New Release Tuesday: Micah P. Hinson, Arthur & Yu

Folks looking at the official start of summer with ambitions of lazy, detached nostalgia might want to check out Arthur & Yu, whose debut In Camera (buy it) is the first release on the Hardly Art label, the new home of Sub Pop founder Johnathan Poneman. Sure to unleash a flood of Hazelwood/Sinatra and VU comparisons on the world, and based on these tunes, pretty much worth it.

MP3: Hardly Art - Come to View (Song for Neil Young)
Stream: A few more on MySpace

Micah P. Hinson's new EP Presents A Dream of Her (buy it) is on Houston Party Records; Hinson opens for Rufus Wainwright Thursday in Madrid and is playing various European festivals throughout the summer. The label is teasing this as a move in a Leonard Cohen-like direction, with an emphasis on piano over guitar. I love Micah P. Hinson, and wow, does he deserve a bigger audience. His screaming, beet-red-face encore performance before a handful of indifferent barflies at his NOVA show last year made me an official fan, and I can't wait to hear this.