My favorite new Aussie dance-pop band Strange Talk is doing a small US tour this week, with two dates in California and a few dates in New York around CMJ.

The band, which formed after a former classical violinist (Stephen Docker) and a DJ/Producer (Gerard Sidhu) met at a house party in Melbourne, released their self-titled debut EP on Neon Gold in 2011 and is working on their full-length album which is due out in 2013. In the meantime, they have released a few singles, most recently "Cast Away," and have been busy remixing tracks for other artists, including Foster the People, The Naked and Famous, and The Temper Trap. They also found time to record a pretty amazing version of "Roxanne" by The Police (listen here).

If you're in San Francisco, you can catch Strange Talk tonight at Rickshaw Stop (get tickets here). Or join me tomorrow in Los Angeles at The Echo (get tickets here). Don't forget to bring your dancing shoes!

They'll be in New York for a few dates too:

October 17 - Mercury Lounge (CMJ Windish Showcase)

I love being in a song's clutches, whether it's a new single by an established band or the first track from a new artist I've never heard. I know a song has grabbed me when I hit repeat immediately after its final notes wafted through my ears. I especially love it when this happens with artists with whom I wasn't familiar before. It makes me want to dig into the rest of their music, learn a bit about their history, find out where they've been all this time and why haven't I heard of them until now?

This happened with quite a few tracks I first discovered this year in the Free Downloads section of Amoeba.com. Since it's the season of "Best Of" lists and looking back at 2011, I wanted to share some of my favorite discoveries (in alphabetical order):


2 Hearts and Chemicals - "Coming Home"

2 Hearts and Chemicals is a bi-coastal band featuring childhood friends Eli Lhymn (who is based in LA) and Stephen Biebel (who is based in NYC). Through the magic of the Internet they exchanged tracks created in their individual studios to produce the Coming Home EP. The title track is an ‘80s synth meets ‘90s shoegaze pop soundscape featuring female background vocals by Iameve.

XD Records released Coming Home on November 11, 2011. Download "Coming Home" by 2 Hearts and Chemicals.





Aeroc - "For Sake"

Australian electro-pop band Strange Talk only just released their debut self-titled EP (on Neon Gold Records) in May, but they're making a name for themselves with their innovative, interactive, and product-tied music video for the single, "Climbing Walls."

Cheer detergent sponsored the Strange Talk video as part of their "We Dig Color" campaign, creating a “Dig It, Get It” interactive music video that lets you click out of YouTube and into Facebook in order to win various prizes. This is the first time someone has created a video using Google Annotations technology to create embedded "clickable hotspots" in a YouTube video.

So what does that mean exactly? Click on something colorful in the video (Get the connection? Cheer keeps your clothes colorful) and you are taken to the Cheer Facebook page where you can register to win prizes ranging from flip flops to guitars to iPods. The prizes are apparently going fast (as of this posting they were gone for the day already). 



I first heard Strange Talk when we got their Free Download for "Climbing Walls" back in June. It's dancey, poppy, electro summer fun, satisfying my Cut Copy (another Aussie electro-pop band) meets Friendly Fires meets Phoenix cravings. (If you knew me, you'd know those cravings were pretty strong.)