What a long, strange trip it’s been to this moment in music. The headlines are all too familiar – major labels are dying, download this, download that, blahblahblah… All the hubbub over technology and filthy lucre has obscured what is becoming increasingly clear: 2009 may be the best year for music in a decade – a veritable golden age, if you will, captured in a twelve-month period.

As you know, we’re fans of DJ/remixer/radio personality supreme Alex Metric, one of the absolute brightest talents ever to plug a computer into a Technics at the moment. Therefore we weren’t surprised to find that, at the time of this writing, two of Metric’s latest productions are #4 and #6 respectively on the influential Hype Machine . His remix of Bloc Party’s “One More Chance” is an absolute summer banger.

As Miike Snow the three have crafted a cool collection of ornate pop melodrama with a penchant for classic rock. “Sivia” is a perfect jumping-off point to explore the dazzling sonic dexterity of Miike Snow, which is poised to be among the finest debut albums of 2009.