The Fix

The Sun Giant EP was enough for me to sit up and pay attention. That’s both a compliment and a critique. “Mykonos” by Fleet Foxes and its world music cousin, “2080” by Yeasayer, were two of the best singles of 2007. Sun Giant’s melodies were sweet and lush and immediate but it got shelved pretty quickly as little more than a pop curiosity. Fleet Foxes’ self-titled debut strikes a different chord entirely making a much more memorable impression.

The Sun Giant EP was the natural progression from the less freak-folk fold of this decade’s indie pop stars like My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses–bands whose dusky country twangs of slight sacrilege made for well-timed indie pop gimmickry. Fleet Foxes–their first full-length released June 3 on Sub Pop–steps out from most of those panderances and nudges indie folk forward, creating forty minutes of meticulously organic harmonies and demonstrating an intimate knowledge of their musical roots.

First of all, “Appalachian” is probably going to be this band’s most-loathed term over the coming years but, well, it’s not such an ill-fitting adjective. Fleet Foxes weave blankets of harmony over all of their tracks and crank up the reverb lending itself to descriptions as “pastoral” and “earthy.” If these kind of abstractions don’t help you get a better sense of the sound, imagine the banjoing boy from Deliverance growing up, making nice with some other local musicians and starting a band. Is that better?

Instead of plucking a few choice recording aesthetics or hatcheting refurbishments of The Byrds or The Flying Burrito Brothers, Fleet Foxes find a subtlety that our most contemporary indie roots artists have ostensibly eclipsed. It is a synthesis of old sounds–or, maybe more appropriately, old-sounding songs–without being heavily indebted to anyone in particular. In a sense, Fleet Foxes is less about resurrection and more about sincerity independent of genre and classification.

“White Winter Hymnal,” the album’s second track, is as close to folk-pop perfection you can get without having to consult Gordon Lightfoot first. The simple, thrice-repeated single verse starts and ends in just two-and-a-half minutes but flows gently upward and crystallizes with crisp, delighted grandeur. It kind of sets the tone for much of the record–Fleet Foxes’ presentation is full of existential fervor and deliberate focus. What results is a sonic landscape difficult to put a critical finger to.

The minimalist vocal introduction to “Blue Ridge Mountains” could sit unflinchingly in a sequence of Grizzly Bear tracks. “He Doesn’t Know Why” demonstrates one of Fleet Foxes’ most acute powers–their mastery of control. Similar to “White Winter Hymnal,” Fleet Foxes gently and almost undetectably are able to change pace mid-song, progressing or restraining, all the while discreetly wrapping the emotional impact of the music around the listener. It’s a highly underrated skill but one which will continue to validate Fleet Foxes as folk/roots-pop innovators as long as they are able to pull it off.

“This right here would sound real good, I think, personally / real nice for a car commercial or something / maybe something for maxi pads, you know, ’cause a lot of people use ‘em.”
– “Sing Along”

On the follow-up to 2005’s Gone Ain’t Gone and 2007’s web-only Over the Counter Culture, Tim Fite splices samples and front-porch staples like banjo and pedal steel into his own proprietary formula. The blend engages and irritates–mostly the former–but better that a musician risk failure than not, and this Woody Guthrie and Public Enemy fan is one risky fellow.

That said, the Brooklyn artist’s drone can get old after a while. Fite deserves credit for his creativity–Fair Ain’t Fair (Anti-, 2008) also includes mandolin and yodeling–but more vibrant vocals would really help his anti-consumerist message come alive. Instead, his singing sounds strangely submerged, like Beck circa Mellow Gold or One Foot in the Grave.

On the plus side, the harmonies from Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) on “The Names of All the Animals” and the whistling on “More Clothes” alleviates this problem, coming across like lo-fi, post-modern Pet Sounds outtakes. The bouncy, aptly titled “Sing Along”, with its Beatle-esque “la-la-la’s,” represents another tuneful twist on Fite’s eclectic recipe.

Then there are the lyrics. Fair Ain’t Fair features lines like, “There’s folly in the pork fat,” “there’s mustard on your titty,” and “a horse is a horse, of course.” Did he make this stuff up on the spot or spend long hours thinking it up? Either way: they’re sometimes silly, but always distinctive, and that may be his intent. The line between woefully inept and intentionally goofy can be difficult to discern. Fortunately, Tim Fite usually stays on the right side of that equation.

Download Over the Counter Culture for free here.

Tim Fite show date:
June 11 Huckleberry’s Pizza Parlor - Rock Island, IL

Don’t have time to search out this week’s essential new music? That’s why we’re here.

Spiritualized “Soul on Fire”
Not quite finished messing with our heads, Jason Pierce returns more determined than ever on Spiritualized’s sixth album, Songs in A&E. Ease into it with this gently rocking psychedelic epic in which he sings, “I’ve got a hurricane inside my veins.”

(via The Yellow Stereo)

I Love Math “Josephine Street”
Did picking up the Juno soundtrack make you long for old school indie-pop with jangly guitars, frail male voices and starry-eyed lyrics? Then get on board with I Love Math, a group that features members of Apples In Stereo and the Old 97s and on this track from its debut album, Getting To The Point Is Beside It, sounds like the cardigan clad lovechild of Belle & Sebastian, the Clientele and Yo La Tengo.
(via Glurp Records)

Sigur Ros “Gobbledigook”
The Icelandic band most famous for singing songs in its own invented language doesn’t disappoint with this taster from its forthcoming fifth full length, With a Buzz In Our Ears We Play Endlessly. They sound more upbeat than ever thanks to the scratchy acoustic guitars and hasty rhythmic changes, but no less delirious.
(via Gorilla vs Bear)

MGMT “Time To Pretend”
Is this grinding, impossibly catchy electronic tune a mindless celebration of hedonism or a jaded look at the fast life? We’re not sure but we sure like the part where the vocoded voice goes, “I’ll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and fuck with the stars/ You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.”
(via Slave To The Details)

Coldplay “Songbird” (Oasis Cover)
With anticipation for the new Brian Eno-produced album now at a fever pitch thanks to that omnipresent iTunes commercial, maybe it’s best if we all just step back and take a breather with this understated cover of this Liam Gallagher penned ballad.
(via Hard To Find A Friend)

The Tallest Man on Earth “I Won’t Be Found”
Our editor Jose Ramirez says, “It’s the best American folk since Devendra Banhart stopped being poor (and he’s Swedish).” Who are we to argue?
(via Ketelmuziek)

Beck is about to do something sneaky. Having spent the past few months holed up in the studio with producer Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton, he’s getting ready to drop his 10th studio album, Modern Guilt. But since there isn’t a release date attached to the project, fans can pretty much expect the album that Rolling Stone claims has “an overall 1960s British vibe” to hit digital outlets guerrilla-style in the coming weeks, much like recent releases by Gnarls Barkley and The Raconteurs. So while we wait for the big day, we thought we would look back at some of the 37-year-old’s career highs via magical YouTube technology.

“Loser” (1994)
The handmade quality of his debut video nicely matches the freewheeling lyrics and slack guitar chords of its accompanying breakthrough hit. While Beck’s white-suited high-kick is pretty impressive, we’ve got to admit that however many years later, this clip pretty much just looks like a lunatic’s home video.
(Watch on YouTube)

“Think I’m In Love” (2006)
This one looks like it was produced in a booth at the local mall, using whatever wigs/props were at hand. It also looks like there’s some cross-dressing going on, we’re just not sure in which direction.
(Watch on YouTube)

Don’t have time to search out this week’s essential MP3s, streams and viral videos? That’s why we’re here.

Devendra Banhart “Don’t Look Back In Anger” (Oasis cover)
Yes, a bunch of new Oasis demos leaked all over the place this week. But just like the band’s last five albums or so, they’re horrible. Luckily, the same isn’t true of this beautifully wobbly cover of the Brit-pop group’s classic “Don’t Look Back In Anger” as reinterpreted by the blessedly cosmic Devendra Banhart.

(via I Guess I’m Floating)

Bart Davenport “Beg Steal Borrow”
Just in time for his new album, this East Bay singer-songwriter’s under-appreciated self-titled release is getting reissued. Luxuriate in this standout cut’s summer-breeze melody and the ex-Loved Ones frontman’s satin-smooth harmonies.
(via Antenna Farm Records)

The Last Shadow Puppets “The Age of Understatement (Acoustic)”
The Arctic Monkey’s frontman’s side project with Miles Kane is so good we kind of wouldn’t mind if Alex Turner never went back to his day job with the leading lights of British guitar rock. Here, the title track of the duo’s sweeping debut album gets the unplugged treatment.
MP3: “The Age of Understatement (Acoustic)”
(via Domino Records)

Shy Child “Astronaut”
With the Killers on a break, why not invest a little time into their slightly more punky keytar-slinging cousins? One listen to this slice of trendy, ’80s inspired mayhem and you’ll understand why Stella McCartney recruited them to soundtrack her line at last year’s Fashion Rocks.
(via Terror Bird)

The Dandy Warhols “The World The People Together (Come On)”
Dumped by Capitol, these Portland rockers have lost none of their pop sheen of affection for unwieldy song titles as they re-enter indiedom. This propulsive preview track from their self-released sixth album, Earth to the Dandy Warhols, has a bit of a Chemical Brothers vibe, which so does not surprise us.
(via Stereogum)

Henry, We Hardly Knew Ye

It would be folly to try and string together a cohesive narrative of the career of musician, artist, mathematician, philosopher and North Carolina native, Henry Flynt. His life has played out much like one of his madcap art stunts. In 1989, Flynt traveled to an as yet unopened art galley in Italy to scout the space and negotiate a showing of his own art. He photographed the rooms in the gallery, returned home, and then sent the photos he had taken of the empty walls of the gallery to the gallery owners announcing that his “show” was already over, before it had taken place. And the photos proved that the show had in fact occurred, unbeknownst to those who had been in attendance–namely Flynt and the gallery owners. Then Flynt made posters announcing the “show,” but told patrons not to bother about attending because it had already happened.

All of Flynt’s accomplishments occurred as though in a virtual vacuum, but have been documented with photos and recordings that seemingly prove that it did all happen in the real world. He could just as likely have made all this stuff up a few years ago: that he left Harvard in 1961 before obtaining a degree; that he moved to New York, hung out in the Yoko Ono loft scene arguing the finer points of musical pretension with John Cage; was squeezed out of the Velvet Underground for playing his fiddle too hillbilly; recorded several albums of his own compositions with various incarnations of bands during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s; started a movement to rid the world of formal art; produced several installations of his own art work; and wrote extensively on philosophical problems. He could have made it all up because there seems to be almost no one who was aware of Flynt while he was doing all those things.

Even if it is all an elaborate fabrication, his records are pretty damn good.

Imagine that Warren Ellis (of Dirty Three and Bad Seeds fame) and the Rev. Horton Heat had grown up attending a one-room schoolhouse together where Ornette Coleman was the only teacher, and they formed a band with drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson; they might well have sounded like Henry Flynt.

For all the yammering Flynt does about jazz, Hindustani, and classical (there’s a three hour interview from a 2004 radio broadcast, during which you can hear several of Flynt’s recordings)–and despite the fact that he has subjected himself to extensive instruction in music theory and performance (he plays at least violin and guitar, plus he tosses around technical terms like triads and fifths and interval modulations and peppers his lengthy orations with artsy, pseudo-intellectual jargon, such as referring to particular gigs as “sound environments” rather than concerts)–his music rocks. It is a very unlikely yet highly infectious mélange of jazz, Appalachia, and rock, with infusions of Eastern experimentation.

One of the more transfixing of Flynt’s recordings is the forty-four minute long “You Are My Everlovin’ ” (Recorded Records, 2001), something Flynt called New American Ethnic Music. It is comprised of semi-sophisticated, old-timey style fiddle, sawing over the top of a deep tambura drone. If you surrender your body aural to its wilting beauty, it could deliver you unto a deep woods trance state, meditated into a reincarnation of an immense anthropomorphized oak tree, like the Ents in Return of the King-before they freaked out and stormed Isengard, of course.

The recordings that Flynt produced with his fully-staffed bands, The Insurrections and Nova’Billy, are informed by many of the same influences as were say, James Blood Ulmer or Danny Gatton, or even Led Zeppelin, but managed to sidestep the trappings of a producer’s meddlesome ambition or a record label’s marketability mandate.

A single volume of Flynt’s collected writings, Blueprint for a Higher Civilization, was published in Italy in 1975 and is of course long since out of print. You can still find lengthy sections of his musings available at a fan-maintained website, www.henryflynt.org

His musical recordings had collected, in some cases, nearly forty years of dust before a barrage of Flynt sides was released, mostly by Locust Records and Recorded Records, between 2001 and 2005. Having never found an audience or even a record label during his more productive years, Flynt, after some mysterious mishap on the way to a gig in Berlin in 1984, finally lost his ambition for public performance. He has not performed in public, nor, he claims, has he played, or otherwise composed or produced any music since.

Discography:

The first two titles were recorded in the early 1960s. The other titles show the year the music was recorded, followed by the year it was released:

Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Volume 1 (Locust Music, 2002)

Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Volume 2 (Locust Music, 2002)

C Tune (Locust Music, 1980, 2001)

Raga Electric (Locust Music, 1963/71, 2002)

I Don’t Wanna (Locust Music, 1966, 2004)

Purified by the Fire (Locust Music, 1981, 2005)

Graduation And Other New Country & Blues Music (Ampersand, 1975/79, 2001)

You Are My Everlovin’/Celestial Power (Recorded, 1980/81, 2001)

Spindizzy (Recorded, 1968/83, 2002)

Hillbilly Tape Music (Recorded, 1971/78, 2002)

Sublime Frequencies

Seattle label Sublime Frequencies began in 2003, putting out musical recordings and DVD videos of artists from around the world that they had collected during extensive self-funded travels. The label is the avocation of brothers Alan and Richard Bishop, of the band Sun City Girls, along with video documentarian Hisham Mayet. Following their tremendous output of global musical vitality last year, the label was back at it last week with two new offerings from afar.

The CD Bollywood Steel Guitar exhibits 21 tracks of instrumental virtuosity and innovation performed by film studio session players recorded to score films produced in India between 1962 and 1986. There is a lot of heavy-handed drumming and intricate melodic interplay between harmoniums and pedal and lap steel guitars. For anyone charged up and blown away by the footage intercut with the opening title sequence of the 2001 movie Ghost World of the sassy-assed Shankar Jaikishan performing the song “Jan Pechechan Ho,” Bollywood Steel Guitar will bound you over the same instrumental terrain.

Also recently released, on vinyl only, was Shadow Music of Thailand–surfy instrumental guitar and farfisa organ rave-ups. It’s the sort music you expect to be blaring from speakers atop the Tiki bar at a Quentin Tarantino pool party.

The list of titles and the requisite descriptions of all of their releases to date is far too long to indulge in here, however, among my favorites are:

Thai Pop Spectacular (CD 2007)
A marvelously deft and dazzling array of power pop cuts from 19 different Thai artists, compiled by Bay Area archivist and audio innovator Mark Gergis.

Choubi Choubi: Folk and Pop Songs from Iraq (CD 2005)
A mix of modern urban rhythmic tracks and traditional melodies, layered with vocals that pass freely from old world, Middle Eastern moaning to Brooklyn-esque, girl hip hop–with some cuts culled wholesale from Detroit radio broadcasts (a technique common to other Sublime releases)

Guitars of Agadez, by Group Inerane (LP 2007)
A band tagged as part of the “Tuareg Guitar Revolution,” Inerane, from Niger, play electric-guitar desert blues. It is the infusion of their own tradition with distilled elements of the Delta blues that make them so haunting and deep. Inerane, however, eschews all the trappings of the stodgy blues song structure and instead cycle around the beat, causing your pop-radio-indoctrinated and inundated ass to have to continually re-orient yourself to the “1” in the count, which has usually relocated itself to a different spot in the progression. The tunes are topped off with beautiful trills from a backing chorus of female voices.

As with the fabulous Ethiopiques CD series, I sometimes wonder if it is as much the American funk, soul and jazz influence on the elements of music of a distant origin that makes it so appealing. But, as is also the case with Sublime’s releases, it is not merely people from other cultures and traditions playing their traditional music and tossing in American musical clichés for pragmatic measure. These artists are taking American musical forms and inverting them, looking at them through different goggles, refining the meatier components and discarding the fat. Then they spit them back at us saying, “here’s what you could be doing with your own legacy.” Although I’m sure the above statement, however unintentionally, oversimplifies the phenomenon.

I asked the well-traveled Sublime Frequencies co-proprietor Alan Bishop, via email, if his duty to finding new music to record became burdensome to the travel process or impinged upon his enjoyment of being somewhere far from home.

“Of course I don’t always carry the [recording/video] gear around…I always have my detectors on,” Bishop writes, “I find ways to make what I do meditative and relaxing.”

Bishop says Sublime Frequencies tries not to force the issue with their artists. They strive to capture, as unobtrusively as possible, performances of their artists in their most familiar and comfortable circumstances.

Says Bishop, “I think some people believe there is some method to this and that we have a formula. That’s never the case. Each situation is completely different from all the others…we never take groups to a studio or try to pull them from their normal operating procedures. That is not conducive to getting great recordings. Many others seem to think slick sound production is best, so they wheel a group into a studio and ‘produce’ them. I prefer to record them wherever they play, in their own space, where they always perform.”

Personally, I listen to Sublime Frequencies releases with an unfortunate anxiety, fighting off my dread that they will one day run out of new music to find or the energy to go out and get it.

Other recommended Sublime Frequencies titles (all CDs) that are more or less self-introductory:

-Radio Algeria

-Princess Nicotine: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar

-Radio Palestine: Sounds of the Eastern Mediterranean

-PROIBIDÃO C.V: Forbidden Gang Funk From Rio de Janeiro

And some tasty DVDs:

Musical Brotherhood from the Trans-Saharan Highway

Sumatran Folk Cinema

Nat Pwe: Burma’s Carnival of Spirit Soul

A couple videos:

Even if elusive vocalist Vashti Bunyan had only given the world her wistful 1965 single “Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind” (penned by a couple of up-and-comers named Jagger and Richards) that would have been enough. Sure, Bunyan didn’t have Dusty Springfield’s fulsome pipes, but her whispery work has turned out to be just as influential–though she had to wait longer to be rediscovered.

Her revival revolves around her Joe Boyd-produced album Another Diamond Day which wasn’t a hit when it was released in 1970, but has grown in stature to the extent that she has started recording again after a three decade-long absence. Her collaborations with fans Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective (see the Prospect Hummer EP) led to the release of full-length follow-up Lookaftering in 2005.

Then as now, Bunyan wasn’t a traditional folkie, like Fairport Convention’s Sandy Denny, but she wasn’t a conventional pop singer, either. For inspiration, she looked to Dylan and Donovan. As she explains in the liner notes, “I wanted to bring quiet acoustic music into mainstream pop.” Like Nick Drake, she had feet in both camps, and it’s worth remembering that the troubled troubadour of “Pink Moon” fame also had difficulty mustering up an audience in the ’60s. By contrast, Bunyan had Stones manager Andrew Long Oldham on her side, and he did his bit to spread the word, even securing an appearance for her in Peter Whitehead’s epochal Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London (she sings 1966 single “Winter Is Blue”). Fortunately, Bunyan didn’t give up hope when she failed to follow contemporaries like Marianne Faithfull (another Oldham client) into the charts. She simply retired to Ireland to raise a family.

This 25-track set assembles singles, demos, and home recordings, most of which have been hidden away for 44 years (the latter stored in her brother John’s attic). Notable selections include “Train Song,” which anticipates Kendra Smith’s paisley-patterned folk-pop, and “17 Pink Sugar Elephants,” a surprisingly poignant tribute to a children’s confection. Better late than never–every track, from the fully orchestrated A-sides to the low-fi guitar-and-voice sketches, is the essence of enchantment.

Don’t have time to search out this week’s essential MP3s, streams and viral videos? That’s why we’re here.

Radiohead: “All I Need (Live at the BBC)”
The best track from In Rainbows gets a faithful makeover in front of a reverent BBC audience. But listen closely and you can quietly hear Thom Yorke baring his soul on the lyric, “I’m an animal/ Trapped in your hot car.”
(via Six Eyes Media)

Dizzee Rascal “Sirens (Acid Girls Can Hear It Too Remix)”
As if this British rapper’s thick-accented rhymes weren’t mind-blowing enough, someone has gone and turned this song into full-tilt old school rave anthem. Anybody have a glo-stick we can borrow?
(via Online Home)


Flight of the Conchords “Business Time”
The funniest HBO singing comedy duo since Tenacious D delivers the least sexy slow-jam ever, plucked from its forthcoming Sub Pop album. We so want to hear R. Kelly cover this.
(via Julio Enriquez)


The Kooks “Always Where I Need”
The only flop-haired U.K. band worth keeping around, The Kooks return with another deceptively scrappy rock tune featuring chugging guitars and a shout-it-from-the-rooftops chorus.
(via Done Waiting)


Cut Copy “Lights and Music”
With its dizzying beats and driving bassline, this New Order-ish track is capable of transporting you to a booming nightclub without ever having to leave your couch. What are you going to do with the 15 bucks you just saved?
(via Sean Ryan Online)


Hayes Carll “I Got a Gig”
While Ryan Adams busies himself trying to win his model ex-girlfriend back with sniveling blog posts, the rest of the world can move on this Texan songwriter whose Townes Van Zandt style of barroom rock sounds so authentic it’s kind of freaking us out.
(via Left Over Cheese)


Tina Dico “On the Run”
The occasional Zero 7 collaborator and full-time Danish pop star breaks out of her down-tempo shell, convincingly rocking out on this burly new track from her latest solo album, Count To Ten.
(via box.net)

The prairie dominates America both physically and mentally. That center of the map, smack dab between the wilds of the West and the tame, yet furious East, is our heartland that the so-called real American politicians like to invoke so often. Omaha-based Neva Dinova know this land, have read its storybook, and are flush with its sounds. In their own wresting with past and present–pop-flavored guitar distortions juxtaposed with slow-going countrified strumming–the band emanates timelessness, creating music that would sound equally right crackling from old vinyl as it would cooing directly in-ear from a pair of new-fangled headphones. Their land ambles with folktales that live in the retelling with lackadaisical yet absorbing vocals by singer Jeff Bellows. Conjuring the voices of your grandfather or the town drunk who’s always stationed at the end of the bar, the stories he weaves either wash over or suck you in, and both interactions have their justifications and purposes. You May Already Be Dreaming can fall into easy listening, so you might not pay attention to the details, but much like that land they come from, it only passes by if you choose not to notice. Tune in, and its patterns, fables and rhythms become yours.

On their shaky fourth album Seventh Tree, Goldfrapp have abandoned their cheeky-yet-sensual subtle dance tracks, replacing the former playlist-ready jams for adult contemporary-esque ballads that are easily forgettable. The worst part? You want to forget them–they are that bad. The London-based electronic duo, composed of synth-pop sexpot Allison Goldfrapp and production wiz Will Gregory, adopt a mellow, faux-bohemian vibe that might do better at a retirement facility then at an uber-hip nightclub. Whether or not this pop outfit is trying to mix things up musically to surprise fans and shock rock critics, their attempt at electric boho-folk leaves much to be desired.

With songs like the reduced-fat Kylie Minogue-style ballad “Happiness,” a drowsy meditation on love, or the moody “Cologne Cerone Houdini,” with babyish vocals and a cinematic Air-meets-elevator music quality, it’s hard to understand what would motivate this solid duo to stage such a drastic–and unsuccessful–genre transition. After the smashing success of dance-driven albums Black Cherry (2003) and Supernature (2005), the mediocrity of Seventh Tree makes this critic and (former) fan feel angsty and duped for being under-stimulated. Until Goldfrapp come to their senses and go back to their sexy synth roots, I’ll be blasting Black Cherry while partying like it’s 2003.

Don’t have time to search out this week’s essential MP3s, streams and viral videos? That’s why we’re here.

Vampire Weekend, “A-Punk” on “Saturday Night Live”
See what happened when the overhyped, vaguely ’80s Paul Simon-loving collegiate rock band appeared on NBC’s overhyped, vaguely ’80s Paul Simon-loving collegiate sketch comedy show. Hint: The world did not implode.
(RedLasso)

Nine Inch Nails, Ghosts I-IV
Trent Reznor is giving away the first quarter of Nine Inch Nails’ new instrumental album, aka Ghosts I, for free on his website. Unless you’re a fan of moody instrumental music with plinky piano melodies and random bursts of white noise, you might very well be getting what you pay for.
(Nine Inch Nails)

Cat Power, Black Session
The new covers album might be a bit on the dull side, but this slow-burning live set from France is a revelation, showcasing the return of Chan Marshall’s incredible voice and her new nice and easy live persona.
(Sixeyes)

Hercules and Love Affair, Hercules and Love Affair
The latest project by mournful, gender-bending torch singer Antony Hegarty is not what you might expect. It’s a horn heavy electro-pop seemingly made for Project Runway finales and flashback parties.
(MySpace)

Whiskeytown, “16 Days”
Hear what Ryan Adams sounded like before the ego took over. This sweet, country-flavored tune comes from the excellent reissue of his former band’s album, Stranger’s Almanac.
(Aquarium Drunkard)

Liam Finn, “Second Chance”
Dad was the lead singer of Crowded House. Liam Finn inherited the sweet voice and knack for knockout melodies, but on this track from his debut album he shows a wild inventive streak that’s clearly all his own.
(Spin)

R.E.M., “Supernatural Superserious”
A return to form? Not quite, but better than anything the veteran Georgia rock band has done since at least the time Michael Stipe started wearing that blue streak across his eyes, complete with roaring guitars and classic harmonies courtesy of Mike Mills.
(Sell the Lie)