A Discoveries Mixtape Pt. 1

No Kids - Another Song: A nursery rhyme for big kids. Warm-fuzzy lyrics about ghosts and angels narrate a cotton-stuffed scene in which two best friends, a treble-pounding toy piano and a brittle sea of distant guitar strums, dance arm in arm while a stern and insistent snare struggles to keep everybody in line and a joyous menagerie of flutes and horns playfully flit about without a worry in the world.

Still Flyin' - The Hott Chord is Struck: This massive (usually over a dozen members strong, many of whom are primarily responsible for backup singing, hand clapping, and general good-time having) bunch of BFFs is a hi-fiving, group-hugging, socks-on-a-linoleum-floor dance party of a band who could easily get by on sheer charisma, but then go and write ridiculously catchy numbers like this and instantly make themselves your new favorite band.

The Love Language - Lalita: It's nothing you haven't heard before. And it's not necessarily about making it sound new again. It's about hearing that which you've heard many times before, but bursting with so much good time rock 'n' roll shake the rafters and sing in the streets vim and vigor that you don't even care. You just want to kick your shoes off and dance.

Fool's Gold - Surprise Hotel - The spindly Afro-pop guitar line that kicks Surprise Hotel off like an outtake from Paul Simon's Graceland proves a fitting bellwether for the infectious cultural throwdown to come. And while Fool's Gold may come across as a post-modern pastiche of some purely imagined idea of a world music party jam, it turns out to be a pretty great idea.