stream new music: Beach House, Best Coast, Exitmusic, Animal Collective

Hey America, it's a Bank Holiday in the UK and it seems that your NPR and their fab 'First Listen' page have picked the ideal time to unleash lots of new music streams on us. The only bad thing about this is that today really should be all about the My Bloody Valentine re-issues, but there will be more about that when I get my hands on the actual physical CDs. I've heard bits of the promos and the Guardian stream of Loveless but it is difficult to tell what's different when the re-masters have been data compressed. I think it's fiar to say that any differences will be filed under 'subtle'. Anyway, on to the new streams...

Beach House's 'Bloom' is one of the most anticipated albums of the year and is now available to stream via this link. I'll be honest, I've actually had promo mp3s of this for a month and it amazes me that it isn't actually 'out' yet, it seems so familiar to me. It's a pretty thing and I think their songwriting has progressed, even if their sound is stubbornly similar to all their other records.

NPR have also posted streams for the second Best Coast album, 'The Only Place', and Exitmusic's debut album Passage neither of which I have had time to hear yet. Exitmusic are supporting Sharon Van Etten next week in London by the way.

Finally for now, Animal Collective have decided to surprise us with a new single - 'Honeycomb/ Gotham'. In contrast to their recent 'Transverse Temporal Gyrus' experimental 10" release, this will be released as a 7* single and appropriately shows a more 'pop' side to their music. On first listen it appears less electronic than their last album and has some pretty interesting percussion on it as well. Listen for yourself via the embedded player below, or at www.myanimalhome.net.