Liz Durrett inhabits her songs with the sweet melodies and savvy longing that make Chan Marshall and Beth Orton such naturals with a guitar and a naked vocal. Her enveloping arrangements (helped along, no doubt, by her uncle and sometime producer Vic Chesnutt) will wrap you up like a cotton blanket on a cool Southern evening, much like labelmates and fellow Georgians Azure Ray. She’ll make you feel like she’s singing just for you. And she has good taste in cover material too, offering up numbers by Lou Reed and the West Side Story soundtrack here and more on her website.
Nick Robin
I recently bought this and this from Insound. The package they arrived in included the usual 2:1 ratio of collateral marketing material to music product. Among the collateral was a small, square glossy catalog/zine. The theme of the issue was “indie rock road trip” and it was actually a pretty good read. However, nowhere did it mention perhaps the best driving-themed song I’ve heard all year: Nick Robin’s “Drive-On”. Nick’s slow, careful folk glows with yearning. And it’s got vibes, which earns automatic bonus points in my book. Go buy the album here. (Many thanks to Lise for the suggestion.)
Castanets
While he may share the same record label as pop revivalist Sufjan Stevens, Castanets’ mainman Raymond Raposa creates a space of his own with what his bio calls “mutant country” — somber tales of heartbreak spread over wonderfully sparse, ecclectic instrumentation. Let those slow embers burn and keep your days warm and hopeful (those who have already started to see snowflakes swirl in the air know what I’m talking about).
Cranes
I can blame The Cure for a couple things:
1) The name of my first son, Cairo. I used to joke with a friend that I’d name my first child after the song “Fire In Cairo,” combining “fire” and “in” to create “Firyn.” Firyn Cairo. (My friend reciprocated the fun, threatening to name his first child Seven–and this was a couple years before Seinfeld hit the TV). By the time our first child was born I had joked around with “Firyn Cairo” so much it stuck (we axed Firyn, thankfully).
2) Cranes. And it’s been years since I’d listened to or even thought of the band. Somehow during my musical travels I came across their latest, and seventh, album, Particles & Waves. The band is as haunting, lush, and dark as ever. And lucky for us, just as busy. They opened a couple Cure shows in Europe over the summer and they’re already working on new material for a new album next year. Enjoy discovering or rediscovering Cranes. And if you’re sitting there all smug and cocky because you never stopped listening, shame on you. Why didn’t you remind me!?!?
Mt. Egypt
There isn’t much sunshine in titles of Mt. Egypt’s plaintive ballads, and there isn’t much sunshine in New York City today, so the pairing is one that fits quite nicely. According to his bio, Travis Graves is “homeless in California,” which begs one of those chicken-or-the-egg questions of whether he’s homeless because he’s an artist or he’s an artist because he’s homeless. The longing in Graves’ vocals is in the great recent tradition of such wounded souls at Will Oldham, Mark Kozelek and Eef Barzelay, and his fragile guitar paints a wistful picture, especially on the lower-fi offerings here. But lest you spin off to something more cheerful to get your weekend going, Graves isn’t all melancholy. His is the sound of transition — that moment when despair gives way to renewal. It’s the perfect soundtrack to the changing of the leaves, because autumn is finally here, even if you’re homeless in California.
The Very Hush Hush
Clay and I had this ritual in college where we’d turn down the lights, lay flat on our backs, and play certain songs over and over again. It served as a catharsis for us, often following a botched exam or “I like you…as a friend.” Our playlist included a variety of music, though most of it fell under the so-called “slowcore” and “shoegazer” categories. But not just any band with bad posture, pale skin, and walls of distorted guitars or mumbled vocals would do… You gotta have dynamics to pull me out of a funk. Build, crash, rebuild. Like waves, like Legos. The Very Hush Hush seem to have that dynamics thing figured out (could be their classical music training). Each of these tracks, if taken in one- or two-minute intervals, may seem shy or sullen, but taken as a whole will lift you up to where you can see more than just your shoes.
Delaney
Midas himself must have touched the ears of the folks over at Pehr. They’ve just released the first album from 33-year-old Parisienne, Christelle Delaney, here in the States and I find myself going back for more and more (kind of like I did last week with the cream puffs at Papa Beard’s). Delaney is indeed comfort food to the ears, whether you’re looking for a little ray of sunshine, “A Quoi Bon” (dig the dusty beat), or a soundtrack for heart break, “La Nuit On A Toujours Tout.” Either way, prepare for deliciousness.
José González
A Swedish import via the Parasol label group, so you know you’re in for a treat, right? Impeccable classical guitar work sets the rhythm for González’ intimate, hushed vocals. He’d fit right in with the current neu-folk folks as well as the regrettably departed parties of Nick Drake and Elliott Smith.
Gardin
How do you like your slowcore? Gardin is delightfully simple, providing surprisingly lush soundscapes from fragile melodies and deliberate vocals, with an honesty that not’s hidden by fluff or distractions. A perfect recipe for the genre.
Thee More Shallows
Ahhh, it feels great to be back sharing the sharing. We were having some ugly hosting problems, and during the downtime many of you dropped us lovely “missing you” notes. One letter, from Ander W., expressed sheer dismay at the fact that we hadn’t posted Thee More Shallows. As I mentioned to Ander, Thee More Shallows and their beautiful, Bay Area blend of whisper rock was at the top of my to-do list. At the top of your to-do list should be “purchase More Deep Cuts by Thee More Shallows.” Dee Kesler and company spent almost three years working on this album, so if you buy it for, say, thirteen dollars, you’re paying the band .011 cents a day for their efforts. A small price to pay for this work of art.