Tuesday's Recommended Release

For one reason or another there are certain songs and albums that demand to be a soundtrack for your summer. Whether they are big hits that are played on the radio all summer long or intimate tunes placed on a mix tape by a summer lover they will forever be etched in your memory as a huge part of the Summer of Whenever. After this year a lot of us will be looking back at the Summer of '09 with the music of Discovery playing in the background of all the great memories. The album screams summer, from its colorful cover right down to the summer electro-pop found all over the record.

Of course the story behind Discovery is almost as compelling as the pop music on the record. Started by Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot and Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend, the electro-pop project was supposed to be an outlet for the duo's R&B leanings while away from their full-time projects. It wound up taking the two three years to compile enough material for an album, but now that LP is playing on our turntables we're pretty excited about the three years of work these guys poured into this.

Kicking off with three fantastic tunes, "Orange Shirt", "Osaka Loop Line", and "Can You Discover?", the band immediately hooks itself into your regular listening with programmed beats meant to move your feet and synthed up vocals you can actually sing along to. It helps that "Can You Discover?" is a new take on Ra Ra Riot's classic "Can You Tell" to add a bit of familiarity to the project. But as we go deeper into the album we realize that none of this is a fluke, these boys genuinely know their way around a pop music and show it off at every turn.

Wes and Rostam didn't just stick to their own celebrity appeal either, bringing in Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend) and Angel Deradoorian (Dirty Projectors) in for two brilliant tracks. Ezra in particular uses his guest spot to have a bit of fun with AutoTune on a track that would not have been out of place on Kanye's 808's & Heartbreak. But the biggest celebrity nod of them all is the duo's cover of The Jackson 5's " I Want You Back", a slowed down version with some robot-o-fied vocals taking the place for Michael Jackson's smooth delivery. Obviously this tune was recorded and in place well before the tragedy of Michael's passing, but with the record hitting a week after it it seems perfectly timed to help realize the unifying reach of Michael's musical genius.

Summer is supposed to be a time for fun and excitement, music is supposed to make it that much better, and Discovery manages to come through with a fine summer soundtrack.

Discovery by PopTarts

(Editor's Note: Hey folks, in case you haven't noticed with this post I'm trying out something new with a SoundCloud widget. I think I'm gonna go with it all this week and if everyone likes it keep on with it. So let me know what you think, hate it, love it, indifferent, doesn't matter just leave me note telling me.)