A great tune that grows on you. Give it a few listens. And the video is great too. I hope to get that up here soon too.

Here's another candy-flavored track from Mochipet that sounds like hip hop rhyming to your Nintendo's soundtrack.

If this is true this sucks. Bonde Do Role are one of my recent favorites.

On their label, Domino Record's, website:

"Following the departure of Marina, it is with great regret that Bonde Do Role have had to cancel their Australian tour.

The band will no longer be continuing with the same format, and remaining members Pedro and Gorky are currently working hard to recruit another person.

Bonde Do Role have had an incredible year and have been through some unforgettable experiences together, and still remain friends. Gorky says: 'we really are so sorry for canceling the shows and to disappoint our fans. We're gonna try to make it up to everyone as soon as we can.'"

So get the album With Lasers as it seems there won't be more albums to come with this line up. In honor of this I'm replaying this Bonde song that I had previously published this past May.

On Iron and Wine's just released "The Shepherd's Dog" a slightly more studio-playground feel is present. It's not just a strumming acoustic guitar - yet Sam Beam's familiar, cooing whisper of a voice is still there. And like most indie softies the words seem to be delivered in a purposefully, even lovingly, obscured way. Were you first experience the TONE before the content. With repeat visits the story opens up a little perhaps... Or maybe that's just how I hear ALL music? Ha. Buy cd/vinyl/mp3s here.

The bassist in my band just introduced me to these guys. Great indie, loud/soft instrumental band from Massachusetts. This track is from an older album 2005's You Are The Conductor. Their latest efforts sound even better. Here's their full catalog with some lower res mp3s to test out. Check out The Four Trees. And listen to more on their MySpace page. It's dope...amine. (Yeah, dumb play on words: their label is Dopamine Records - which seems to be pushing out more good stuff. Stay tuned to hear and see more here on Hellthy...)

And for you folks in the NYC area see them at the Luna Lounge in Williamsburg, Brooklyn tonight with Junius and Constants. 8pm. Tickets here.

From an October '07 NYU's School of Business study: Does Chatter Matter? The Impact of User-Generated Content on Music Sales. "Our findings are as follows: (a) the volume of blog posts about an album is positively correlated with future sales, (b) greater increases in an artist’s Myspace friends week over week have a weaker correlation to higher future sales..." Bands, labels, if you have great music let Hellthy know!

Tiawanese-born David Wang makes some candy-flavored, fuzzy, dubby beats as Mochipet. Listen to snatches of the full album on Mochipet's label's site.

From Deerfield Beach, Florida, just north of Ft Lauderdale comes this track from Willie, aka The 20 Hole Trap Star, Hustle. While it seems like it might work just as well as a soundtrack for ladies dancing for singles the lyrical content is more about the communal love of men flaunting their purchases among friends and jealous onlookers. The Money Dance is just for a rare few though. You can't do it dawg if you ain't got no money man. This dirty further-south track features 334 MO.B.B. Dig it. Check Willie Hustle's MySpace page for more and check out the You ain't Got It Like Me: "I'm just a thousand-aire, I ain't made a million yet." Buy Willie Hustle's records. Help him get there.

Hear Health on Hellthy. Some more electro Never Ending Story-soundtrack, so-nerdy-it's-cool, so-cool-it-hurts, rollicking Atari-jive that slays your sore-thumb joystick like a level 5 White Mage. Is this a trend I'm sensing? Have kids put down their guitars for more computers and yard-sale synths to recreate the 80's sounds that they played G.I. Joe and M.A.S.K. to? Tell me this Health track wouldn't rock this MASK theme song. Kudos to them if so. See Health on tour now with labelmates Crystal Castles.

You last heard The Diggs on Hellthy in the summer of 2005. I dugg the Digg's first Ep "Orange." In the winter of that year they came out with their first full-length "Communte." Well, they are back after a long spell with their second LP "ctrl-alt-del" - to be relaed March 11, 2008. This effort is a more subtle, subdued, and nuanced one. A slight bit more shoegazer than pop rockin' of previous efforts. Nice work.

And as promised (part 2) here's another track from New Zealanders Die! Die! Die!: Sides Here We Come.

"There’s nothing easier than being an alcoholic in a punk rock band." - Fat Mike

This crusty ol' LA punk band's second live album will be released November 20th. "It’s their sloppiest, drunkest, funnest, best sounding recording ever with new versions of old songs, rare songs and they even made sure not to play any songs off their 1995 live album, I Heard They Suck Live"

Good times.

Here's another track from Hopewell's latest album Beautiful Targets. This one is called Afterglow and it's an epic, long-building, grandiose, George Harrison-tinged one. Dig it.

Someone described a previous effort by Chicago's Yea Big as "Spaz Hop." Yeah, I'd agree with that. I dig this old-soul-yet-angular beat. The album releases October 23, 2007.

See Them Live

• 10/03 Chicago, IL Reggie's Live
• 10/12 Philadelphia, PA The Circle of Hope
• 10/18 Jamaica Plain, MA The Milky Way
• 10/19 Brooklyn, NY Soundfix Records (Fanatic CMJ Day Party)
• 10/21 Chicago, IL The Note
• 10/31 Bloomington, IN Uncle Festers
• 11/09 Chicago, IL Darkroom
• 11/16 Chicago, IL Kinetic Playground

Friends Hopewell are releasing a new album today - July 17th. Hopewell make well crafted, richly-layered indie pop without losing any energy. The album "Beautiful Targets" was produced by Bill Racine (Rogue Wave, Mates Of State) and Max Avery Lichtenstein (Camphor, Mercury Rev) and recorded in the band's upstate New York wilderness.

I've heard select tracks and it's very stinking good. I'm a fan. Posting a track or two here won't really tell you how diverse the album is. Find a quick, Arcade Fire-esque pop number like this one. Emotive acoustic, piano and string number like the opener "In Full Bloom." "Tree", among my favorites, is a big drama song that slowly builds into an explosion of halleluiah-ism at the end. And more. It's diverse but it all fits. It is all very much Hopewell.

$13 bucks buys you the album here. I highly recommend it if you like richly-crafted indie pop-rock.