Au - Verbs (2008)

The nodatta music blog tagged Au's new album as "abstract, ambient, experimental." That's not much to go on, but a good start - enough to get me to hunt down their myspace and check out their tunes. As soon as RR vs D started to play I knew I'd be enjoying the whole album as fast as Brighthouse's bandwidth would allow. That hipster-know-it-all-son-of-a-bitch Bob Boylen evidently felt the same way because he led off with the same song for last week's NPR: All Songs Considered "Great Unknowns Showcase." It's a bright piece of work, tangential and surprising.

The skinny: album comes in late June, the man behind Au is Luke Wyland, he uses a collective of (surprise, surprise) Portland, Oregon, based artists. Fans of Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Akron/Family will especially dig this. They only have west coast dates scheduled this summer, hopefully that'll change.

official website