Various

Compilations are most often nothing to get excited about, if you keep your ear to the ground and collect every b-side and outtake by every band and their side projects. Living Bridge is the type of comp that appeals to that all-knowing record geek, featuring two discs of brand new material by a long list of names that matter, like Blood On the Wall, Deerhunter, Enon and the Silver Jews, who all recorded in Nicolas Vernhes’ Brooklyn-based Rare Book Room Studio. Okay, so the latter only donated a b-side from a single that saw a release in the UK — sue him — but there are still 24 more fresh nuggets to dig into. Disc one’s best includes the soon-to-be-huge Telepathe’s swooning "I Can’t Stand It,” a bundle of inertia from the Naysayer called "The Shell” and BOTW’s rare show of restraint in the RTX-ish "Lightning Song.” The second disc boasts Rings (formerly First Nation) and their spellbinding waltz "RIPeace,” the ostentatious throwback glam of the Jewish’s "Fantasy Stalker” and of course, Deerhunter’s beautifully repetitive "After Class.” It’s hard to argue that this is a satisfying listen from the beginning of one disc to the end of the second but there’s enough to convince any fan of even just a few of these acts to pick this up.