As in the past, the beautiful chemistry between skateboard videos and their soundtracks gave me a new obsession in my listening habits.  My new vice was named Animal Collective.  An addiction I wouldn’t soon rehab from developed and a whole new world of music unfolded and now I see how an album of complete ambient noise can turn into one of the most important of the decade.

I had continued to hear about this devastatingly brilliant album named Merriweather Post Pavillion from my friends still hesitated to go in search of it in any form. Someone’s iPod hookup would inevitably find its way to Pavillion, and the album’s drums echoed from the rafters and the layered vocals would soon haunt my dreams.  It wasn’t until months later that I would finally witness, in full-functioning stereo, the engrossing audio-visuals of Alien Workshop’s Mindfield and Jake Johnson’s wall-riding, hallucination-inducing part.  Needless to say, my pitiful ears had a lot of catching up to do with 2008.

East Coast skating and multi-tiered vocal tracks led me to believe that this was what a drug-induced state would be like at its finest . . . the great universe in complete harmony.

I would eventually snap out of my state of bliss after months of re-watching Mindfield and find myself immersed in the world of technology and materialism once again . . . but if ever I need a moment of Zen . . . My Girls is where I find it.

While you're here, check out:

1. Animal Collective: What Would I Want? Sky
2. Track of the day: Arctic Monkeys – “Catapult”
3. Track of the Day: Yeasayer – “O.N.E.”
4. Blur releases “Fool’s Day” in support of Record Store Day
5. Track of the day: The xx – “Insects”