In today’s edition of WTF news, Beck has announced the release of his new album, Song Reader. Ordinarily this would be great news, except things are not what they seem. See, Song Reader will not come in mp3, CD, vinyl or cassette formats. It will only come in sheet music format. If you want to hear what the songs sound like, you’re going to need to play them yourself via instruments you may or may not know how to use. So basically, Beck is giving us all a 20-song homework project. Of course it’s also entirely optional, and I suspect 90% of the people that buy it won’t learn more than a song or two. I think I’ll wait for a really good band to record all the songs themselves and give them away for free. Additional details about the project include a couple song titles, such as “Do We? We Do” and “Don’t Act Like Your Heart Isn’t Hard,” plus mentions of original artwork from a variety of people that will expand the set to 109 pages. It’ll be sold by McSweeney’s, and you can find more details here. Now let’s get to some songs that have already been recorded and are sheet music free. In this edition of Pick Your Poison, highlights include tracks from Bear Mountain, Ghost Wave, Grand Resort, Levek, and Space Fight.

Bear Mountain – Congo

Big Tree – Augury

Bloc Party – Octopus (SLDGHMR Remix)

Conner Youngblood – The Warpath

Ghost Wave – Hippy

Grand Resort – Never Ever

To Kill A King – Funeral

Koko Beware – Stay

Levek – French Lessons

Linus Pauling Quartet – Crom

Lucy and the Daze – Fear and Loathing

Lusjoints – Indy

Mucca Pazza – Boss Taurus (Jon Kennedy Remix)

Philistines – Woo Hoo Hoo

Space Fight – 22
Space Fight – 22 (RAC Maury Mix)

The UFO Club – July

SOUNDCLOUD

Cloud Seeding – The Light (ft. Nadine Carina)

Josephine – What A Day

Kodaline – Perfect World

Mind Enterprises – Summer War

Visitor – Coming Home