"The band's third album Populations is their most delicate collection of expansive encyclopedia-pop, where fleshed-out scenes -- "I took to Wayne Lee cuz we both loved the Who / His father was a Jehovah's Witness. / One day he said, 'Hey man, do you believe in dinosaurs?" And I didn't have the heart to tell him I believed in dinosaurs not God" -- float through skeletal (but compositionally rich) bedroom transmissions." - Stereogum ("Quit Your Day Job" feature). The Caribbean sprung from the ashes of two well-heeled DC-area rock groups, Townies and Smart Went Crazy. They've been members of the Hometapes family since the release of their William of Orange EP in 2004, following records on Tomlab and Eandearing. They toured the west this summer and their new album, "Populations," comes out October 30!

Paul Duncan, a Texan now in Brooklyn, constructed his first two records in a homemade studio. His music has always been marked by the unique combination of traditional instruments - guitar, pedal steel, drums, banjo, strings, glockenspiel, piano, horns, etc. - and confident exploration of synthesis and noise. His third album, "Above The Trees," was released on Hometapes earlier this year - and marked his first venture into a studio, recording alongside old and new friends, among them members of Grizzly Bear, Tortoise, and the Vandermark 5. The result may be the most heartfelt and sonically exciting record in Paul's infinitely expanding catalogue of sound. Paul recently toured across the south, playing dates with Magnolia Electric Co., Windy and Carl, and Oakley Hall.

Stars Like Fleas juggle the disturbing, confrontational, direct, sincere, romantic, and the blatantly contrived, in quasi-improvised song cycles. THey also like juggling members and instruments. The newest member of the Hometapes family, their album "The Ken Burns Effect" will be unveiled in early 2008. Pitchfork called their music "an uninhibited, precognitive glimpse into the workings of the subconscious mind." Stylus described the Fleas as "like reading every third page in a psychosexual memoir." Stars Like Fleas have performed recently with Deerhoof, Gang Gang Dance, Man Man, Grizzly Bear, Blevin Blectum, Hrvatski, Black Lights (Kyp Malone of TV On The Radio), Comets On Fire, Excepter, Doveman, Dirty Projectors, Matt & Kim, Greg Davis, and Akron/Family.

Once the solo brainchild (circa 1998) of Atlanta-native Jon Philpot, Bear In Heaven has spent the last four years expanding into a full-fledged band. Now comprised of Philpot (Presocratics and Savath and Savalas), Adam Wills (Rhys Chatham's Essentialist and Guitar Trio), Joe Stickney (also of Rhys Chatham's Essentialist), and Sadek Bazarra (designer with the venerable Graphic Havoc Visual Agency), Bear In Heaven has taken on the magic of many hands, not to mention a (super)group of longtime friends. “Red Bloom of the Boom” - their new album due out on Hometapes October 23 - is daydream-and-goosebump-inducing. Philpot's voice glides over walls of melodious distortion, building songs that are unapologetically epic. It is pleasure protracted, climaxes flashing well into songs that are complete sonic sentences. It testifies to psychedelic roots and to absolute "future rock." Bear In Heaven is indeed deserving of a new descriptor.

Philadelphia duo Pattern Is Movement lured Hometapes at first listen - simultaneous repetition and unpredictability made for something akin to The Camberwell Now and school marching band music. Complex polyrhythms are set to a hip-hop backbeat and hypnotically whimsical vocals. Think Blonde Redhead and This Heat. Half punk rock, half scholarly, Pattern Is Movement's attention to detail makes for rhythmically impeccable music that rocks f'ing hard. They've toured with the likes of St. Vincent and David Bazan - and you can catch them this Fall on select dates with Dan Deacon and So Many Dynamos. Pattern is Movement are also fresh out of the south after recording their new album with Scott Solter - their long awaited follow-up to "Stowaway" and "Canonic" - due out in early 2008!

Slaraffenland, a five-piece from Denmark, are still gathering critical acclaim for their album "Private Cinema", their US debut released on Hometapes earlier this year. They expertly expand on the guitar-bass-drums standard with brass and woodwind instruments, various racket-makers, and transfixing gang vocals. They've been described as "Sun Ra meets Broken Social Scene" - and others have even likened them to Radiohead (and they were invited by Stereogum this summer to do a track on the blog's tribute album to OK Computer - alongside John Vanderslice, Cold War Kids, The Twilight Sad, David Bazan, etc.). After a summer of shows, including the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, Slaraffenland are coming to the US for their first nationwide tour and their second CMJ appearance. They might be the best live band you see this year.