Field Music: “Measure”
After a two-year hiatus spent toiling at solo efforts—School of Language and The Week That Was—brothers David and Peter Brewis have reunited Field Music and promptly cranked out a 20 song double record. And while that smacks of indulgence, “Measure,” the album’s title track, finds the band as reserved ever—pairing austere string loops with exacting percussion and rivaling the George Formby Jr. songbook for the title of most English-sounding music ever.

Surf City: “Autumn”
The Kiwi quartet plays New Zealand’s version of classic rock—that is to say trippy indie-rock rife with slacker ebullience and backwards guitar riffs.

Frankie Rose: “Thee Only One”
Former Crystal Stilts and Vivian Girls drummer Frankie Rose has gone solo, but her debut single doesn’t fall too far from the reverb-soaked, Phil Spector-loving vine. “Thee Only One,” is so hazy sounding that one must assume the song was recorded at the bottom of a cistern next to a fire fueled by old copies of Chickfactor.

Weezer (ft. Lil Wayne): “Can’t Stop Partying”
For years now, old time Weezer fans have been down on their knees praying that Rivers Cuomo will finally get back to writing guitar rock and stop rapping/rap-rocking/repping Timbaland. “Can’t Stop Partying,” probably isn’t what they had in mind, though. “Gotta have Patron, gotta have the beat/I gotta have a lot of pretty girls around me,” sings Cuomo. Those wounded-but-nerdy words wouldn’t have been a bad fit on Pinkerton, but the big synth splashes and the guest verse by Weezy, not so much. “The unusual is the fucking usual/Man my life is beautiful,” raps Lil Wayne, who is at this point, may be the only person on the radio making weirder choices than Cuomo.

Duchess Says, from Montreal, performs at Arlene’s Grocery in New York City on Wednesday.

Kria Brekkan at Cameo Gallery: A cynic might say Kría Brekkan’s hour-long set at the Paw Tracks label showcase confirmed numerous clichés about Iceland’s parochial peculiarity. To wit: Pretend Lars von Trier’s costume team had reimagined Sabrina the Teenage Witch and you’re still falling short on quirk, insularity, and shamanic strangeness. Crazy-eyed, angel-voiced, and spooky-thin, Brekkan employed all the womblike abstraction of her former band, múm, but none of its glitchy restraint. And because Brekken invoked a very natal image when she crouched on the floor and peeled her dress over her body, I feel OK suggesting that her lengthy, deconstructed nursery rhymes (conjured via laptop, a row of voice-manipulating pedals, and an accordion) could credibly soundtrack a birth. Brekkan performs at Floristree in Baltimore tonight at 9 p.m.

More favorites from CMJ after the jump: bad beach similes, calisthenic indie rock, and intimidating French Canadians!

Read More “(Bonus) Clip Job: Five Acts I Loved at CMJ” »

Tabi Bonney performs at Fat Baby last night in New York City.

The thing about CMJ is, not all of it’s CMJ. There are the unoffocial day parties—free, sometimes invite-only events sponsored by record labels, PR firms, and media. There are the more exclusive parties at night. And there are the shows that, although not nominally part of the five-day conference and music festival, go on anyway, right in the middle of it all.

Take Casper Bangs‘ show last night at Pianos, which was sponsored by the weekly concert series Cross-Polination and was not part of the official CMJ roster. Nevertheless, the band—the project of Rob Pierangeli, who used to play in the Hard Tomorrows—played to a nearly full room.

Pierangeli paid $45 when he applied to play at this year’s CMJ, but his band was turned down. “Sorry to be frank, but I don’t see if the music has that much to do with who gets in,” he told me today. “So if you want to play, you have to know someone. Everyone knows that though. That’s not new information.”

Read More “CMJ Notebook: Casper Bangs, Shots of District Acts, Kiwi Rock” »