for $5, which was one of their supersized months that featured over 1,000 albums instead of the standard 100. After picking up Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska and Born to Run earlier in the month, I ended up also buying Magnetic Fields' The Wayward Bus/Distant Plastic Trees (which was really two albums for $5), Badly Drawn Boy's It's What I'm Thinking: Photographing Snowflakes, Patrick Wolf's Brumalia EP (a companion piece to his latest album, Lupercalia), and the Very Best's MTMTMK.

I was a big fan of Badly Drawn Boy's first couple of albums, but I grew less and less fond of him as he got simultaneously more dour and more sappy, but despite the title, I decided to give Photographing Snowflakes, his most recent release, a try because a few of the clips I listened to reminded me of the sound of those early albums (although the songs still seemed pretty subdued and lacking the hopefulness that was a hallmark of his early work). I have a feeling this is going to turn out like my repeated disappointing second chances for Ryan Adams, but at least this time it only cost me $5, and if this record doesn't win me back, I'm pretty sure it's the last time I'll ever consider buying a Badly Drawn Boy record again.

The Very Best's MTMTMK might have the opposite problem: it might be a little too filled with joy for my tastes. But sometimes records like this, where it takes a few listens for me to absorb a sonic palette that I don't encounter very often, will suddenly click and I'll wonder why I ever hesitated in my love for it (the most analagous comparison might be my experience with Tuneyards' WHOKILL).

I haven't listened to the other two records yet, but those artists are known quantities for me, so I don't think I'll be too disappointed (or too surprised).

9.5.12
I received Cat Power's Sun and Animal Collective's Centipede Hz in the mail today, but I'm not sure how excited I am. I like both artists a lot, and their last proper albums (Merriweather Post Pavillion for Animal Collective, The Greatest for Cat Power) were my favorite entries in each of their catalogues. But I'm starting to wonder how much Animal Collective has left to say to me, especially after I didn't have any connection at all to Panda Bear's latest solo outing (and for me, it's his style that sets the tone for Animal Collective), and I wasn't at all fond of Cat Power's covers record, Jukebox.

Both albums are getting great reviews, but that's almost to be expected——I don't think the crtics have disliked anything either of these artists has done in the past decade. I hope that my relative indifference to getting these albums (I came very close to not preordering them) will turn into excitement once I listen to them, but at this point, there are a lot of other upcoming releases that I'm much more excited about.

Speaking of which: even though I've been waiting for Jens Lekman's next album since the day after his last one, 2007's Night Falls Over Kortedala, came out, I somehow neglected to preorder his just-released I Know What Love Isn't, and I had a similar fail with Stars' The North and Deerhoof's Breakup Song (although I wasn't looking forward to either of those nearly as much as I was to Jens' new record). This has been remedied, however, and they should all three be in my mailbox by the end of the week.

9.6.12
I follow the Twitter feed of Nina Barnes, wife of of Montreal frontman Kevin Barnes, and yesterday she posted a link to a new song from her music project Harouki Zombie. And when I went to Soundcloud to listen to it, I noticed that there was also a recently posted track from of Montreal with a title that I didn't recognize: "Sails, Hermaphroditic".

So I hopped over to the Polyvinyl web site to find out more, and lo and behold there was a new of Montreal album available for preorder: Daughter of Cloud. Even though it was a collection of rarities and outtakes and not really a new album, some of those outtakes date back to the Hissing Fauna and Skeletal Lamping sessions, so I immediately preordered the CD. It isn't due to be released until October 23, but when my email confirmation arrived in my inbox, to my surprise it had a link to download a digital copy of the album immediately.

That was a pretty good day: waking up and thinking that new material from of Montreal was at least a year away and then having 17 new tracks to listen to by the end of the day.

9.7.12
Two of the records that I was least excited about receving this week have turned out to be the two that have made the best initial impression: Deerhoof's Breakup Song and Animal Collective's Centipede Hz. The Deerhoof record is full of the same off-kilter but instantly lovable hooks as the record that introduced me to their music, Apple O'. In contrast, Animal Collective's latest doesn't sound like any album they've done before——instead, this record takes the accessible frenetic energy of tracks like "Summertime Clothes" and the second half of "Graze" and amps it up a few notches. There's still that distinctive Animal Collective sound, but the feel of the record is the polar opposite of the ragged dreaminess that they're known for.

I'm happy to have lots of new music to explore, but now that I've had a taste of these two, I almost wish there wasn't so much else waiting in the wings, because I could do with a couple of weeks of having nothing else fresh to focus on.

9.10.12
More goodies arrived today: digital download codes for Amanda Palmer's Theatre Is Evil, which I was a Kickstarter backer for, and the David Byrne/St. Vincent collaboration Love This Giant. I'm anxious to hear both records, and I've been hearing bits and pieces of them for a while (Amanda Palmer has already released three tracks from the album to her Kickstarter backers, and there are two Love This Giant tracks that were released early), so I have pretty high expectations based on what I've heard so far.

Interestingly, I might have ended up with two physical copies of Love This Giant: I preordered one directly from the Love This Giant web site so I could download the prerelease tracks, but I apparently had already preordered it on Amazon and never went back to cancel my order. I'm going to see David Byrne and St. Vincent with a friend in October, and I'm pretty sure she's not going to buy the album herself before then, so now I've got a nice gift to give her next time she makes me dinner.

9.11.12
tall buildings shake...

9.12.12
I'm still enjoying Deerhoof's latest, Breakup Song, and I think they might also be in the running for 2012's best song title: "The Trouble With Candyhands".

9.13.12
So far Jens Lekman's I Know What Love Isn't hasn't grabbed ahold of me the way his previous releases have, but I'm not giving up hope this early. Fiona Apple's The Idler Wheel took a while to sink in, but now it's turning into one of my favorite releases this year.

9.14.12
of Montreal's odds and ends collection, Daughter of Cloud, has been another slight disappointment. I mean, it's unreleased tracks from the past several years, so I didn't hold out hope that I'd be getting some great lost of Montreal album, but I was hoping that there would be a few songs from the Hissing Fauna and Skeletal Lamping eras that would emerge as great lost tracks. It still deserves some additional listens, but it sounds like exactly what it is: leftovers.

9.17.12
I'm either going to end up thinking the Very Best's MTMTMK is one of the best records released in the past couple of years or I'm going to get irritated by it and never want to listen to it again, but I have no idea which.

There are tracks where the singer's voice sounds an awful lot like Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig's voice, and the group's sound also steals equally from the appealing and the annoying parts of Vampire Weekend's appropriation of African music (although at least the singer here is actually from Africa). Plus there are moments when the songs sound like they could be the backing track for a Red Stripe commercial.

Despite that, there are a few tracks that are very hard to resist, and even if I can't take the album as a whole, there will still likely be some of the songs that end up with permanent spots in some of my playlists.

9.18.12
Two new discs arrived today: Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music compilation Cruel Summer and Bob Mould's Silver Age. I don't have high expectations for Cruel Summer, but Kanye has been on such a roll recently that it's worth listening to anything he had a hand in. And although I'm a huge fan of Hüsker Dü, Sugar, and Bob Mould's early solo work, I haven't bought one of his records in well over a decade. But positive reviews of this disc and clips that sounded like they could be outtakes from his early 90s period, coupled with a strong recommendation from a friend who has kept up with his career over the years, convinced me to take a chance on it. We'll see if either of these turns out to be worth owning after a few listens.

9.19.12
Every time I listen to Grimes' Visions, I like one more song on it that I didn't like the last time. All I've got to do to make it one of my favorite albums of the year, I guess, is to listen to it about five more times.

9.20.12
Annoying new "feature" of iOS 6: if you are playing a shuffle playlist and you sync your device and then ask it to pick up where it left off, it will remember which song you were on and what playlist it was in, but instead of continuing to shuffle the playlist, it plays the songs in alphabetical order by album title.

9.21.12
I've listened to everything I bought in the last couple of weeks at least once, but I keep coming back to Fiona Apple's The Idler Wheel. I'm going to see David Byrne and St. Vincent in a week and a half, and I know I need to get to know that record better, but I haven't been able to get into it despite loving the two opening tracks.

9.24.12
We're entering the home stretch for 2012, and my two hopes for it when it began (and I was newly infatuated with Frank Ocean) were that 1) Ocean would release another album this year and 2) that it would be the best album released this year. The first has definitely happened, with Channel Orange coming out in July, and so far there's a pretty good chance that the second will come true as well. This period between September and October is traditionally the second big release wave for the kinds of bands I like (prepping for the holiday season, but releasing before the really big acts put out their records), so there's still a chance it could be superceded, but it's definitely going to be in my top 10.

9.25.12
A few new discs arrived today: Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1, the Corin Tucker Band's Kill My Blues, Dinosaur Jr.'s I Bet On Sky, and Patterson Hood's (of Drive-By Truckers fame) solo album Murdering Oscar.

I haven't heard much about Lupe Fiasco's new record, and I've been increasingly disappointed with his music as his career has gone on. By titling this one as a continuation of his debut and his strongest release, he's either going to get back to the roots that showed so much promise a few years ago, or he's trying to milk that connection as much as possible to convince one-time fans like me to give him another shot. If I had to guess, I'd bet on the latter, but the fact that I own it means that I'm hoping for the former.

9.26.12
As is often the case, it's almost too late for me to post picks from Amazon's monthly list of 100 MP3 albums for $5, but that's okay——there's not a lot of interesting stuff this month anyway. The only one I would consider somewhat critical is Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion, and if pressed, I might recommend Pearl Jam's Vs., Sugar's File Under: Easy Listening, and Hot Chip's Latest, In Our Heads. But other than those, I don't find much to recommend that is already in my collection, and I also don't think I'll be picking anything up for myself this month.

9.27.12
Here's the thing about Dinosaur Jr.: it's not only incredible that the original lineup is still together after nearly 30 years (albeit after a years-long hiatus and a few shifts over the years——frontman J Mascis is the only member who has contributed to each of the band's albums), but that the the post-hiatus albums Beyond, Farm, and now I Bet On Sky might be their most compelling run of music since their classic run of You're Living All Over Me, Bug, and Green Mind.

I've only listened to it a couple of times, and while Sky isn't their best album, it might be the best guitar album made by a band whose average age is over 45 since the Screaming Blue Messiahs' Gun Shy back in 1986 (I'm pretty sure at the time of that release, everyone in the band was over 40, but I'm not sure if they quite averaged 45 yet). If you liked the last couple of albums, make sure you pick this one up as well; if you gave up on them during their muddling, mediocre mid-90s albums, this wouldn't be a bad record to reintroduce yourself to them.

9.28.12
Wild Flag was supposed to be the legacy band for Sleater-Kinney fans, but I actually preferred co-frontwoman Corin Tucker's first solo album to the supergroup that featured mtwo former embers of Sleater-Kinney. Tucker just released her second solo effort, Kill My Blues, and it's better than the first, which had a paucity of actual singles but which was a solid listen as a whole album. This one's going to have a lot more songs that jump from the album to my shuffle playlists, but it's also pretty cohesive as longplayer. Also: I had no idea this was coming out, so it was a nice surprise.