My Christmas MixMas collection was such a favourite with my friends that some suggested that I should make a monthly (virtual) mixtape. I've already missed January by a week, so I thought I'd skip right to February with some of my favourite discoveries of 2007 so far. These aren't all from 2007, of course, but does include tracks from highly anticipated new releases like Deerhoof, Clap Your Hands ... [+]

My Christmas MixMas collection was such a favourite with my friends that some suggested that I should make a monthly (virtual) mixtape. I've already missed January by a week, so I thought I'd skip right to February with some of my favourite discoveries of 2007 so far. These aren't all from 2007, of course, but does include tracks from highly anticipated new releases like Deerhoof, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Of Montreal, and Bloc Party. Actually, I'm a bit disappointed with many of these new LPs, which follow-on from generally superior previous albums. But there are still some mighty fine tracks in there.

Rounding out the new album tracks are some Pitchfork discoveries like Crystal Castles and Air France, and some eMusic discoveries like DJ Klock (Japanese hip-hop!) and The Pinkier Tones (in honour of my forthcoming Barcelona trip). [-]