December 2006 AstroPOP! is brought to you with musical reviews by Chris Estey.

Sagittarius (November 22 - December 21)
Imagination is a powerful deceiver, Sagittarius, and you may entering the holidays with expectations that can't be fulfilled. But the blues of life are double-edged, and like the strength of a Sagittarius, resilience can inspire joy. The best soundtrack for a Sagittarius to drown out the dark moods this month is the third album by Australian band The Drones, Gala Mill. Steeping their Melbourne avant-garage on sex and soul, the strong storytelling in songs like "16 Straws" steams with ancient magic, lyrics, and music cookin- on-major Mojo throughout. Gala Mill finds this dissonant but still grooving acid-arid long-player even tapping into the timeless women's gospel of Sister Rosetta Tharpe on "I Looked Down The Line And I Wondered" and the bottomless women's blues of Karen Dalton "Are You Leaving For The Country." {listen to "Jezebel"}

Sagittarius Stocking Stuffer: A polished flask with some strong homemade whiskey spiced with some treats from the mushroom garden.

Capricorn (December 22 - January 19)
Cicero, a supreme orator, was a perfect example of Capricorn's skills in public speaking. You're going to need them this month, Capricorn, as your passion for more than one person may spill into a frenzy of damage control. The Exploding Hearts was a band that understood passion and frenzy and made a tight, shimmering artwork of the heartbreak and headaches that ensue. The bitterly tragic, untimely demise of most of its band (Adam Cox, Jeremy Gage, and Matt Fitzgerald) a couple of years back left only one album (the immortal Guitar Romantic) and a couple of seven inch singles to painfully remind us all how short and cruel life can be. On a sublime collection of what the Exploding Hearts left behind, Shattered, the fun and ferocious honesty overwhelms the sadness surrounding the band's legend. The Exploding Hearts brought power pop-style punk back to the crisp allure of bands like Stiff Little Fingers and The Vibrators in their prime. The title track is a perfect warning to you, Capricorn, to keep the best things together or you may lose everything. {listen to "Shattered"}

Capricorn Stocking Stuffers: Vodka shooters, Mars Bars, and nicely colored marbles.

Aquarius (January 20 - February 18)
Stephen McBean of Black Mountain creates perfect music for an Aquarius. The sign is also recognized as the "heart-child," partly for their transparent skills in pleasuring others. Aquarius is thus known for being extremely magnetic in personality, drawing desired people to him or her with little effort. Stephen does that even when taking time off his Canadian black mountaintop to create a strange form of bionic-sexual praise music with Pink Mountaintops, a pulsing, deeply attractive seven song dip into a miasma of sensuality and suffering. McBean has a lot to say about exploited altered states and the feudal serfs of the stolen leap second, reminding one of an updated nasty robotic rock of godfathers of electro and punk, Suicide — especially on "New Drug Queens," the third track on Axis of Evol. {listen to "New Drug Queens"}

Aquarius Stocking Suffer: A fistful of candy canes coated with LSD.

Pisces (February 19 - March 20)
This is usually the time of year that people start accumulating a lot of lifestyle debris; in fact, the whole month is based on our living spaces spasmodically erupting with more possessions. Pisces would do good to listen to the amazing collaboration of Will and Lily Courtney, the son and daughter of a Baptist preacher and "The Christian Barbara Streisand." Their band Brothers and Sisters features a lot of well-done folk-rock playing with a lot of great musicians they know, but this enjoyment is somewhat deceptive, as radical messages about the terrors of time and luxury loom within the story-songs. The Houston-raised Will has somehow developed a delicious Neil Young melancholy whilst learning his licks playing with Circle Jerks and Joe Strummer. Out of the gate he and his actual sister and pals create music that matches the homey tenderness of their band name perfectly. Pisces should hear what Will is saying about crap you don't need in the first track on their eponymous CD, "New Life." {listen to "New Life"}

Pisces Stocking Stuffer: An IOU to walk through a golden field next springtime when the snows first clear.

Aries (March 21 - April 19)
Aries possesses a tough intellect and the need to be both challenged and challenging. Matmos is Aries' choice for music for the month of December, as played on their extremely clever and involved new record The Rose Has Teeth In the Mouth Of A Beast. The mind-expanding San Fran duo of M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel is willing to get down on all fours to rip the tits off intellectual complacency on their fifth full-length release. Listen while they blend porno soul music, TV themes, cabaret protest marches, and squiggling techno-pop with brilliant collages of writings by evolved people like visionary feminist Valerie Solanas ("Tract for Valerie Solanas") and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein on "Roses and Teeth for Ludwig Wittgenstein." {listen to "Roses and Teeth for Ludwig Wittgenstein"}

Aries Stocking Stuffers: A bottle of Pauillic, two hits of X, and a gift certificate to Elliot Bay Bookstore.

Taurus (April 20 - May 20)
Famous Taurus Situationist Guy Debord always needed a collaborator, from Wolman to Jorn, Vaneigem to Sanguinetti. This is proof that even the most anarchistic Taurus enjoys the mind-bond with others, even when the act of creation could be creative deconstruction. This month, Taurus, your perfect music might be the Norwegian band Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, which has a second release just out called Melody Mountain that uses a wonderful wide palette of older songs as the basis for haunting, mesmeric 4AD-style sound-trips. "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and "Hallelujah" our obvious choices for such reinterpretation, leading off both halves of the album, but the real joys come when the band covers AC/DC and Kiss in this sweetly stark style. The most resonant moment though is when Susanna combines her thrillingly spare vocals with a superb Bob Dylan melody on "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right." Indeed! {listen to "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"}

Taurus Stocking Stuffer: Directions to a particularly sexy flash mob experiment.

Gemini (May 21 - June 20)
Gemini is of course symbolized by twins. For every Ralph Waldo Emerson, there's a Dalai Lama. For every Judy Garland, there's a Joe Namath. Your secret, Gemini, will be in finding that special someone with complementary cosmic energy to collaborate with. Such is the case with Sodastream, which features the talents of Australians Karl Smith and Pete Cohen, who on their fourth album Reservations have created music both down to earth and spiritual, never seeming forced or contrived in either. Their robust miniatures truly represent the beautiful climate of their Melbourne home, as sort of happy Buddhist-Kerouac counterpart to the howling Bukowski rock of The Drones. Marty Brown comes on board with drums, horns, and harmonicas, making these great short story songs like "Don't Make A Scene," "Warm July," and my personal favorite, "Twin Lakes," charming and thought-provoking. {listen to "Twin Lakes"}

Gemini Stocking Stuffer: A log-cabin weekend, watching the snow pile up outside.

Cancer (June 21 - July 22)
Just as your personality is bold, Cancer, your colors this month should be those of kingship. That would mean purples and violets like the burning sunset just beyond a Northern Californian mountainside. A perfect record for appreciating such violent beauty would be the San Francisco band LoveLikeFire and their Brit-rock love-fest Bed of Gold, a generous six-song EP of fiery, just-of-your-reach charisma. I'm not a big fan of music that usually seems deeply inspired by the eight hour stare at the top of one's feet, but LoveLikeFire is as visceral and compelling as their name, in songs such as "Inner Space." {listen to "Inner Space"}

Cancer Stocking Stuffers: Glitter matches, incense, a small strobe light.

Leo (July 23 - August 22)
The Longest Day of the Year is the debut full-length from Los Angeles-based band The Reverse. True to its title it will warm up dear Leo, whose vivacious personality often tires from the gloom of these short winter days. Vocalist and guitarist Tara Emelye Needham and drummer Todd Karasick are just the kind of friends Leo loves to have around on chilling weeks. Like the Cocteau Twins, the duo claim a "telepathic connection" that enables them to take frosty existential heartache and 'reverse' it with seductive vocals and intricate art-pop hooks. Through ten literate slivers of creative adult rock, "Tell Your Mother" that good things are to be had after just a few more weeks of winter, Leo. {listen to "Tell Your Mother"}

Leo Stocking Stuffer: Legwarmers, heating pad, sun lamp.

Virgo (August 23 - September 22)
Your family is your primary comfort, Virgo, but we aren't always born into the family we need. Sometimes in the face of hard changes or potentially depressing holidays, you may seek brothers and sisters from various aspects of your life to pull together into a communal whole. The impeccably funky-reggae collection Serious Times: From Portmore to Flatbush, Jamaica to Brooklyn is a hypnotic reminder of how deeply beloved the universe is by the spirit of Jah, and how we can all survive the apocalypse due Babylon through love for our brothers and sisters. This is a Ghetto Arc Production, and disc one's "Federation Sound Mix" features adeptly mixed sweet, moist city-dub from such across-the-region stars as Tony Curtis, Sizzla, and I-Wayne, who contributes the sparkling "Living in Love." {listen to "I Wayne"}

Virgo Stocking Stuffer: A little brown, a little green, keep it in the fridge to keep it clean.

Libra (September 23 - October 23)
Farmers in the land of Pharaoh would weigh their harvest during the full moon season, the astrological period of Libra. The ancient Babylonians believed that the stellar scales involved all the decisions of both the living and the dead. So it comes as no surprise that for a Libra, everything is a major decision. This makes holiday shopping a freaking nightmare for a Libra, as he or she longs to connect the right gift to the person. And although there are many choices to be made in the world of melancholy singer-songwriters, Richard Buckner has the perfectly robust and somber combination of vocals and lyrical observation to carry him above the six string-carrying competition. Buckner loves to travel across the continent, and his work shows the kind of emotional movement that comes with actual relational progress. This album seems a bit more upbeat and mid-tempo than previous purgatory-masterpieces such as Dents and Shells, but songs like "Town" continue his saga with more feeling than a whole cellar-full of dark troubled troubadours. {listen to "Town"}

Libra Stocking Stuffers: A tune-up for the rig and a week in detox before the tour's first gig.

Scorpio (October 24 - November 21)
First impressions aren't always correct.
That's an important thing to bear in mind this month, and my own example would be letting the atavistic charms of Jim Noir on his first full-length Tower of Love dazzle and delude me the first few times through. Scorpios would be wise in all seasons to look deeper than the surface, and the casual listener shouldn't take the humor of Noir lightly. The incorruptible substance of the Brit's work can be easy to look past with so many fellow bed-sit Brian Wilsons clogging up the displays at the front of record stores. But Noir has spent a few extended play self-releases creating a sound that seems both spontaneous and well-crafted for his elegant, somewhat-psychedelic approach on his sterling Barsuk debut. {listen to "Key of C"}

Scorpio Stocking Stuffer: Anything that can make musical alchemy in a home studio!