A product of that Williamsburg based rehearsal-recording-studio+guitar pedal manufacturing workshop+venue+apartment+record label called Death By Audio, Sisters were one of the first local acts to adopt that non-chalantly lo-fi style that is now commonly accepted as THE Brooklyn DIY sound. Their noise pop owes to Dinosaur Jr and early Pavement (which is basically like saying that these guys know how to write great pop songs and strum an electric guitar) although the "fi" factor is definitely a notch lower here – as you can tell from their gritty myspace tracks. Recently signed to NYC mainstay independent label Narnack Records, the band will release their (overdue) debut CD just in time for CMJ. Check them out at Silent Barn on July 29.

We continue our "Best of NYC Countdown", covering every day one of the artists that made our Year End Best of NYC list (a chart compiled by a jury comprised of local bloggers, music writers, promoters, record store personnel, DJs, and our writers and readers).

We liked solo Luke Temple just fine. His high pitched vocals on banjo layered records like Hold a Match for a Gasoline World and Snowbeast recalled Sufjan Stevens. Then came side project Here We Go Magic, and the sound of Temple fleshing out his potential. The voice was still considerably frail, but the psychedelic guitars and progressive arrangements beefed up his sound to unrecognizable heights. Still, we never twigged Temple as someone capable of dropping ‘Collector’, the first single off Here We Go Magic’s sophomore album Pigeons. The revolving guitar swirls and muted drums are so hypnotic one can forget what good fun the whole thing is. And that hook!? “I’ve got a mild fascination / for collectors”. It’s basically the only understandable lyric on the whole track, but one that rattles around your head for days. – By Dean Van Nguyen

New York gypsy folk act Aunt Ange are currently giving away the track "Circles" from their upcoming 3rd album "Olga Walks Away" in exchange for signing up for their mailing list. You can sign up via the reverbnation widget here or on myspace. They will also be selling the first single "Crucify" digitally and at all performances starting with their July 29th show at the Charleston in Williamburg with Ellis Ashbrook and Survivalsuit. In case you haven’t heard of Aunt Ange yet, here is a music video for the track "Raining Ashes" form their previous album Apathia. – (as posted in The Deli’s Open Blog – post your band’s entries, videos, and Mp3s here).

Woods are both simultaneously surreal and natural. The mellow, undemanding melodies, accompanied by falsetto vocals and a raw, rugged mountaineer’s attitude, construct a strongly bound and cohesive sound. Woods play a lo-fi, fuzzy soundtrack to a series of mental trips, always creating sounds that are more than the sum of their individual parts. Because they give off such a hip vibe, it’s sometime easy to forget that at the core of the tracks are beautiful vocal melodies – and though they certainly have pop sensibility, it never sounds trite or cheap. Guitar lines and grooves sometimes perfectly matching the melodies, sometimes seemingly random, but always work – just like Brooklyn. – Paul Dunn