music by bulk, including a gem: Felt by Nils Frahm

In the past couple weeks, I've been doing my best trying to juggle a stack of recently released albums (amongst a bunch of singles I'm catching here and there):

Future Islands - On the Water
Justice - Audio, Disco, Video
Florence + the Machine - Ceremonials

I wouldn't say any of them are particularly bad albums, per se. On the Water was pretty solid album. Their lead singer sort of sounds like Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock. Despite that, you wouldn't mistake the two bands or sounds. I'll leave it up to you to sneak a listen.
Justice's latest release was kind of disappointing, unfortunately... if anything they took a step back from their previous work.
Florence + the Machine was excellent. That woman has a powerful voice and with the strong backup of a grand piano and the full band, most of the songs sound pretty epic. In fact, I'd say it's a lot more 'epic'-sounding than Lungs which was fit more into the pop genre.

However, I think one release that truly stands out is Felt by Nils Frahm. I liked his previous stuff (Wintermusik and The Bells), but had a hard time finding a means to listen to this one. Eventually, I bit the bullet and gambled buying his album on iTunes. Boy, that paid off. If you're big into music to help you study, relax or maybe even just lull you to sleep it can serve all three functions. The only instruments involved are his piano and a few percussion instruments. It sounds pretty simple (and is), but is also incredibly intimate. Feels like he's playing right there in your room... awesome.

Highly recommended.