Dig your feet into the sand until you reach the cool layer just below the surface. Feel the sweat of your beer bottle slowly drip over your knuckles. Smell the hot charcoal and cool cocoa butter. Lean your head back, close your eyes, and watch the sun through the pink of your eyelids.

Summer is gone but not forgotten. Here are some tunes to help you remember.

Download: CMI’s Infinite Summer

Tracklist:

1. The Drums – Let’s Go Surfing
2. Surf City – Headin’ Inside
3. The Magic Kids – Hey Boy
4. Rainbow Bridge – Big Wave Rider
5. My Teenage Stride – Naval Gazing
6. Fluffy Lumbers – Cruisers
7. pow wow! – So Weird
8. Family Portrait – Mega Secrets
9. Holiday Shores – Phones Don’t Feud
10. Dum Dum Girls – Ship of Love
11. Ganglians – Voodoo
12. The Love Language – Lalita
13. Kurt Vile – Freeway
14. Real Estate – Beach Comber
15. Beach Fossils – Vacation
16. Girls – Lust For Life
17. Neon Indian – Deadbeat Summer

The coming months will see not one, but two new releases from Stephen Pastel and company. Let your inner pop geek rejoice.

Devon already weighed in with his favorites of the year so far. I considered being patient (we’re 2/3 of the way there – dammit!), but here’s my list anyway.

• Let’s Wrestle – In The Court of the Wrestling King
• The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – s/t
• The Drums – EP
• Cymbals Eat Guitars – Why There Are Mountains
• Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career
• Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
• God Help the Girl – s/t
• My Teenage Stride – monthly singles (I know it’s cheating)
• Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs
• the dodos – Time To Die

Image courtesy of freeloosedirt.

Not to be confused with Uncle Scrooge and his mischievous nephews, Ducktails chooses not to cut through the late summer haze but instead embrace it like a long and sweaty hug. Landscapes LP out now.

MP3

Cymbals Eat Guitars – Wind Phoenix (Live on KEXP)

Local Natives – Cecilia

We recently got tipped to this new LA band. Their cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia” leads us to predict great things.

The Lodger – I Think I Need You

A new track from these nice-guy, indie pop revivalists.

Twighlight Sad – I Became A Prostitute

Sorry for the delay in posting this week’s round up. Here are a few of the notable news stories from the past week.

• The Guardian celebrates 20 years of Blur
• WXPN is streaming a live Meat Puppets session
• Conor Oberst, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, and M. Ward have officially announced that they will be releasing a collaborative. humbly titled, album.
• Fender announced the Sonic Jazzmaster, a signature guitar series sponsored by Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo and I really want one.
• Drowned In Sound interviews Yo La Tengo frontman, Ira Kaplan
• Animal Collective does their best to make one of their most accessible songs, inaccessible with the video for “Summertime Clothes:”

Tracklist
00:00 DJDoseU (Anything Could Happen – The Clean)
00:56 Throw Aggi Off The Bridge – Black Tambourine
04:09 Colour Me Impressed
04:57 Hey Boy – The Magic Kids
07:12 Everyone Chooses Sides – The Wrens
11:46 Colour Me Impressed
12:14 Oliver Twisted – The Vaselines
15:02 Me And The Bean – Spoon
18:35 Colour Me Impressed
19:36 Sisters Are Forever – Sexy Kids
22:22 Colour Me Impressed
23:08 Pine On – Obits
26:39 Colour Me Impressed
27:21 Game Of Pricks – Guided By Voices
29:35 Catholicked – Dum Dum Girls
32:08 Colour Me Impressed
33:36 Lover’s Spit – Broken Social Scene
39:29 Colour Me Impressed
41:40 Friend Of The Night – Mogwai
47:09 Thursday – Asobi Seksu
51:24 Colour Me Impressed
52:29 Eavedropping – Grizzly Bear
56:15 DJDoseU (Anything Could Happen – The Clean)
56:58 Burgers and Fries – Weird War

At age 16, in a musty record store attic, I purchased my first vinyl copy of This Years Model for $2. I had never heard a note of Elvis Costello’s music, but I recognized his name, checked the copyright date (1978!) and was instantly attracted to the geeky but cool aesthetic of the cover photo. My turntable at the time, a pathetically cheap hand-me-down, was unable to play at a volume much above a whisper. Yet, with my ear pressed to the speaker, in Costello’s frantic energy and lover’s scorn I recognized a kindred spirit. He wasn’t so much angry as pissed off and reflective.

Led by Steve Nieve’s sharp edged organ lines, the Attractions’ reckless energy is perfectly suited to Costello’s breathless delivery. The whole album teeters on the verge of combustion. “No Action,” immediately lets the listener know just where we’re headed, as Costello spits “I don’t wanna kiss you. I don’t wanna touch/ I don’t wanna see you ‘cause I don’t miss you that much.” Ouch.

Halfway through side two, in the second verse of “Lip Service,” Costello buries one of the best kiss-off lines in history:

“Don’t act like you’re above me/just look at your shoes.”

So pissy. So perfect.

Witness the band’s riotous attitude during their U.S. TV debut on Saturday Night Live. Scheduled to play My Aim Is True’s “Less Than Zero,” Costello chose to stop the song after only a few bars and instead broke into the then unreleased “Radio, Radio,” reportedly much to the chagrin of the suits at both SNL and the record company.

A week later, I went back to that musty attic and picked up My Aim Is True. But that’s another story…

MP3: Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Radio Radio (SNL Version)

Big thanks to the BTR crew! You can read a selection of CMI posts at Break Thru Radio’s site (choose “Articles” then “Blogger of the Week.”) and a radio interview with our hand picked selections will air later in the week.

How Fucking Romantic is a work in progress, illustrated, interpretation of one of the great albums of the past 10 years.

We are a loose collection of mostly London-based comic-artists, illustrators and writers, who have grown up listening to  the Magnetic Fields and got together over a mutual love of the songs. One day, on Twitter, a couple of us decided that illustrating – or writing a comic – or a short story – inspired by all 69 songs was a worthwhile and exciting pursuit, so here we are!

I’ve always considered 69 Love Songs to be a work of art that could easily serve as a form of inspiration to artists in another medium. Merrit’s wry observations contain so many minute emotions that they deserve to be opened up to deeper exploration.

Bonus Video

While writing this post I stumbled across this fan-made animated video for “The Luckiest Guy On the Lower East Side.”

MP3: Magnetic Fields – How Fucking Romantic