LHB’s Shorties (Neil Young, Micachu, and More)

The Phoenix New Times' Up on the Sun blog calls Micachu's new album, Jewellery, "the "bona fide album of the year."

Her songs range from anywhere from three and a half minutes to 53 seconds. The latter, the absolutely transcendent "Sweetheart," is where the album becomes a separate entity from anything produced so far this year. In under a minute, Levi and Herbert manage to infuse acoustic guitars, dub-step worthy bass lines and fuzzed out guitar riffs, complete with a tidy little synth -- cute and yearning in appearance, but providing the song with the necessary clout while acting as a sort of twine, bundling everything together. All of this madness takes place in 53 amazing seconds -- a way for Levi to show off, but also a way for her to show how simple pop music can be.

Retail Week reports that 25% of the UK's independent records stores shut their doors in the past year.

Willamette Week profiles Mike McGonigal, founder of the Yeti arts journal.

This means, in any given issue, you might find an article on a long-lost gospel singer, a tour diary written by Okkervil River’s Will Sheff, or a collection of rare Australian crime-scene photography. And, of course, each issue comes with a CD of related songs and material curated and sequenced by McGonigal (his favorite part of the job). Yeti isn’t a moneymaking venture, McGonigal says, but it tends to break even, and even in the much-ballyhood “end of the print era,” advertising goals have been met as of late.

Amazon MP3 has the 5-track Fleet Foxes EP, Sun Giant, on sale for 99 cents.

Jaman.com is streaming the new Neil Young film, Get Around.

WFMU's Beware of the Blog collects covers of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs."

- David Gutowski