10 Bands to Watch at CMJ 2009

Long before CMJ, The Antlers already cemented their status as one of 2009's big breakout stories. Initially self-released by the band, Hospice quickly attracted a cult following with its unreserved emotionalism and epic instrumentation, before being picked up for recent for re-release by Les Savy Fav's label Frenchkiss. From blog hipsters to old-guard pundits, the second Antlers LP has found near unanimous acclaim, and it's not hard to see what, well, pretty much everyone hears in Hospice. A death poem sung in keening heartache by Antlers charge Peter Silberman (and special guest Sharon Van Etten), it's a tender, intelligent concept record that draws from the expansive, tidal shifts of post-rock to summon its undeniable sense of grandeur.

The solo project of Deerhunter's Bradford Cox, Atlas Sound was, for a long-time, the place where he'd dump things not worthy of the band —super-lo-fi home sketches or formless ambient washes— often via his personal blog. After the 2008 release of the debut AS LP, Let the Blind Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, his on-the-side guise became a permanent concern. Now, with his second record, Logos, Atlas Sound is a vital artistic outlet. Filled with glorious pop-songs and blessed by guest-spots from Panda Bear of Animal Collective and Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab, Logos might be Cox's best record yet. Yes, better than anything Deerhunter's done. See them live, find out why.

• Interview: Bradford Cox of Deerhunter/Atlas Sound

Stepping bashfully out of Birmingham in the mid-'90s, modular-pop moodists Broadcast were clearly indebted to two bands: their fellow Brummies, Pram, and their spiritual forebears, Stereolab. Like the 'lab, Broadcast were obsessed with modular synthesizers, library music, graphic design, and French pop, but, since finding a home at Warp Records —as the one-time electro stronghold's first 'pop' signing— they've grown increasingly insular, singular, and shadowy. These days, Broadcast sightings are rare: they haven't released an album-proper since 2005's Tender Buttons, and haven't played in America since 2004. But they will indeed be at CMJ, arriving in the middle of a string of shows with fellow band-to-watch, Atlas Sound.

With the internet's file-sharing wires having opened a whole world of music to anyone with a broadband connection, the inevitable cultural-exchange has starting producing unique musical hybrids. Like The Very Best (see below), or M.I.A., or Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca, or Los Angelino big-band Fool's Gold. Boasting Brazilian, Argentine, American, and Israeli members, the ten-strong outfit draw heavily from West African guitar pop, and top it off with Luke Top's sung-in-Hebrew vocals. Stirring up a spicy polyglot stew in the pop-cultural melting-pot, Fool's Gold's self-titled album is a mighty impressive debut. And, live, being bathed in blasts of brass and handclaps, the jams will sound even better.

• Introducing: Fool's Gold

Holiday Shores have arisen from out of nowhere —AKA Tallahassee, Florida— to deliver 2009's definitive indie-pop disc, Columbus'd the Whim. The songwriting work of a 21-year-old gent named Nathan Pemberton, Holiday Shores sound something like a tropicalist Pavement; all off-kilter guitar klang played with a summery sway. Recorded in Pemberton's garage, their all-killer debut has the fuzzy finish of a lo-fi LP, but the reverb-drenched production owes just as much to the works of Phil Spector and Brian Wilson; each raggedy, shaggy jam flecked with tiny audio details that'll thrill headphone listeners. Live, the still-fledgling Shoresmen are more of a mess, but their music is so joyful and exuberant that it only adds to the charm.

If 2009 has delivered a more ridiculously over-the-top, totally in-the-red, utterly balls-to-the-wall, joyously belting-down-the-hill-on-a-bike-with-no-brakes musical moment than Japandroids' “Wet Hair,” well, it could've only been Japandroids' “Young Hearts Spark Fire.” On their debut album, Post-Nothing, the Canadian duo play loud as a band thrice their size; guitarist/vocalist Brian King's blazing riffs and drummer/vocalist David Prowse's cymbal-smashing percussion letting it all hang out for 35 distortion-soaked, devil-may-care minutes. Hauling their overloaded amplifiers from East Vancouver to New York, Japandroids will be, at the very least, one of CMJ's most fun acts.

• Introducing: Japandroids

Recommendations don't come much stronger than this: New Yorker trio Rings released the best album of 2008, Black Habit. Produced by former Múm member Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir and released on Animal Collective's label Paw Tracks, Rings' first LP initially seems shapeless, before subsequent spins reveal cyclical patterns in their collisions of voices/piano/percussion/guitar/samples. Rings have spent all of 2009, thus far, on hiatus, which has allowed Abby Portner (sister of AC's Avey Tare) to go solo as Drawlings, as whom she'll also be playing at CMJ. But there's nothing like seeing Rings live, in all their ramshackle glory; pirouetting into transcendent states of circular composition like some sort of musical whirling Dervishes.

Sean Rawls formed this “party band” back in 2004; inviting friends from acts American (the Ladybug Transistor), Swedish (Love is All), and Australian (Architecture in Helsinki) to pile on stage and help him knock out his reggae-inspired twee-pop jams; even if, with 15 to 30 people up there, some inevitably “just stand on stage drinking beers.” With so many live performers, audience members routinely come on stage and become spontaneous Still Flyin' members, figuring no one'll notice one more person up there. Breaking down the barrier between band and crowd every night, Still Flyin' have, Rawls says, “never played a show where the audience just, like, hated us.” Which makes them a sure CMJ recommendation.

In 2008, The Very Best —a London-based collaboration between Swedish/French production duo Radioclit, and Malawian vocalist Esau Mwamwaya— made their name via a free online mixtape, which matched Mwamwaya's sweet Chichewa crooning to cut-ups of songs by, amongst others, genre-bending global-pop pin-ups M.I.A. and Vampire Weekend. Now, their freshly-minted debut LP, Warm Heart of Africa, finds M.I.A. and VW's Ezra Koenig on board with bonafide guest spots. The disc draws influence from all manner of cultures and musics; making no distinction between Eastern or Western, first world or third world. It's joyous, steel-drum-dappled, summery pop that'll play nice in clubs and colleges anywhere in the world.

• Introducing: The Very Best

South London teenagers The XX don't sound much like anyone else on this list, but they don't sound much like anyone else period. There's nothing revolutionary, complex, or grandiose about their debut album, XX; on the contrary, it's humble, simple, barely even there. Their sparse, almost shy music is forever reduced to its elements: a bassline here, a beat there, a dangle of delay-draped guitar lingering. Such minimalism has been compared to Young Marble Giants, but The XX owe more to modern R&B production's maximizing of space; a notion only bolstered by the slyly soulful vocals of Oliver Sim and Romy Madley-Croft. With blog buzz for the band building to a fever pitch, The XX are sure to be one of CMJ's hottest tickets.

• Introducing: The XX