This isn’t the first time Making Friendz has been mentioned on Popservations. Already this month, two tracks from the New York City outfit made the cut for Free Weekend, this site’s weekly wrap-up of spinworthy free MP3s, but the music that Making Friendz makes merits a full post.

Making Friendz is Tami Hart, who’s been playing bass in JD Samson’s new musical project, MEN. For a couple of years, it was also Daniel Scott Erickson, writing and performing alongside Hart, but the duo split during the recording of debut album Social Life. The set was released last week, and while Hart now cares for her brainchild “band” alone as she did when Making Friendz was just a MySpace profile and some demos, Erickson is still present and accounted for on the album.

The band’s label, Last Bummer Records, describes Making Friendz as “a sweet, sweaty mixture of lo-fi punk and glossy pop, R&B and disco.” Such statements are assumedly prone to overstatement, considering the source. But this time there’s little puffery or blatant bloviating involved. In fact, Last Bummer missed one musical ingredient — Making Friendz’s electro-beating heart.

The first single from Social Life, “Situation,” comes off like Matt & Kim‘s fuzzed-out cousins, with a spelled-out chorus made for chanting along. The music video isn’t such a fun-infused affair, with its scenes of regurgitation and puking into another’s mouth. Strikingly composed and framed, sure, but, really?! I guess Hart is letting her punk-rock roots show to counter the song’s very poppiness.

Free downloads of Making Friends – “Situation” via One Track Mind, “Reject Me, via RCRD LBL, and the DJ Teenwolf remix of “Situation” via Last Bummer.

Purchase Making Friendz – Social Life via iTunes, Amazon MP3.