Rocking my iPod, as one or two Americans say

1. Miss Kittin and the Hacker, First Album (2009 reissue): Miss Kittin sashayed onto my radar with Batbox a couple of years ago, an intimidatingly cool set of minimal pop songs, deadpan German speak-singing and oddly warm analogue burbles and arpeggios.  First Album is far tougher and even more minimal.  Not so much cool as sub-Arctic.  Tracks like “Frank Sinatra” (“You know about Frank Sinatra?/He’s dead”) or “Life on MTV” are have positively frosted breath.
2. Flamin’ Groovies, Sonic Death (1974): The Flamin’ Groovies were the great also-rans of the late Sixties/early Seventies San Francisco scene.  This is an album of outtakes and demos I pulled down from Emusic a few weeks ago.  It’s lean, tough rock’n'roll, midway between the Stones of Beggars’ Banquet and Street Fighting Man and the Byrds circa 1966.  Includes the definitive version of “Shake Some Action”.
3. Terakaft, Bismilla (2006): The lazy description is ‘desert blues’.  Terakraft are led by Tinariwen alumni.  It’s lean, spidery, multilayered and very rock and roll.  Pretty much any track is a slinky groove monster.
4. Also mentioned – White Denim, Fits; Bowerbirds, Upper Air (especially “Beneath Your Tree”); “So Far Around The Bend” – The National, off the Dark Was The Night charity compilation.