Snow’s a-comin’, y’all. I look over the top of my cubicle, and I see the wind shaking the pine (yes, pine) in front of that metal gray sky, and I can feel the snowflakes in my blood. I’ve only ever lived in temperate climes, but I was born for cold.

If I weren’t still catching up on our MP3 cache (one more day and we’ll be there!), I’d drop some wintry tunes. But today, you get this six-pack, which has only upbeat tunes in it and one track with the word “Summer” in the title. Oh, well. It’s hard to take yr iPod in the snow, anyway. Kudos to Phil Collins for the title of this post.

1. “Summer Gold” by Duke Garwood. Somewhere between talkin’ blues and Two Gallants-style minimalist indie rock, this uniquely beautiful track will stick in your mind.

2. “Whip My Hair (Drowning in Blood)” by Skull Tape. Hip-hop gets a synthy, aggressive, white-boy treatment while turning Willow Smith’s girl-power anthem into a terrifying battle cry. Super yikes.

3. “Locomocion Capillar (Solar Gambling)” by Omar Rodriguez Lopez. Mathy, erratic, international and flat-out bizarre, there’s truly no one who plays the guitar like ORL (At the Drive-In, The Mars Volta).

4. “The Cake and Eating It” by Zoey Van Goey.  The band's herky-jerky pop features some neat rhythms and melodies.

5. “I Don’t Want Anyone That Wants Me” by Make Out. Sneering, New York Sound punk that makes it here mostly on the strength of their “why hasn’t anyone taken that already” awesome band name.

6. “Middle of the Road” by One Hundred Flowers. Boy/girl indie pop whose clean production and enthusiastic drums keep it from the trash pile. 

photo Skull Tape, looking suitably creepy.