by Dâm-Funk

(Stones Throw)

For 10 seconds shy of 10 minutes, this L.A. synth-funk futurist and Nite Jewel fan piles cresting waves of undulating synths and his own vocodered falsetto over an unyielding medium-tempo groove: hi-hats with so much delay on them they sound like they came from a Ginsu TV ad, four hard electro downbeats that keep an element of surprise even as they recur regularly. "Brookside Park" leaps out of Toeachizown even as it's surrounded by a very similar-sounding two hours and 10 minutes' worth of additional material; the track has a coolness and total formal mastery that makes it addictive, but it's also wraithlike—a funk séance. It's long, but it stops time; every time I think it's halfway over, I look at the playback and discover it's got about a minute left to go.

by Solange

(MP3)

When the Dirty Projectors put this song out ahead of Bitte Orca, Stereogum called it "Hot 97-ready," referring to the New York rap-R&B FM station. Normally this would be like Mr. Rogers starring in a remake of Super Fly, but they had a point. The Projectors' track is clearly the product of immersion in R&B, and it wasn't hard to imagine a singer in that vein doing something with the song. Anyone familiar with Solange's recent work couldn't have been surprised that it would be her, though she's never burned up Hot 97 any more than the Dirty Projectors or Animal Collective have (as one wild-eyed Brooklynite recently insisted to me) supplanted Dave Matthews or Phish in America's dorms.

The mid-November leak on Pitchfork was wiped within 24 hours at the request of her label, Universal, but it had already gone viral. The remake doesn't quite have the élan of the original—it's a straighter, more conventionally R&B (duh) arrangement, built on a weeping guitar sample already familiar from Erykah Badu's "Bag Lady" among others; the focus is the vocal, not the arrangement. But it's an unobtrusive fit, an excellent performance of a great song, and a hell of a hat-tip.

by Simian Mobile Disco feat. Beth Ditto

(Wichita)

Lovely though the electro-pop original is—Beth Ditto always sounds best when she lays back a little—it's the version by slinky dubstep kingpin Joker that really nails it. It's the usual for him—throwback synth riffs, skipping hand-clap snares, and glowing low end—but he's on such a roll that its predictability only makes it more lovable.