Free Range Music: Feist, Futureheads, Sinking Ships

>> AOL Music's pre-release album stream corral contains a pleasant morning's worth of listening from Feist, Golden Smog, Sinking Ships and more. There's nothing we can say about Leslie Feist that hasn't already been said, to such an extent that we don't often write about her. But it is worth listening to Open Season, which offers remixes of material from her 2004 debut Let It Die, including a quartet of re-flux-capacitated versions of the minor hit "Mushaboom" (The Mocky remix is superb; The Postal Service remix is a little too predictable, although it has a couple nicely aggressive builds).

Speaking of aggressive, Seattle hardcore quintet Sinking Ships releases its Revelation debut Disconnecting tomorrow. It's everything a hardcore record should be. For starters, it's fewer than 30 minutes in length, and it touts late '80s-style (pre-metal core) hardcore. The band professes sterling influences including Dag Nasty and Turning Point, and it shows in Sinking Ships' tunes. We just got hipped to the band last week via our man on the street in Brooklyn, El Stengelero. If you buy one hardcore record this year recommended by a guy who hasn't known what is really going on in the hardcore scene at the street-level for more than a decade (us, not El Stengelero), this should be the one.

Finally, we suspect the real gold this week is in the new set from Golden Smog, although we couldn't get the stream to load for us, so you'll just have to take our entirely uninformed word for it. But we think we read the set was primarily led by the two dudes from the Jayhawks, so it'd be hard for it to be bad. We're posting a couple more streams you may want to inspect as well.

Feist -- Open Season -- Arts & Crafts

Golden Smog -- Another Fine Day -- Lost Highway

MSTRKRFT -- The Looks -- Last Gang

Sinking Ships -- Disconnecting -- Revelation

>> As promised here earlier this month, Bradley's Almanac here continues a superlative run of live show postings of late, including recent sets from Buffalo Tom and Beirut, by posting The Futureheads' peppy July 1st set at Boston's Paradise Rock Club. Stream the cuts at Hype Machine here, and if you dig (and you will), download the cuts here. Make sure to at least listen to the cracking versions of "Stupid And Shallow," "Decent Days And Nights" and "Man Ray" the band unleashes. Particularly that latter tune -- although the lead guitar gets a little lost in the rush of the delivery, its emotional crescendo is as dazzling as it is thrillingly (is that a word?) claustrophobic.