The Wooden Finger Five: December 2012

1. Letter From An Occupant - The New Pornographers: Another song to file under the 'I-really-should-have-heard-this-before-I-found-the-Pitchfork-500-list'. It blasts away for three minutes and forty-six seconds, and the chorus - even though it makes little sense - is gold.

2. Best Of Friends - Palma Violets: Recently named NME's #1 song of 2012, which is not that surprising given that it sounds like it could have been written by all those Strokes and Libertines fans on the NME Editorial Committee. Actually, the Palma Violets are kind of like the evolutionary Vaccines. This is a great anthem though.

3. Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control - Tame Impala: That title is so long it's pretty much the only lyric I remember from the song. This is the penultimate track of Tame Impala's excellent 'Lonerism' album, and as if he knows he's running out of vinyl space Kevin Parker throws just about every effect bar the kitchen sink into it without obscuring its sunny little tune.

4. Default - Django Django: The phrase that has swirled around my head the most over the past month is not really a phrase at all: it's the distorted, hiccupy intro to this song which sounds kind of like "Ba, Click, default, fault, ba click default" though I can't find anything to confirm or deny that. Then that serrated guitar sound kicks in and you're on your way to three minutes of dance-psych-pop-indie bliss.

5. Don't Deny Your Heart - Hot Chip: I like the Chippers, but I'm just mentioning this for its awesome 'football video game' clip. I don't want to spoil the surprises, so I'll just say there's a lot of love in this one.