CMJ 2012: What you should be listening to NOW

For music nerds, there's a collective "ugh" being issued this Monday as the sun rises. That sound indicates the end of CMJ, New York's answer to the South by Southwest music fest that is ending, well, about the time you're reading this. Sprawling across all boroughs (OK actually just Manhattan and Brooklyn because no one goes to Queens), the week of concert insanity includes shows in bars, shows in legitimate music venues, shows at 10 a.m. shows at 4 a.m., shows in Dumpsters. It's enough to make a person lose their mind. If you, like I, get exhausted just thinking about standing outside a warehouse venue in Brooklyn that allows indoor smoking and serves drinks from plastic jugs with 1,000 18-year-olds to see a band whose name is a verb, you're not alone. If you're brave and want minute-by-minute blow-by-blows of this year's CMJ fest, check both the incomparable Aussie music writer Tom Hawking's live blog of each day here or this tumblr account. However, if you just want all of the good stuff, here's a few acts that played CMJ this year that you, as a discerning consumer of music, should listen to immediately.

100 Waters

The about a bajillion people and an equal amount of instruments in 100 Waters make electronic, folky pop in a style reminiscent of Psapp (the band you might recognize as having sung the original Grey's Anatomy theme song, Cozy In The Rocket. The fact that this band isn't soundtracking everything, ever, at this point is a giant crime. Bonus cool points: they're signed to Skrillex's label OWSLA.

Unicorn Kid

In case you missed the memo, the U.S. rave aesthetic is coming back, being adopted and adapted by kids far too young to have lived through any of the prior incarnations. One of the definite leaders of this movement is the Edinburgh-based Unicorn Kid, a 20-year-old electronic genius who already has released several songs and a Drake reconfiguration that are meant to have your kids do very bad things in very dark rooms. His brilliance, though, comes in the way he eschews the traditional "serious electronic music" approach of 10-minute-minimum-at-best tracks and creating, instead, digestible 4-minute pop songs.

Mykki Blanco

Mykki Blanco is a cross-dressing rap fiend, a true stage-psychotic (but intensely, lucidly literate in conversation) artist who brings both a refreshingly accepting lifestyle and a terrifyingly demonic stage presence to rap. The music that's out there, albeit very limited, is undeniable.

Teeth And Tongue

What's in the water in Australia, koalas? Fosters? I don't know, but I know that they, year by year, produce a few rock stars that just defy labels. Teeth and Tongue fits that category. A sincere, rocking, earnest weirdo of the sort only Australia could create, her music's what Cat-Power-circa-now would make if she legitimately wanted to punch the world in the face.

Death Grips

Propulsive, to the point of nausea-inducing, bass. Ferocious percussion. Lack of song structure. Yup, Death Grips are the rap game's My Bloody Valentine. If you like music to abuse both your ears and your body, this avant-rap group is absolutely for you. Challenging, ferocious, nearly impossible...and yet brilliant at the same time.

Were you at CMJ? What bands did you fall in love with?