The added punch of vitamin D would make all office employees happier, meaning increased morale and (theoretically) more productivity in the work place.

PRETTY SMART EH? My friend pointed out this might lead to unhealthy amounts of ultraviolet light, but, you know, science has a solution for that I’m sure. At the very least everyone would be pleased with their healthy year-round tan, n’est-ce pas?

Anyways, my point is that since offices have yet to evolve at the rate of my visionary ideas, one must find other ways to beat the winter doldrums. In my case, thinking of Australia helps. I don’t surf and I hate sharks, but yo, THE SUN.

Speaking of which, check this video from Down Under dj duo the Bag Raiders and their upcoming, appropriately titled single, Sunlight. How you like dem segues?

According to Wikipedia, “Bag Raiders are a house duo from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, consisting of DJs Chris Stracey and Jack Glass. The duo is well known for their remixes and live shows“.

Although I cannot attest to their live skillz, I can tell you this video for Sunlight features five amazing things:

1. a Chimpanzee doing his best 21-Jump-Street-Era-Johnny-Depp impression
2. right hand drive vehicles
3. an eminently danceable pop beat with house and jungle (book) influences
4. laser beam sugar synths and melodies that will be stuck in your head all day
5. a cute Australian girl in short shorts dating previously described Monkey Depp

If that doesn’t sell you, perhaps the fact that much like fellow countrymen Cut Copy, the Naked and Famous and Paul Hogan, Bag Raiders have captured the essence of fun, danceable, infectious electropop with Sunlight.

Unlike Paul Hogan, the Bag Raiders are not trying to sell you beer.

…yet.

Fucking with my rap cred since I’ma week late on this, but apparently The RZA (a.k.a THE Wu Don) has taken a cue from Kanye with #WuWednesday (that’s a Twitter trending topic for those of you fortunate enough to not be so intimately acquainted with hash tags).  The first track he dropped is “Gone,” a beaut of a rap ballad featuring two Canadians; a sample of singer Justin Nozuka, and Finger Eleven’s James Black on guitar, as well as rapper Kobra Khan. Leave it to RZA–consistently one of the most innovative, avant garde producers in hip-hop–to pair a honey-voiced baby-faced singer with a CanCon punk band guitarist and make it nothing but ill. Much of it’s due to the rapper/producer’s own booming, grim reaper flow (a perfect fit for a song about death and departure, a tribute to long-time Tarantino editor and RZA pal, Sally Menke) and affinity for hip-hop’s traditional drum patterns, but unlike the cache and super-saccharine of other hokey-ass cross-genre collabs, “Gone” hits personal instead.

Via Hypetrak

Things Stevens is not traditionally known for: autotune, drum machines, samples, electric guitars.

So it’s with some balls, frankly, that Sufjan Stevens’ new album The Age of Adz closes with a 25 minute track, “Impossible Soul”, that is basically dominated by the latter elements while only retaining, mostly, happy bits of the former.

Lots of predominantly acoustic artists go electric after a while, to varying degrees of success. Fewer have integrated autotune into the mix without coming off like an unfunny comedy band or just like they’re trying way, way too hard. Usually artists succumb to both.

Yet somehow, despite already being regarded at times as a bit of a pretentious douche, Stevens’ use of today’s ubiquitous pop inflection makes his music seem more fun, more accessible and more sincere than his regular pensive pieces.

While lots of musicians evolve their sound because they simply get bored of themselves, pushing above their talent plateau often results in strained, unnatural music.

Sufjan Stevens seems to genuinely be learning how to flesh out his art given new tools to play with. This is a rare accomplishment for artists of any genre (just ask Lil Wayne) and to hear Impossible Soul, and all of The Age of Adz really, is to witness Stevens cutting loose with his imagination.

As a result, listening to “Impossible Soul” seems way shorter than it should — I could have swore it was only 15 minutes long.

K-os released his slightly delayed and somewhat anticipated mixtape, oddly (and awesomely) titled ”The Anchorman Mixtape.” Complete with random samplings from Ron Burgundy and crew, the tape contains some previously recorded but unreleased material and collaborations with the likes of Drake (Faith) and Sebastien Grainger (BlackWater).

For the Drake number (video link here), it begins with what sounds like a Ron Burgundy hot tub commercial, threatening listeners with fisticuffs if they don’t find it the best song in the world. Drake starts it off with some quick-cadenced rapping, followed by K-os singing a soulful hook reminiscent of “Sign, sealed delivered, I’m yours” by Stevie Wonder. Having the raspy K-os sing the hook over the smooth-crooning Drake may seem like an odd choice, but it definitely works here. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for anything that even remotely references Motown. Maybe not the “best song in the world”, but enough to keep Burgundy off your back.

Download the full mixtape here or here, but do it quick. Word is it will be taken down and released as singles soon.

The crazy thing about former Goodie Mob rapper Cee-Lo’s newest song “What Part Of Forever” is that it’s a cut that could’ve been recorded by anyone. Well, when I say anyone I mostly think about the singers that little girls like, like Taylor Swift and that chick from Paramore. It’s a slice of double-timed sunny-yet-moody pop goodness, honeyed with Cee-Lo’s sweet vocals and plopped onto the latest Twilight soundtrack. However, as a long-standing Goodie Mob fan and Gnarls Barkley champion, I am totally backing this weird pop star route that the tubby, bespectacled Cee-lo is going in. Sure he’s not your conventional tartlet, he’s not even a -let, but Cee-Lo’s got the vocals and some sort of woundedness to him. Perhaps it’s his kind eyes. Perhaps it’s remnants of the Mob’s Southern-soul-filtered emo rap. (For the record I’m not calling Goodie Mob emo, just saying that, like Outkast, there was also an omnipresent layer of melancholy to their work). Bring on more videos of ‘Lo walking, tatted and ‘beater-d up, seemily displaced, through glowing cornfields. I WILL WATCH.

The first time I heard Flying Lotus’ latest album, Cosmogramma, in full, I was in the sleek basement of a local bar at a pre-organized Stan-ish–meaning unofficial–listening party. Aside from the back bar and a projector screen broadcasting neon EQ visualization-style geometrics, the room was dark enough, sound system heavy enough, and crowd high enough to make this most catastrophically awesome gathering of nerds ever. Contrary to the pleas of my sober Sally BFF, that is really only the most appropriate way to listen to Cosmogramma; blissed out, pupils engorged, so all the layers and levels in FlyLo’s exquisite breaks ripple through your body. Visuals seems to be a common trope in the skunky world of Flying Lotus so I’m not mad at this video for “MmmHmm,” which features hazy colours, pscyhedelic shapes and re-animated dudes wearing Native American headresses.

Here’s the list: Drake, Justin Bieber, Sleigh Bells.

Those are the only three artists I can think of who, without being previously famous, have been so hyped up on the internet that people literally wait at their computers in anticipation of buying their debut album the second it becomes available.

Music and musings after the jump:

Of the listed artists, Sleigh Bells remain an intriguing anomaly, and not for stylistic reasons alone. For starters, Drake put out a mixtape that was essentially a full-length studio quality album prior to his first real LP. So Far Gone may not have been an “official” studio recording, but let’s be honest, Thank Me Later is Drake’s second album.

Likewise, Justin Beiber put out the video for “One Time” and released his My World EP months before his official debut dropped (which was called My World 2.0 anyways, so really whatever). It could be argued that even if My World is considered Beiber’s first recording, the Stratford sensation didn’t truly explode until after his video for “One Time” hit YouTube.

“One Time” would more aptly be named 22-million times, since that’s how many views it currently has; good enough for fifth most on YouTube’s all-time (of all time!) list. Ironically, one of the videos which has recently surpassed and pushed “One Time” down the most viewed list? Another Bieber single, “Love Me”. Basically, the only thing that gets more views than Justin Bieber is… newer Justin Bieber.

Ah, right. Sleigh Bells. Similar to the serendipitous ascendency of Canadians Drake and Bieber, Sleigh Bells were plucked from relative obscurity and backed by established names. Serving as the Weezy/Usher mentor for the lo-fi Brooklyn duo is M.I.A. who is putting out Sleigh Bells’ debut album, Treats, on her own N.E.E.T. record label. (Tangential, but what’s up with M.I.A. and acronyms? C.O.N.F.U.S.I.N.G.)

I can’t think of an indie debut that has been as hotly anticipated across the interwebs as Treats. Of note is that the New York via Florida combo of Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss didn’t have the culture making machinations of Bieber or Drake pulling the strings on their behalf. They tore up the stage at last year’s CMJ festival and were noticed by some important people — Spike Jonze, Pitchfork and Sasha Frere-Jones (New Yorker pop-music critic) to name a few.

Still, there was no polished debut from Sleigh Bells designed to purposely stoke the internet fires. The band got famous over a few demos they recorded in Miller’s bedroom and that he hand delivered to a writer for Stereogum who happened to live in his building. Sleigh Bells are sort of the living embodiment of Terrance Howard’s character in Hustle and Flow, but, you know, with less prostitution and even less black people.

As of right now, Treats is the third highest selling album on the U.S. iTunes store, sandwiched between indie stalwarts The National and Oprah approved songstress Charice. Seriously.

How did this happen based on a few demos? I don’t know, but it certainly sets a thoughtful precedent on how bands might make it big in the future.

Oh right, the music. Sleigh Bells make music designed for drunken hipster dance parties: loud, grating, lo-fi grunge rock with pop-sensible melodies and tinges of hip-hop beatmaking. Think Death From Above 1979 meets Gwen Stefani meets early Rapture.

Treats clocks in at an efficient 32 minutes total but seems to go by even faster. Sleigh Bells don’t make music you sit and contemplate — you’re designed to be doing something to a track like “Crown On The Ground”, be it dancing, drinking, writhing on the floor or shooting noobs in Halo: Reach.

So yeah, Treats is an eminently interesting summer album but, to me at least, not nearly as interesting as the story behind it.

Remember the mid-late nineties, when you were spending all day watching Pop-Up Video while stuffing your face with Arch Deluxes? It may seem crazy in retrospect, but during those halcyon days, there was at one point a legitimate debate over who the greatest modern (at the time) British band was: Oasis or Blur.

It seems almost quaint in hindsight; while Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back in Anger crushed full soccer stadiums with the power of simple melodies, countrymen Blur seemed to cast a relatively pall glow. Almost antithesis to the clean tone of the Gallagher brothers, Blur were defined by intriguing arrangements and the signature juxtaposition of Damon Albarn’s lithe vocals against Graham Coxon’s crunchy strat. Sure, Song 2 turned into a stadium anthem and Beetlebum got radio play, but the shadow of Cast No Shadow was all too real — the argument settled itself as Blur faded into the background of college radio.

Lead singer Damon Albarn split to do his cartoon side project and Blur disbanded. Like any good superhero hypothetical debate however, time changes all the variables. Blur have a new single out, and Oasis stuck around only to fizzle out like so many sparklers on a Chuckie Cheese pizza.

The best part is, Fool’s Day is a pretty exciting direction for Blur to go. It picks up rather succinctly from where the band left its final pre-reunion album, 2003′s Think Tank. Fool’s Day has no chorus, and in classic 90′s style features a kick-ass distortion laden guitar solo. Part plaid shirts, part skinny jeans, but distinctly all Blur. Rumours of a forthcoming album have my fingers crossed.

Bonus: does the official record label video of the new Blur single above harken the same black and white vinyl close-up that begins Oasis’s Wonderwall video? Coincidence. Maybe. Maybe not.

“Drunk Girls” has already been critically panned as the “SexyBack” of LCD Soundsystem’s listened-to-it-already-and-know-its-awesome new album This Is Happening (meaning it’s the most predictable, most sonically offensive, most base piece of crap on there). The thankfully-drunk-girl-free video, however, is GREAT and contains all of my childhood fantasies: singing into a microphone, writing on walls, dressing up in crazy costumes, drawing makeup all over someones face, fucking around with eggs, throwing things at people, throwing things in the air, playing with fire extinguishers and other general fun stuff that big people wouldn’t let you do. The only thing missing is a cake fight. Cus you can eat it and throw it. And it’s squishy.

I remember randomly running into Shad this past winter at a small restaurant on Toronto’s Harbord St., The Roxton, and since I am actually a big fan and have interviewed him a few times before I decided to go up and ask him when we were going to see a new album.  He said they were actually in the process of recording one in Toronto, which was great news because a lot of people have been waiting for his follow up to the acclaimed sophomore album, The Old Prince. On top of that he had just finished an amazing tour where a few new tracks made their way to the set list (like the one that sampled The Cure’s Close to Me but I can’t find online anywhere. Hopefully it’s on the new album).

Anyways, I bugged his PR person for a while about trying to get something from the studio to play on the blog, but to no avail. Finally, this just came through as part of his newsletter, and it from the tiny teaser of the first single, Yaa I get it, it’s fair to say it looks promising. Great sample, tight rhyming, classic Shad.

The Album, TSOL, drops May 25, followed by a cross Canada tour. Can’t wait.