Indie Music Madness: A Seven-Song Playlist of January Jams | Philly Music Vocalizer

Another year come, another year gone. Time is a cruel master and waits for no one. It moves forward mercilessly and measuredly like a marching metronome. But that's cool with me because I like metronomes. 'Nome what I mean? I also like synthesizers, digital loops, and reverb-heavy vocals. Chances are you do too or else you wouldn't be here. Throw in some jingly jangly instrumentation and we've got ourselves seven juicy jaunts for this January presentation.

1. Night Panther — "Pleasure to Meet You"

Pleasurable. Yep, that's how I'd describe this souped-up synth track from Philly's very own glam sex rockers. From the way it opens with larger-than-life church organs, to its spacey accents that create a semi-alternate dimensional experience, it's pure ear crack that I can't stop coming back to. I'm addicted to its disco swagger and reverb-soaked falsetto. It gives me an enormous dopamine rush, sending me to a place somewhere between ear ectasy and I'm-too-high-to-give-a-funk.

2. I Break Horses — "Hearts"

I totally heart "Hearts." What gives this fuzzy fare its wintery tinge is its countrified sentimentality. That, mixed with its sheeny haze, makes me feel like I'm holding a mug of hot coco as I shoegaze into its warm and whirly melted goodness. I see myself looking into the mug's marshmallowy liquid reflection and it's like I'm staring back at my own snow-capped soul.

3. Bombay Bicycle Club — "Luna"

Bombay Bicycle Club is king of instrumental innovators, and "Luna" is one of its catchiest captivators. This tympanum tingler is off the English indie rockers' fourth studio album So Long, See You Tomorrow (2014; Vagrant), yet it has me saying, "So long, see you right now!" The track's tinkling textures have all the fun fanfare of winter's first flurries. So I'm headed off to the sonic ski slopes as I swirl around this song's expertly contoured landscapes of sound.

4. Dead Man's Bones — "Lose Your Soul"

The hand-clap percussion, barroom piano, and children's choir are a bizarre combination, all made even more bizarre by the fact that Ryan Gosling is behind the song's heartfelt crooning. But it's so eminently listenable that if I had to choose between losing my soul, and listening to "Lose Your Soul," I'd have no soul. I scream, you scream, we all scream for Ice Queen.

5. Radical Face — "Welcome Home, Son"

This blissfully brilliant track is just as expansive as it is soaring. But for all of its music brilliance, there's also a distinct somberness to this arresting ascender. The song straddles seasons with a disarming autumnal deftness that then folds into a fragile wintertide ache. As the open spaces of music recede into fragmented echoes of ice, you can't help but feel a pain of longing. At least that's what I feel when the track is over.

6. Glass Vaults — "Ancient Gates"

If a crystal chandelier could sing, it would sound like this song — thin and light, yet somehow triumphantly life-affirming, with delicate angelic vocal harmonies that encircle you in a somnambulist orbit of goosebumps. It's a post-ambient and emotive glacial gem that haunts you with beauty long after you've stopped listening to it. Magical is what this masterpiece is.

7. Bear Hands — "Giants"

Let's get this party not started with Pink, but bye-bye'd with Bear Hands, a Brooklyn-based post-punk band with music so feel-good it makes me want to sneak up behind everyone and give them a big surprise-attack-from-the-back-Bear-Handed baller of a bear hug. I just can't help myself with this jangly jubilee of a jam. Its welcoming wall of sound is JAN-eu-phory-ia-inducing in only the way the most jammin' and jivin' January power-pop ballads can possibly be.