Instant Playlist - December 8 2011

The Black Keys

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross feat. Karen O
Immigrant Song (Null Corporation)
Hammer of the gods! If you’re going to cover one of Led Zeppelin’s most bumptious tracks, this is the way to do it: make it just as thunderous as the original but give it a postindustrial overhaul that makes it sound like a product of the current century.

Public Jones
Jingle Bells (Independent)
With its bedroom-house-plus-sleigh-bells beat and its liberal abuse of Auto-Tune, L.A. “electronic rock” outfit Public Jones’s take on this played-out seasonal song is almost guaranteed to enrage someone at your holiday gathering. And that’s why we like it.

School of Seven Bells
The Night (Vagrant)
Sure, this up-tempo track is basically busi- ness as usual from the School of Seven Bells camp, but since that means dream- wave guitar textures and gorgeous, lilting vocal melodies, that’s quite all right.

Guards
Do It Again (White Iris)
No, it’s not a cover version of the only good Steely Dan song. Instead, with its crisp guitars and full rhythm section, the power-pop-leaning “Do It Again” is a major leap forward and out of the low-fidelity league for Richie Follin.

Air
Seven Stars (Virgin)
Inspired by their gig creating a new score for the 1902 Georges Méliès film “Le voy- age dans la lune” (“A Trip to the Moon”), the dudes in Air came up with this appro-priately cosmic beauty, which achieves liftoff courtesy of Beach House chanteuse Victoria Legrand.

Rat Silo
Ass Camp (Independent)
The counsellors include Megan Fox, Kate Moss, Malin Akerman, and amateur pornographer Scarlett Johansson? And that is why we couldn’t be more thrilled about “Ass Camp”.

The Verbrilli Sound
The Sultans of Schwing (Upstairs Recordings)
The jungle-sick percussion and J.J. Burnel–strength bass line are both cool, but they’ve got nothing on the enchantingly ethereal vocals. If you’re going to take it off on the dance floor this Xmas season, do it to this.

The Boom Booms
Raise This Child (Lit Fuse)
Given that British Columbia long ago outstripped Jamaica as the world’s most famous ganja supplier, it makes sense that East Van’s the Boom Booms do reggae more authentically than anything coming out of Kingston these days.

Russian Circles
Schiphol (Sargent House)
Just when you’ve been lulled into a sense of tranquility, instrumental postrockers Russian Circles crank up the amps and unleash the distortion shitstorm. Epic in the most awe-inspiring way.

Maz
Reel du Combat (Independent)
Maz sounds like it’s got one foot stuck in rural Quebec and the other on the Emerald Isle, which is to say that the oh-so-traditional “Reel du Combat” is best consumed with a shot of Bushmills and a Maudite chaser.

The Black Keys
Lonely Boy (Warner)
Take a super-sludged guitar riff, super-’60s organs, and gospel-army background vocals, and you have one more reason why the Black Keys are the be