"It's rare that an emcee is so capable as a songwriter and it's equally as rare, today especially, that a duo with an excellent debut can follow that album up with something completely new and fantastic. Here's hoping that fans of that debut can realize Phonte and Nicolay [The Foreign Exchange] are simply leaving Connected behind and letting it stand on its own. And, as a result, this talented duo has made one hell of an album, actually one of the best of 2008, in the process."

[9/10]

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To kick off this week's featured albums, we've got a free track from the new Daedelus EP! He's an electronic musician based in Los Angeles (and half of The Long Lost with his sister), and is currently signed to Ninja Tune.

You can also pick up the new albums from Love Is All, Catz 'n Dogz, the solo debut from stic.man of dead prez, and a live album from Twisted Sister, all after the break!

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With illustrative, Broadway-worthy piano ditties and upbeat stories told with a soothing charm by Casey Dienel, Wind-Up Canary is a cleverly constructed and exquisitely fun album. Having taken to the ivory keys at the ripe age of 4 and started writing poetic pop songs by 14, it's no surprise that this young songstress was making waves in the music world at 20 -- when Canary made it out of a friend's farmhouse and into a Hush Records deal.

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Streetlab is an electronic/rock duo from Brooklyn, NY, who've made a name for themselves with huge club remixes of classic songs like The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter," Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son." More recently, they've done remixes for artists like Hot Chip, Heartsrevolution, and Crystal Castles, and have been stirring up attention around their self-titled debut EP.

We had a few questions for the guys, and they spared no detail in their answers!

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To celebrate Friday we've got a new batch of free songs for you! It kicks off with an incredible new remix of Friendly Fires's "Paris" by Belgian producers Aeroplane (and featuring the ever-awesome Au Revoir Simone), and continues with free downloads from Tyler Ramsey, the Menahan Street Band, Joan As Police Woman and more...

Don't miss a single one!

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Swedish music blog Absolut Noise listed the debut album from Stockholm's Don't Be A Stranger as the best pop/rock album this year, comparing the music to PJ Harvey and the Velvet Underground and calling it "brilliant from its first moment to its last."

Listen to selected tracks from Frutti di Mare after the break!

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Rick Lucy lives in the same vein as MGMT, Animal Collective, Blue States and a growing list of others: dwelling in an area blurred by alternative pop and electronica/trip-hop. Music you groove to, but that doesn't immediately beckon you to the nearest rave. It's a line that was once hard to live on, but has broadened as of late. It's more than experimental effort, it's about the artist exposing his soft underbelly for all to see, all the while showing that artists don't have to be confined to a genre to be smart about what they do.

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"Fans of Belle and Sebastian's witty bookworm pop are an obsessive lot, and no doubt they'll snap up this cherry-picked collection of BBC recordings from 1996 to 2001. The draw for devotees is four rare songs from a 2001 session... But the selection is so good, the set doubles as a best-of -- it's a fine intro to the group's tuneful world of lovelorn geekdom."

[3.5 stars]

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Sporting song titles like "Stripper" and "No Regrets" and having performed at Playboy's Moscow Playboy party in August 2006, you'd expect something pretty sexually charged out of the UK bratz Sohodolls. And they deliver.

Each racy track from this co-ed clan of five is a hot rush of adrenaline, reminiscent of the Queen of Pop herself (Madonna) during her flashy peak in the eighties.

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