Weekend Shorts

I've long felt that Kevin Kinney's 2002 album Broken Hearts and Auto Parts is one of the more overlooked singer-songwriter albums of the decade, a more authentic and heartfelt turn on the sort of thing Ryan Adams gets overpraised for. Kinney is formerly of Drivin' N' Cryin' (you maybe remember early-90s AOR staple "Fly Me Courageous" ) and an show from around that album's release has shown up on the Live Music Archive. The epic "A Good Country Mile" is probably my favorite from the disc.

MP3: Kevin Kinney - A Good Country Mile (live)

In tour news, Fionn Regan's first substanial US jaunt is underway; it began last night in Boston and continues at the XPoNential festival in Camden, NJ tonight. Iron & Wine have announced some fall US and UK dates, as has Bill Callahan. Dave Bazan is also touring it up this fall across America.

Stereogum has a video of Iron & Wine covering Radiohead's "No Surprises" at the Pitchfork Festival.

The Village Voice looks at the UK antifolk scene and goes a bit overboard in comparative bluster:

[i]t should not be confused with its far more refined, stylised and effete American and Continental counterpart, anti-folk, which is basically people who are folk singers by any other name (albeit with a smidgen of punk attitude thrown in, whatever the hell that is supposed to be in 2007) singing with acoustic guitars and a semblance of melody. Sure, it’s a relation of the other genre. . . the sort of relation you only ever talk about in subdued murmurs and scandalised whispers at weddings when your mother’s back is turned.

Said the Gramophone has a few tracks from the upcoming Vic Chesnutt album North Star Deserter, due on Constellation Records September 11th. Chesnutt is backed by a host of Montreal musicians, including members of Silver Mt. Zion and Godspeed! You Black Emperor.

There's a wonderful feature at Billboard by Susan Visakowitz in which she talks to Amy Annelle and Fionn Regan about the nature and definition of folk music in the post-Dylan/Mitchell landscape. Let's just say that Susan has impeccable taste.

Aquarium Drunkard talks to Clem Snide's Eef Barzelay about Nashville.

Aaron Ross - Shapeshifter

As far as I know I've never heard a note of Aaron Ross' band Hella, and I purposely approached his first solo album, Shapeshifter, without paying Hella a MySpace visit. I was treated to a great, sprawling beast of a record, full of catchy pop songs banging around inside invigorating, epic folk jam sessions.

The first thing you'll latch on to is Ross' voice, a powerful yelp not unlike that of Destroyer and New Pornographer Dan Bejar or even Okay's Marty Anderson, a little intimidating but ultimately, through these spiritual tunes, uplifting. Many of the record's most powerful moments come when the mighty din of the great collective of local musicians present here fades and Ross' voice is left alone with only acoustic guitar to bellow out another timeless-sounding refrain, one the listener will be hard-pressed not to join in on after hearing once or twice.

The songs have a free, loose-limbed quality to them, with shades of classic rock and blues; I'm reminded of Led Zeppelin III at times. They may ramble too long for some - no track clocks in at less than five minutes, and several break seven - but to these ears Ross and company have found a happy medium between tight songwriting and improvisational expanse.

Shapeshifter is one of the first releases on the Nevada City, CA-based Grass Roots Record Co. and makes the label one to watch. Ross plays tonight in Chico, CA and on the 26th in Nevada City; see the tour page for details.

Buy Shapeshifter

MP3: Aaron Ross - Elevator Blues

New Release Tuesday: The Truly Me Club

The Truly Me Club is a one-man band out of PDX, the kind of bedroom tinkerer I'm prone to love irrationally. "When the Cops Use Their Guns" is dreamy, ambient indie-pop with undercurrents of unease, the sort of thing Her Space Holiday used to do so well before he became bizarrely self-referential. Best heard at dusk on a lazy day. His first record Pop Star on the Lam (buy it) is out on Sonic Boom Records.

MP3: The Truly Me Club - When the Cops Use Their Guns
MP3: The Truly Me Club - We All Agree, It's a Wasteland
MP3: The Truly Me Club - Cal-ifor-ni-ay

Wounded Bird completes the David Blue reissue project: 1968's These 23 Days in September (buy it), 1970's Me, S. David Cohen (buy it), and 1975's Com'n Back for More (buy it).

Megan Hamilton - How We Think About Light

I haven't been posting as much lately, but rest assured that what I do post about is something I really like.

Toronto singer-songwriter Megan Hamilton has a new EP out, How We Think About Light, her second release following debut full-length Feudal Ladies Club. It's a slow builder, intriguing at first listen and fully addicting after the third or fourth. I've been playing it on repeat for a few days running.

Her distinctive voice has great twists, yelps and mewls, always genuine and unaffected; on expressionistic opener "Are the Birds Caught in the Trees?" she sings "On his pant leg the cat leaves a trail of her fur/hear the room buzz with purrs and the lingering words," the last word of each line differently punctuated to great effect. The strongest song here might be "Saint Francis", with its sing-along chorus and big, warm burbles of country guitar.

The tunes here blend lonesome country/folk with dream pop; Mojave 3 and Edith Frost fans will likely swoon. Producer Mark Vogelsang deserves credit for building the rich sonic textures that never seem showy or overdone, stamping each song with a certain atmosphere. His songwriting contribution, closer "Trees Leave Shadows in the Park", positively aches. As good as the EP is, I can't help but think Hamilton has better yet to come, and look forward to hearing more soon.

Listen to tracks from the EP at MySpace

Buy How We Think About Light

See July Canadian tour dates

New Release Tuesday

60s Greenwich Village scenesters Bunky & Jake - not, in fact, Mighty Wind extras - see reissue of their 1967 eponymous debut on UK label Fallout (buy it). The only music I've heard from them are the two songs streaming on the B&J MySpace, including the downloadable almost-classic oldie "I Was a Champion". Not quite Fred Neil nor Buffy Saint Marie, the duo have a retro-groovy sound all their own.

Fallout is also reissuing Val Stoecklein's 1968 solo album Grey Life (buy it), which is paid tribute in a 2004 Baltimore City Paper piece: "It’s the kind of record you might buy for 50 cents because the cover—a guy dressed entirely in black, sitting in the corner of what appears to be a padded room, playing his guitar—has an elegant simplicity that suggests something worth hearing. Turns out it contains something even more unlikely: 11 achingly sad acoustic songs accompanied by immaculate, over-the-top orchestral arrangements, like an extremely depressed Neil Diamond or Burt Bacharach arranging Smog." That description aside, All Music says it's all-out terrible; I haven't heard it, but will seek it out to add to the saddoe collection nonetheless.

Rounding out the reissue parade is M. Ward's debut Duet for Guitars #2 on Merge (buy it), which features three new tracks and the iff favorite "He Asked Me to Be a Snake and Live Underground"; and Fionn Regan's teriffic debut album The End of History (buy it), now out domestically and affordably on Lost Highway.

Also out is the pre-album teaser single from Iron & Wine, "Boy with the Coin" (buy it).

Morning Shorts

No new releases grab me this week, so on with the shorts...



A while back I tried to predict the soundtrack to Noah Baumbach's sure-to-be-brilliant new film, Margot at the Wedding. So far my picks haven't panned out, but the trailer reveals two songs, a track by Blondie that maybe a bigger Blondie fan than I can identify; and Phantom Planet's cover of CSNY's "Our House", which, playing over Black-Kidman-Jason Leigh family drama, is surprisingly effective in its 60s folk-rock melancholy.

Bradley's Almanac brings you the Sebadoh reunion gig from Boston.

David Bazan's gone and done a Daytrotter session. In addition to "Bands with Managers" and "Cold Beer and Cigarettes", Bazan treats us to two new songs, "Harmless Sparks" and "Shit Talker".

I'm very much looking forward to Boat's second album, Let's Drag Our Feet. Somehow, it's already available to order at Magic Marker's site. They're also kindly providing a taste.

MP3: Boat - I'm a Donkey For Your Love

Superman Revenge Squad

Superman Revenge Squad presents himself like a lucky accident. The first entry in his MySpace blog includes the line, "I'm then going to try to purchase an acoustic guitar and learn to play it." It's from last November 24th, and since then he's begun to make appearances at open-mic nights and recorded a group of songs that are practically iconic.

"Idiot Food" is a tour-de-force of vocals perfectly pitched between rant and low-key melody, honest malaise mingled with tossed-off New Order analogies. "Kendo Nagasaki" has the gift of a chorus vocal harmony as only mumbly, half-serious Brits can deliver it: "I guess everything leads to lonliness/Weatherspoon's meals are cheaper when there's two/we're gonna gather all the lonely people, let them enjoy the two for one/let them go back to being strangers when they're through".

Like Brooklyn's Jeffrey Lewis, Superman Revenge Squad is taking folk music in exciting new directions - accessible, inventive and painfully funny, taking shots at pop culture but never straying too far from endearing self-deprecation. An artist who deserves much more press.

MP3: Superman Revenge Squad - Idiot Food
MP3: Superman Revenge Squad - Kendo Nagasaki

More on MySpace

New Release Tuesday

Young God Records' reissue of Lisa Germano's Lullaby for Liquid Pig (buy it) is out today with a 56 minute bonus CD of the various and sundry. While not my favorite Germano album, Chipotle picked it up for their in-restaurant rotation, so there. It's wispy, ethereal sound is something I need to spend more time with to fully appreciate. You can listen to samples of the album at Young God's site.

Swedish band The Culture in Memoriam have a new album, Abolish History - This is Our Story (buy it), and the lead track "Fear, Faith and Friends" is glammy goth folk with double-tracked vocals worth hearing through headphones.

MP3: The Culture in Memoriam - Fear, Faith and Friends

Welsh indie-folk vets Gorky's Zygotic Mynci see reissues of their first three albums, Bwyd Time, Patio and Tatay (buy it).

Mountain Goats all-request set hits the web

John Darnielle's special all-request Sunday night set to benefit Farm Sanctuary has surfaced on the Live Music Archive, and I have to confess I'm not a big enough Mountain Goats fan to recognize most of the songs performed by title. So far, I've listened to the set's first two songs, which happen to be two of my very favorites by Darnielle, All Hail West Texas' "Jenny" and Tallahassee's "Alpha Rats Nest".

Since this is an intimate, superfan-only show, "Jenny" has a full-throated chorus singing "hi diddle-dee-dee, god damn, a pirate's life for me", which is lots of fun, though I prefer the stark, knowing absurdity of the recorded version. And "Alpha Rats Nest" is noticibly less intense, almost lopey, bringing out the sweetness more than the menace.

MP3: The Mountain Goats - Jenny (live)

MP3: The Mountain Goats - Alpha Rats Nest (live)

Liz Isenberg tours every place but DC

Not quite, but still. Those who live elsewhere should take advantage and catch Isenberg with Deertick and Diego Perez at the following dates, starting tomorrow.

6/22 - Las Vegas, NV - Jacob's House w/ Jacob Smigel
6/24 - Long Beach, CA - Alex's Bar w/ Jacob Smigel & Friendship Hurricane
6/27 - Santa Barbara, CA - Pink Mailbox
6/28 - San Francisco, CA - Hemlock Tavern
6/29 - Portland, OR - Dekum Manor
6/30 - Olympia, WA - What You Got Fest
7/01 - Seattle, WA - Jules Maes Saloon w/ Flaspar, A Crowd of Small Adventures & Morgans Orange
7/02 - Boise, ID - Pengilly's w/ Lo-fi (Starts at 7pm)
7/03 - Provo, UT - Muse Music w/ Drew Danbury
7/06 - Fort Collins, CO - SS7
7/07 - Manhattan, KS - The Dusty Bookshelf
7/09 - Des Moines, IA - Vaudville Mews
7/10 - Davenport, IA - Mondo Attic w/ Quiet Bears
7/11 - Oshkosk, WI - Reptile Palace w/ Patchwork & Expatriate
7/16 - Indianapolis, IN - Big Car Gallery
7/17 - Fort Wayne, IN - The Rejoice House
7/20 - Cleveland, OH Ð Tower 2012
7/21 - Athens, OH - Casa Cantina w/ Adam Torres
7/24 - Toronto, ON - The Tranzac

MP3: Liz Isenberg - Hello Christmas

MP3: Liz Isenberg - Two Weeks Till the Midwest

Morning Shorts: AMC redux

The Eitzelsphere is buzzing with reaction to today's press release announcing the new AMC lineup, minus Mooney and Pearson, now based in LA, with an album due on Merge in the new year, which will be "lighter":

The overall sound is lighter than on previous AMC recordings. Of course there are many reasons why. 1) AMC refutes the label of 'Emo Pioneers'. For the record they hate Emo and have never been on the soundtrack for any W.B. network show. (yet) 2) Dark music is for people who are healthy enough to take it - and AMC want to appeal to all people - including the sick. 3) Mark Eitzel comments: "What will my neighbors in my retirement community think? How will I charm the nurse that tends to me? I want to fill my mouth with sugar and spit it on everyone when I talk. I want to cover the world with chocolate cake icing."

Best pithy comment from Firefly poster Larry Holt: "I'm excited! It sounds like another classic AMC disaster!"

Sad to see Tim Mooney leave the band, in particular, but here's hoping we hear more from him via the amazing Pocket Shelley.

::

Kirstiecat comes through with her usual excellent show coverage, this time of The Veils, with a review, pics, and setlist. I managed to miss these guys in both DC and Vancouver, but Kirstie takes me there. I would have been sad not to have heard "Tide" anyway.

Aquarium Drunkard has news on, and songs from, a deluxe Love reissue.

Brooklyn Vegan covers the recent Mountain Goats tribute show weekend, including an amazing rarities set.

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.

Weekend Shorts

After hearing the wonderful "Calliope!" on KEXP, I finally got a listen to The Veils' Nux Vomica in full, and the results are mixed. While the album's been getting the most raves for the darker, more gothic, yowling tunes compared to Waits and Cave, I'm less excited by them than the handful of poppier, right-side-of-melodramatic songs that recall a heady, unique mixture of Bowie, Ferry, Cocker and Hannon, full of knowing sadness, humor and melodic swagger. Even better than "Calliope!" (which you can stream at their MySpace) is "Advice for Young Mothers to Be", where female backing vocals underscore the great, aching chorus. Also be sure to check out their recent French radio Black Sessions MP3s on Sixeyes, including a cover of Springsteen's "State Trooper".

MP3: The Veils - Advice for Young Mothers to Be

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (AKA Owen Ashworth) is heading out on tour with the Donkeys, who will provide him with a wall of sound. These should be great shows, as the collaboration has sounded teriffic on their Daytrotter session and live tracks from the Bobby Malone Moves Home EP.

There'll be a new split 7" for sale at the shows, and Owen has posted one of the new tunes, "White Corolla", on his MySpace. He's also kindly made available "the first CFTPA song", "Seattle Wash", from a long-lost 7".

MP3: Casiotone for the Painfully Along - Seattle Wash

It's Hard to Find a Friend talks to Centro-Matic's Will Johnston in sprawling, Big Takeover style, and gets the scoop on tour-bus stories from the Undertow Orchestra days: "Well, there's the time that Vic [Chesnutt] told his story of taking 40 hits of acid all at once, then sitting in his house, mostly motionless for five days straight...apparently he could hear the phone ringing, and people knocking at his door, but he just couldn't move to answer either one of 'em."

TW Walsh, ex of Pedro the Lion, has a new online store, which makes his two brilliant solo albums available, and features free full album streams. Especially worth it is the $7 download for Blue Laws, which includes scans of the liners, something I wish more online downloads had. Seriously, head to the store, stream the first two tracks from Blue Laws ("Kudos to the Player" and "Old Fashioned Way of Speaking"), and try to resist.

Morning Shorts

My Old Kentucky Blog has a track from the upcoming Iron & Wine full-length The Shepherd's Dog, "Boy With a Coin", which, as I listen to it at 2 AM in a hotel lobby, sounds trippier than the typical Beam, but may not in the light of day.

Pitchfork reports on next week's Young God reissue of Lisa Germano's Lullaby for Liquid Pig, with a disc of bonus tracks, including several amazing-sounding live medleys, particularly for those who think Slide is outrageously underrated.

Fine Portland singer-songwriter Jared Mees is writing a tour diary for Local Cut.

Idolator covers the new Bitter Bitter Weeks album; the one-man band has put out some slightly-guilty-pleasure sadcore in the past and I'm looking forward to hearing this more. With Ric Menck on drums!

North Carolina's Schooner often get compared to Red House Painters, which I don't really hear, but they've got a bouncy-sad feeling to their songs that keeps me looping them for a while. This track is from their upcoming record Hold On Too Tight, due in August.

MP3: Schooner - They Always Do!

And for the fond early-80s Nickelodeon memories: RIP, Mr. Wizard.

New Release Tuesday: The Choir Practice

The Choir Practice - s/t (buy it)

These folks from Vancouver have connections to the New Pornographers and P:ano, and coincidentally, I was considering their album in the new release section of the nice Vancouver record store Zulu today. It's the type of shop that has lots of staff-penned descriptions taped to the cases - they compared The Choir Practice to the Free Design, among others - and they also boast a collection of sadly turned-off vintage arcade consoles. I ended up leaving only with a Moldy Peaches comp I'd been looking for, but now, listening to their music for NRT, I kind of regret not grabbing this disc too. It hits the all the right notes of innocence, artless beauty, and muted hope. They play the Ukranian Hall in Vancouver on Friday, when I'll have vacationed on to Whistler.

Listen on MySpace

Ryan Groff - People in the Midwest (buy it)

Groff is in the band Elsinore, and I think this is his first solo outing. Earnest, close-miked tales of woe, and pretty good if you go for that sort of thing. Groff does a good job keeping the production simple but interesting.

Listen on MySpace

LD and the New Criticism - Amoral Certitudes (buy it)

There should be way, way more covers of songs by Lisa Germano. The revolution starts here with a take on "If I Think of Love", streaming on their MySpace. LD as in Beghtol, of Magnetic Fields fame.

My wifi connection is weak, but I hope to post more from the road soon. Veg-friendly poutine will be mine.

Morning Shorts: Barbara Manning

Writing from vacation in Seattle, and heading to Vancouver tomorrow. By utter coincidence, we ended up staying in a hotel in the Queen Anne neighborhood, where the diner food is plentiful and the wonderful Easy Street Records, with its Tower-esque painted album cover murals and rotating sign, made me remember how much I'm gonna miss record stores when they're gone. I picked up several discs I hadn't seen in DC but hadn't been devoted enough to order, including Meg Baird's Dear Companion and Jana Hunter's There's No Home, as well as last year's Kind of Like Spitting/Lemuria split and Hefner's recent live album Maida Vale. Meanwhile, I couldn't help but notice that Drag City, as if to hammer home the increasing fetishism of physical music collecting, is hawking a new Bonnie Prince Billy EP, Strange Form of Life, for a hefty $12.99, despite the fact that the EP tracks are Daytrotter Session songs, which are legally free online. But the packaging is nice...

Pitchfork reports on Jana Hunter tour dates.

Barbara Manning has a new box set reissue out, Super Scissors (buy it), which collects remastered versions of Scissors and One Perfect Green Blanket along with 24 bonus tracks and extensive liners. And for all those that wonder about the economic realities of being a beloved indie singer-songwriter, an interview with recent college grad Manning in the San Francisco Chronicle is a must-read.

MP3: Barbara Manning - Scissors (acoustic demo)

Leonard Cohen talks to Harp about lots of topics, most tantalizingly for fans of a certain age, the prospect of a tour: "Those anxious for Cohen to record his own work again should be pleased to learn that the film’s concert sequences have inspired him to consider touring in support of his next album, tentatively set for release later this year. “Yes, yes,” he confirms. “I haven’t been out since ’93. The years went by and I thought ‘I’ll never go out again.’ But every so often you do have that itch. You’ve heard that saying in rock ’n’ roll, they don’t pay you to sing, they pay you to travel. But you forget about that stuff. The actual concerts are always compelling. If you’ve got good musicians, and you’re playing, and people know the songs, and they want to hear them live, it is a wonderful thing. And so I’m drawn to that.”"

Ryan Adams covering...Alice in Chains?

It's been a while since I've paid attention to Ryan Adams; Heartbreaker was great, but the deluge of middling and/or genre-exercise releases, and that MTV Adams-in-Jamaica special, put me off. And as if to say, hey, check me out, he's gone and started covering Alice in Chains in concert. One of their better songs at that, "Down in a Hole", which is oddly not that different translated through the alt-roots Ryan Adams filter, reverb and all.

Is the grunge cover hot with the key demos these days? I'll be waiting for the Sufjan Stevens take on "Hunger Strike"...

MP3: Ryan Adams - Down in a Hole (Alice in Chains cover)

Evening Shorts: I'd love to be eaten by meat bees

Ben Barnett, formerly known as Kind of Like Spitting, has a fantastic interview/performance session as part of the Local Cut Podcast Portland Lounge Series. He goes over his drug habits, love/hate of Portland, why KOLS is no more, and his favorite music these days, including the Andrew Jackson Jihad, who he covers along with Shellac, Pulp and Billy Bragg. You also get a few KOLS originals in the deal, including one of my favorites, Bridges Worth Burning's "Canaries"; the line "you know free agency pays little in the long run/but you just don't know if your legs are that tired yet" never fails to make me smile.

The Andrew Jackson Jihad, who may be touring Europe with Ben at some point, have a track on their website reminiscent of early Mountain Goats, with an acid twist.

MP3: Andrew Jackson Jihad - Powerplant

A pretty cover of Fionn Regan's "Be Good or Be Gone" is up on MySpace. Poor guy had his Regan-autographed guitar stolen along with his car, so give him a listen. Regan's The End of History gets US release on Lost Highway in July.

Pitchfork sez Spoon's new track "The Underdog" is their breakthrough bid; I don't hear a hit - the chorus is way too understated - but it's a fun track nonetheless.

MP3: Spoon - The Underdog

Phoebe Kreutz CD release show tonight w/ Don Lennon

Via the Don Lennon mailing list, I've discovered the antifolk stylings of Phoebe Kreutz. Lennon, one of my favorite songwriters and a previous Uncommon Folk contributor, is playing at Kreutz's CD release show tonight at the Sidewalk Cafe in NYC.

Her new CD, Big Ugly Moon, is unavailable for order anywhere online, as far as I can tell, but a few tracks from the album streaming on her MySpace are pretty teriffic. "Birdy in the Driveway" plays like a cross between Kimya Dawson and Sarah Silverman, equal parts pluck, humor, irony and pathos.

Tracks for download on her site, from the 2003 album Pretty. Pretty Stupid., are heavier on the novelty factor than the new songs, not as satisfying but a fun listen nonetheless.

MP3: Phoebe Kreutz - Love in the Seventh Grade
MP3: Phoebe Kreutz - Taco Bell Song

Pocket Shelley - Small Illuminations in a Darkening Sky

In an effort to track down signs of life from Carlos Forster, lead singer for the underappreciated Bay Area indie band For Stars, I stumbled onto what would quickly become one of my favorite albums of the year so far, Pocket Shelley's Small Illuminations in a Darkening Sky, which features guest turns by Forster and Marc Cappelle, as well as production by and musical contributions from American Music Club member Tim Mooney.

Details like this virtually assured I would like the album, but my expectations were exceeded. Pockey Shelley is the singer-songwriter vehichle for Bay Area musician Michael Mullen, of the bands Glasstown, Roman Evening and the Size Queens. Putting vocals, piano and acoustic guitar front and center, Mullen has put together a stunning album of romantic but grounded songs, generous, open-hearted stories of everyday longing, regret and joy that fans of American Music Club and Mark Eitzel shouldn't miss.

As with Eitzel's songbook, details of California abound, particularly in the track I've posted here, "Half Moon Bay", which begins tentatively and tenderly, "Happy birthday, baby/I'll take you out to dinner/let's go to Firefly/that's up in Noe Valley" and tumbles through a series of wishes and memories that teases the listener, never really letting on as to what's real andwhat's imagined, making it all the more relatable. Mullen's ability to fuse the grand and everyday is crucial to making these songs work, as in another romantic track, "Mirror Lake", where he sings of love "in city and in country/and by the oceanside/and sometimes in your twin-size bed".

Musically, these songs move between spare, room-noise piano/vocal arrangements and squalling sadcore psychadelia, as when Cappelle's flugelhorn wails in a long coda to "New Year's Day", and in the swelling build of "Acid Orange", a nearly nine-minute celebration of natural and chemical highs that reminds me of longer tracks on Red House Painters' eponymous Rollercoaster album like "Strawberry Hill" in sheer transporting power.

In addition to ten originals, the album features a fine cover of Dylan's "Farewell Angelina" and Tony Kushner's "Duets: 'Night Mamma", from the musical Caroline, or Change.

You can buy the album at CD Baby and listen to more tracks at Pocket Shelley's MySpace.

MP3: Pocket Shelley - Half Moon Bay