Javelin: No Mas

Straddling the squiggly line between mash-up culture’s waning clarion call to the dance floor and the swiftly mainstreaming bedroom-synth intimacy of chillwave, Javelin’s No Mas presents 15 handmade jams that might not get the party started, but should at least sustain the hazy sunshine of 2009’s “Deadbeat Summer” through summer 2010. In spite of those superficial ties to contemporary movements, No Mas exists in a place out of time—the thrift-store dollar-record bins cherished by members George Langford and Tom Van Buskirk, context-free archives of pop history where unloved exotica samplers rub up against knock-off electro 12-inches that don’t provide the duo with direct samples as much as inspiration for meaty hooks. Langford and Van Buskirk definitely have great ears for tiny moments of pop gold—see the lift of Hal Blaine’s “Be My Baby” drum intro in “Mossy Woodland” and “Shadow Heart”—and while they’ve managed to stitch those moments into compelling tracks like the breezy “Susie Cues” and the busted-boom-box buzz of “Vibrationz,” No Mas will probably be best remembered as a treasure trove for future crate-diggers to pilfer.