The Specific Heats - End of an Error

From Brooklyn and they sound like it, although (as you might guess from the cover art) they do have a slightly more psychedelic tinge than most of their contemporaries. Only slightly, like.

Title so good you wonder why nobody ever thought of it before.

Ultra Vivid Scene - Guilty Pleasure

Track from the second UVS album, Joy 1967-1990. It's a bit overproduced - some would argue that's par for the course on this record - but catchy enough you stop noticing after a while.

Dream Diary - Something Tells Her

Yet another Brooklyn band, this one specialising in clear pure indiepop that brings to mind such greats as the Razorcuts and Poole. This is from their 2011 debut album, You are the Beat.

The New Lines - Buildings to Photograph

Great spacey psychedelic pop from, where else, Brooklyn. This is the closing track of their 2011 debut album All That We See and Seem. It was also the first song I ever heard of theirs and I wondered at first if it had been uploaded at the wrong speed, but no, it's just beautifully languid.

Bush Tetras - Things That Go Boom in the Night

Here's a classic of the no wave genre, which I've developed a greater appreciation for in recent years. It was Bush Tetras' second single, released in 1981. Its predecessor "Too Many Creeps" seems to be the song they're best remembered for but I think this one is much better. It's rather Au Pairs-ish which is no bad thing at all.

Weed Hounds - Hard Drivin'

Weed Hounds, who are unsurprisingly from Brooklyn, blend the best of American indie-rock, lo-fi and shoegaze to surprisingly distinctive effect. This is a track from their 2010 split 7" with Dude Japan.

The Velvet Underground - Sunday Morning

Just because.

Chalk and Numbers - I Really Wanna Work This Out

There's a lot of very '60s, Phil Spectorish girlpop around these days but few of the bands take it quite this far - going beyond a mere "influenced by" or even "very influenced by" to actually sounding like a lost relic of the Gold Star studio. Whether that makes them unforgivably derivative or deliciously authentic is probably a matter of personal opinion. FWIW, I fall unapologetically into the latter camp.

Their debut EP, He Knew, was released last year and can be downloaded for free here.

From Brooklyn, of course.

East River Pipe - Make a Deal With the City

A lovely song from 1993's Goodbye California, from a band I'm not normally that enthusiastic about. (They were actually a project of Fred Cornog rather than a proper band, but let's not split hairs.) ERP started off on Sarah and ended up on Merge - a label which, in the 1990s, I always associated with a distinctly US South aesthetic - and I don't think it was so much a change in musical direction as a case of them finally reaching their natural home. You can hear a lot of that sort of Mitch Eastery '60s-influenced pop even in their early material, though with considerably less slick production.

Anyway, whatever about the rest of their music, this is a gorgeous track in its own right.

Crystal Stilts - Crystal Stilts

Another band I can't believe hasn't made an appearance here yet, Crystal Stilts are of course one of the reasons I regret not being in Brooklyn anymore. Obviously I was way before my time.

This track, from their 2008 debut album Alight of Night, always reminds me of the Mary Chain's "Kill Surf City".

Dead Leaf Echo - Kingmaker

A recent release from this New York band, light shoegazey pop in the vein of Chapterhouse or Spirea X.  It doesn't knock my socks off but we'll see what more they come out with.

Elephant Parade - For You

Totally adorable song from this Brooklyn (of course) duo, from their 2007 album Bedroom Recordings. It's sort of a modern "I'm Sticking With You", which is not a bad thing at all.

Beach Fossils - Fall Right In

An almost unspeakably gorgeous track from Brooklyn's Beach Fossils, off their 2011 EP What a Pleasure. Reminds me a bit of the Orchids.

Stellastarr - Lost in Time

I certainly wouldn't be a fan of everything Stellastarr (or stellastarr*, if they insist) have done but I have to give them the nod for this track. Mainly because it does actually succeed in what so many of this genre fail miserably at, that is, actually being the big epic blockbuster of a song it wants to be. Credit where it's due.

It's from their second album Harmonies for the Haunted, from 2005.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Ramona

Here's another example of a band whose b-sides are better than a lot of bands' a-sides. In fact, in this case the song is marginally better than its own a-side... though it's a close call. It was on the "Young Adult Friction" 7" (2009), and it makes me swoon.

Vivian Girls - I Can't Stay

It occurred to me last night that although I've posted plenty of bands that are either linked to the Vivian Girls or are like the Vivian Girls, I've never posted an actual Vivian Girls song before. Silly me.

Here's a live version of a 2008 single. It's interesting how close to Talulah Gosh they sound, without all the Spectoresque studio embellishment of their recordings.

The Velvet Underground - All Tomorrow's Parties

You'll all know this one, of course, but isn't it nice hearing it again? Music is rarely as perfect as this.

Luna - Speedbumps

Much as I loved Galaxie 500, Luna never really did it for me. I always found them just a little too bland, though I have to admit I might have been drawing unfair comparisons. Maybe I should give them another chance now that enough time has passed for me to accept that Galaxie 500 aren't coming back. Well, I'll think about it anyway.

But since I have already put Damon and Naomi up here, in the interests of fairness here's a Luna song too. It's from their final album, 2004's Rendezvous.

The Mad Scene - Paper Plane

A b-side to the first single from The Mad Scene, the NYC-based band formed by Hamish Kilgour (of The Clean) in the early 1990s. It's like super lo-fi Flying Nun, which of course means it's pretty fantastic.

The Velvet Underground - I'm Sticking with You

I've posted a couple things here that I've identified as "twee before twee existed" but this surely out-twees-before-twee-existed all of them. Originally recorded in 1969 but not released until 1985 (on VU), it features Maureen Tucker's prepubescent-boylike vocals, and truly the dumbest lyrics ever written. I say that with great affection.

No idea who made this video, but it's more than suitable for the song.