The One You Have For Life

Pacific “Sunset Blvd.” – Optimism is easy when you feel as though you have opportunities. Then it just seems to fall into place somehow — as Pacific sing, it’s a natural high when you just get it right. And why is it right? Why do you feel so alive? Because you really don’t care at all whether or not you fail, but you’re in it to win it. “Sunset Blvd.” sounds just like this weird emotional balancing act in which the most joyful sensations are felt, but are kept in check by reason, maturity, and patience. (Click here to buy it via Pacific’s official site.)

Basia Bulat “Before I Knew” (Single Version) – The version of “Before I Knew” on Basia Bulat’s debut album is extremely brief and disarmingly intimate, a tiny, gorgeous sketch of a person looking back on their first love with equal measures of embarrassment, regret, and nostalgia. This full-band take is nearly triple its length, and leans heavier on the nostalgia. Maybe it’s the perkiness of the rhythm, maybe it’s the context of additional lyrics that pull the song into the present tense, maybe it’s the way the recording has a vague Christmas-y sound to it, but even when Bulat is singing “I always find a way to fall apart,” she sounds totally at peace with her reckless romanticism. (Click here to buy the album from Beggars.)