Merry Christmas, party people! Here are some brand new Christmas carols for 2009.

My First Earthquake – Holiday Sweaters
A super-catchy song about sweaters that don’t breathe well.

Pomplamoose – Always in the Season
When I first saw Pomplamoose covering Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”, I was worried that they’d be just one of those gimmicky Youtube viral musicians that relies on irony and the cuteness of the girl.. but they actually make really nice songs, so party on!

We did it!!!! As we near the end of another all-the-way-live 365, I want to do a year-end wrapup post before I enter hibernation for the holidays. (continue reading…)

This track isn’t new at all, but I heard it for the first time a few weeks ago on TV. I haven’t followed their music, but I’ve known that Depapepe is fun to say, and the few tracks I’ve heard have been uplifting acoustic guitar pieces. This track, パッヘルベルのカノン (Pachelbel’s Canon), is no exception. Canon is one of my favourite compositions of all time, and I think this duo gives it a pretty nice treatment.
Depapepe – Canon

I hope everybody’s simply having a wonderful Christmas time. This is a BUSY time of year, but I want to share some stuff before I start writing some Christmas cards.

Rammstein – Frühling In Paris

Rammstein is on tour right now, promoting their new album “Liebe Ist Für Alle Da”. I picked it up recently and I’m still finding my way around it, but this track jumped out as an instant favorite. Frühling In Paris (Springtime in Paris) is an awesome ballad that borrows lines from Edith Piaf on the chorus (“Je ne regrète rien…”). I guess everybody gets their lighters out when they play this song live, but that shouldn’t surprise you because I’m pretty sure everything is on fire all the time at a Rammstein concert. I used to listen to Rammstein’s first album while I played with Lego when I was about 10 years old, so I always love hearing new stuff from these guys. I could easily listen to this track if it was 30 minutes long, there have only been a few songs that I’ve had on repeat in my car this year and this is certainly one of them.

Ingrid Michaelson – Breakable
Here’s a record I wasn’t aware of until pretty recently. It’s a nice song, but stick with the video for the first 30 seconds or so, because she does eventually take off her hat. Get outta here, Drew Barrymore, with your trilby hats!

Kid Cudi – Pursuit of Happiness (Steve Aoki remix)
With MGMT and Ratatat doing their thing on the original track, Pursuit of Happiness is already one of the biggest tracks on Cudi’s album, but Steve Aoki takes Pursuit of Happiness in a totally new direction and turns it into a massive hoover-heavy club banger.
Kid Cudi – Pursuit of Happiness (Steve Aoki remix) at Usershare, big ups to pigeonsandplanes.com

I just saw this promo video that Detektivbyrån made for their upcoming live DVD, and it’s so HOT that I have to share it. These guys make some beautiful music with some very unusual instruments. After the song clip, they show off some home-made instruments that they tour with.

Detektivbyrån – Monster (Live in Stockholm)

Curiously, this video is in 1080p, which means the DVD will be lower quality than the previews…

Here’s another live clip of Detektivbyrån from 2007, playing Om Du Möter Varg