For the last week of December, I ended up car-sitting for friends of mine who had gone further out of town than me. I haven’t had a car in the city since 2002; these days, Zipcar meets my occasional city-driving needs just fine. That said, there’s something I definitely miss about regularly listening to music in cars, and I was able to scratch that proverbial itch multiple times in the last days of 2009.

(As a digression, Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca has revealed itself to be a surprisingly driving-friendly album. I would not have expected that.)

Also? WFMU. Specifically, a fine batch of songs from Jason Sigal’s Talk is Cheap, as I sought out a parking space. Several of the songs he was playing, he noted, were available via WFMU’s Free Music Archive, and I subsequently sought two albums out there.

Titus 12′s Dig and Delve is solid, atmospheric hip-hop from the UK with a not insignificant dub influence. Good stuff, very listenable, and varied enough to warrant repeat listens.

The self-titled album from Orquestra Popular De Paio Pires impressed me quite a lot. They’re a Portuguese group with sound similar to a fair amount of Scandinavian post-rock outfits: they’d fit nicely beside the likes of Efterklang, Slaraffenland, or Under Byen, whether on a mixtape or a concert bill. There’s a smooth precision to their playing, but there’s also a sense of experimentation; not unlike the songs heard on Volcano Choir’s debut, they’re unafraid to pursue unanticipated directions at times.