Pop/Dance/Indie - Ra Ra Riot's Wes Miles and Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij are two funky white dudes, as evidenced on their respective bands' strong debut albums last year, and although Discovery, the pair's synth-centric collaboration, is touted as a side project, it actually predates the two main projects in question. "This is something we started before we had other bands," says Batmanglij. "We were chipping away at it for about four years. We had the structures, beats, melodies, and lyrics floating around and then, this January, we had time to hunker down and finish it all." 

Hunker they did, with guest vocalists Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend) and Angel Deradoorian (Dirty Projectors), drum machines, synthesizers, and - oh yeah - an auto-tuner. The resulting LP is a glossy pop cocktail that sounds like Zapp, Daft Punk, Justin Timberlake and Max Tundra (!?) blended with ice and fruit juice and garnished with a paper umbrella. Both men's unabashed love of rhythm, harmony, and popular RnB are shamelessly flaunted throughout, with infectiously catchy results. Out 7/7 on XL Recordings, LP is already being touted by Pitchfork as "your electro-pop summer soundtrack," assuming that's the sort of soundtrack you envision your summer having. 

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Discovery - Osaka Loop Line (From LP)