In an overzealous moment, we’ve all made the mistake. You twist the cap off a new bottle of soda (or pop the cork off some bubbly), and you pour yourself a glass too quickly. The liquid isn’t the problem–it’s those tickling bubbles who climb their way upwards and ultimately cascade over all the edges. Long Island, New York act Twin Sister‘s “Bad Street” is just as effervescent a moment, providing all the enjoyment with no sticky cleanup.

A refreshing bit of pop (in the best sense of the term), “Bad Street” comes off as an after-hours counterpart to Midnite Vultures, with that album’s frenetic energy replaced with something more suave and sexy. For those who remember them, the closest touchstone is probably the first album by indie-pop act Call & Response, who were so on the nose about their sparkling nature they recorded a song called “Blowin’ Bubbles.”

However, there is more here than the track’s slinky pep. Twin Sister successfully assimilate a variety of influences into a song that manages to wind up feeling both unflappably cool and unapologetically dorky. The final verse, a spoken word breakdown that channels Lex or Debbie Harry, is misplaced in this era by a good quarter-century but completely works.

“Bad Street” comes to us from the band’s debut LP, In Heaven, which was released in late September by Domino Records and follows 2010′s Color Your Life EP.

Click here to listen to Twin Sister’s new debut In Heaven on Spotify.

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It was 82 degrees where I live on the day I wrote this, but the forecast is for highs in the 40s by the end of this week. Summer of 2011 is definitely a thing of the past in the northern hemisphere – the trees are shedding their leaves and the temperatures are preparing to embark on their inevitable march downwards. Snow flurries are just around the corner, at a distance now measured in weeks rather than months.

So perhaps we come to “Summer Jam” by New York City’s Cookies a little late in the year to know quite how it would have played in its titular season. Instead, now it simply conjures nostalgia for a season recently ended, whose sunny days and warm nights are now merely memories to recall as colder weather moves in on the northern half of the globe.

However, it’s entirely likely that mood of melancholy nostalgia is the same mood “Summer Jam” would’ve evoked even hearing it in July. It doesn’t seem to aim to be the soundtrack of any current summer, but instead is stitched together from pieces of summers past – a little early 1970s Philly soul, some early ‘80s hip-hop beats, and some mid-’90s Beck-style sonic collage. “Summer Jam” doesn’t feel so much like the summer of 2011 as it does every summer in the unreachable past.

The vocals on “Summer Jam” are courtesy of former Mobius Band member Ben Sterling and Melissa Metrick, and their harmonies on lines like “You’re the most beautiful thing / That I’ve ever seen” speak to the heady emotions of summer love, while the retro-’70s instrumental touches ground the whole thing in a vintage past, like looking at snapshots from the beach. Like those snapshots, “Summer Jam” reminds us that while summer is a fleeting moment each year, even as the leaves begin to fall it will still be there in memory.

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Unicycle Loves You “Mirror, Mirror”

Summer Cats “Hey You”

Magic Kids “Summer”

The United States like to think of itself as the nation that invented rock ‘n’ roll, but anyone who has paid attention to music over the last sixty years or so knows that musical innovation has largely been an import in North America. Of course, in the most simplistic sens, rock music is all really just a manipulation of the blues–another American innovation–but it took foreign intervention to transform those sturdy roots into the expansive boughs of the musical family tree we enjoy today.

For some reason, it seems that the British in particular are always slightly ahead of the curve when it comes to growing that tree a little bit taller. When listening to “She’s No One” by London duo Plant Plants, one is taken by the notion that, yes–this is what music should sound like in 2011. The third track from their recently released comes off as a hybrid of Ratatat’s instrumental synth jams or Battles’ electronic tomfoolery and The Boo Radleys’ pop-gone-noise expeditions. Both of those aren’t especially cutting edge touchstones, but the way Plant Plants unifies those sensibilities is relatively novel.

This track in particular exudes an effortless sense of cool, with its airy prelude giving way to the satisfying moment the drum machine and distorted guitars kick in. In keeping with the feel of the backing track, the vocals on “She’s No One” are unstrained and warm; like the layer of fuzzy static working behind them, the words here are vaporous. Taken as a whole, it makes for a listen that is engaging but dreamy enough to allow the listener’s focus to shift elsewhere.

An excellent recent mixtape Plant Plants released features tracks by previously featured acts like HEALTH, Chad Valley, Toro Y Moi, Wild Nothing, Twin Shadow, and tUnE-YaRDs. That coterie of peers should provide a solid sense of where the group situates their sound. Needless to say, it’s wonderful company.

Click here to listen to the Plant Plants EP on Spotify.

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Thieves Like Us “Forget Me Not”

Over the next few days, One Track Mind will be spotlighting music from artists performing at this year’s Underground Music Showcase here in Denver, Colorado.

Catch today’s featured act, Gauntlet Hair, performing tonight, Thursday, July 21st, at 9:00 pm at Hi-Dive.

For a duo, Gauntlet Hair manage to make a lot of beautiful noise. The pair hail from the Denver suburb of Lafayette and first made waves with a show at the Rhinoceropolis art space run by (previously featured artist) Pictureplane. That performance led to the inclusion of this track, “I Was Thinking,” on Pictureplane’s MtyMx showcase mixtape.

From its opening moments, “I Was Thinking” demands the listener’s attention, shaking them into consciousness with heavily processed guitars and the sharp slap of a digital beat. It’s easy to see what made Pictureplane a fan of the band’s sound; there are undoubtedly some similarities between the two bands’ approaches. However, Gauntlet Hair’s influences tend toward other musical orbits, as well. There are trippy, tribal nods to Panda Bear in some places, while the guitar work elsewhere recalls A Certain Ratio’s minor key moments.

Of course, a band’s influences are hardly important if they don’t to something exceptional with them, and this is precisely where Gauntlet Hair excel. Over the course of five minutes, the pair turn in a singular performance which makes allusions to their musical heroes without ever sounding much like any of them in particular. It is a mesmerizing single, full of unexpected detours and ripe with melody and dissonance. Most of all, “I Was Thinking” piques interest about what these two gentlemen have in store for us next–namely their debut LP for the Dead Oceans imprint.

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A Lull “Weapons for War”

We All Have Hooks for Hands “Made Up of Tiny Lights”

MGMT “Flash Delirium”