jens lekman when I said I wanted to be your dog (secretly canadian): it sounds like there was a fun party and someone taped it. that's what's fun about mr lekman—it makes you wanna join the protest march against family values. we do love "you are the light", but these 11 tunes do not measure up to those on our beloved "maple leaves" ep so if you're fishing around on ebay for something, get that one dude. he does say it all for real, though, like he means it. and we like that (despite the total wham! moments). beats the hell out of the hidden cameras for that faux-spiritual inspirational songcraft. gail

stereolab margerine eclipse (duophonic/elektra): maybe they're stuttering and slightly abusing the dramatic effect of a well-seasoned overture. but the butter ain't rancid yet. it's a good fat and it rocks. more than ever, it is my favoritest. lots of harpsichord, weird cock-rock solos and nylon string plucking, messy tempos, philip glass-like descending scales, sultry whispered harmonies, even some male vocals! indescribable teeter-tottering beats and eclipses in the two epics of the album, first "margerine melodie" and then the wistful and submarine "dear marge" (which ends with what seems like an inside joke on sophie ellis bextor. they're funny these peeps). dear sage laetitia continues exploring with words, never a cliché in sight, hardly any angst, just plenty of constructive disappointment; I wouldn't be surprised if the next album featured catchy fragmented sax solo-driven dance songs about antiwar parent-teacher associations. lesson plans are important!! lou lane

shirley collins and the albion country band no roses (castle): 1971 folk rock classic which I'm assured broke new ground by being real actual english folk with rock instrumentation. not all that rock, obviously, it's all subtly done, and maintains an odd loveliness even when the beat's solid. long-term indie-ists may recognise the version of "just as the tide was a-flowing" copped more or less wholesale by 10000 maniacs on "the wishing chair" and it's likely a mark of my inexperience with folk that I prefer the wonderfully limpid poppy numbers to those few songs which sound more like a collection of improbably talented drunks having a party in the taproom. tim

low a lifetime of temporary relief: 10 years of b sides and rarities (chairkickers music): minimalism to the max! our duluth favorites give us three crammed discs of their slow, strummy sadness, assuming that we'll let the i-pod trim out the ones we don't like. there's tons to love here: the 10-minute demo of "lullaby," some heavily-reverbed remixes, outtakes from the curtain hits the cast, unabashed covers of the smiths and journey and a song called "don't drop the baby" which my sweetie and I like because we have a baby and try not to drop him. and if there's stuff that less enthralling, at least it's worth a kick: the halloween live version of "over the ocean" done as the misfits is, well, better than the misfits. and what other box set makes you wish they included more (like their best and buried ep effort, bombscare.) has it really been ten years? what a lovely band. daniel

antena camino del sol (bn): music so slight you can't believe someone has reissued it, this here's a collection of 11 songs (plus 3 from an ep) from the dawn of the uk 1980s, wafting only on breathy vocals, nimble acoustic guitar and tinkertoy electronics. the cover of "the boy from ipanema" is silly but inevitable for a band dedicated to continental balcony soirees before such things were cool. this kept my ice cubes tinkling all summer, because let's face it—you can't put on colossal youth more than twice a day. daniel

stephanie says sex, socialism and the seaside (grimsey): y'all remember the blonde stephanie from the legendary jim ruiz group and the she-brews. she has one of the most beautiful singing voices in indiepop. this is the first thing she's made since that dreamy she-brews record and it's the kind of quiet, intimate popstuff that makes us happy on a dreary rainy day. gail

caetano veloso a foreign sound (nonesuch): a smart gesture, an effective piece of contemporary art: brazilian songwriter sings the american songbook, defined as berlin-porter-cobain-kern-dna etc., with a bit of attention to its self-positioning w/r/t the rest of the world. except the concept generally leads the execution: as lovely as the melody of "(nothing but) flowers" is, he seems to be singing it as a nod to d. byrne's cultural significance, rather than because he has any particular feeling for it. more or less the same goes for, uh, "feelings." 22 songs, would've been great at 11, esp. if he"d done like dylan (source of the title) and followed this particular self-portrait with a new morning 3 months later. clarissa

pipas golden square (annika): it's no secret in some circles that lupe and mark from pipas are some of my biggest homies, but it would be a crime against music to let this record go unreviewed. the third mini LP from london's most stylish duo of soon-to-be-famous vegans sees them moving into an even more original and sophisticated mode. they are completely unique, this pipas. there is nothing else like it. track to sautee the kale to: "book launch"; track to get all soppy with your wine-addled mates after a shit day at work: "south." do not ignore the mighty pipas. gail

nick drake made to love magic (island): look, people, there was nothing wrong with time of no reply (plus it ended with those amazing four last songs) and no drake intro classier than way to blue, and most of all they didn't feel like product; this does. posthumous string overdubs are always always a bad idea (just ask hank williams), and reserving an unheard demo of "river man" for the 7-inch is inexcusable. glad that the fifth last song was found, glad that it's as lovely as "tow the line," which would've made a nice addendum to no reply. but jeez, can't somebody just take all the extant unreleased drake tape, stick it on a 3-CD set, and refrain from messing with an un-mess-worthy catalogue? clarissa

pipas a cat escaped (matinee): one of the great pipas records. came out in 2002 I think, just after cf15 came out and just around the time of pipas' shows at our various cf tenth anniversary shows. there is the slick dance pop à la lush on "the conversation." the embittered relationship's-over tune "cruel and unusual" which shows a darker side to the london duo which is so often unfairly characterized as supertwee. for originality it is "barbapapa," which features ms. nunez-fernandez singing over her own voice, singing and rapping circles around herself in a most inventive way. she's lucky like that: like a björk or birkin, there is no one else with this voice. "rock and/or roll" also moves the crowd's big ass. gail

colleen everyone alive wants answers (leaf): colleen has handwriting like lupe's only one quarter the size. I can barely read the song titles! she's actually called cecile schott, and she is from paris. it's a cinematic and surreal platter where things are mysterious and delicate; it's all crackling repetition, lulling loops and children chattering. it is the music I would choose if I could float down the cam river in one of those adorable little gondolas in the magic hour in the autumn light. gail

nancy sinatra nancy sinatra (attack): jarvis cocker, as she puts it, "totally gets the nancy thing," but this is not 1968, as good a case as they make for it. morrissey's song is probably the best song-qua-song here, although it's essentially a song for morrissey to sing while imagining wearing a nancy sinatra wig. when I saw her play, though, she was maybe most excited about thurston moore's "mama's boy," and I kind of agree with her—because instead of even pretending to write something in the vein of her old hits, he went totally thurston, nasty intervals and all, and came up with a new way to use her limited, peculiar, sort of wonderful instrument. major points to her for being up for it. clarissa

the screen prints perfect city (twenty songs, 1998­2000) (earworm): ok. do you want to know what my first impression of the screen prints was, two days ago and light years behind everyone else, looking backwards instead of forth? I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was everything that i think of in my dreams. messy music and mostly unintelligible lyrics, but catchy! what i loved was that I hardly understood, but that it could mean anything i wanted it to. tonight it hit me. the screen prints are like a rorschach test. like the monkees in a bedroom karaoke. like mccarthy on catnip. like saturday looks good to me if the guy could sing. like the supreme dicks if they had been happier. I could go on. but all comparisons are too obvious and banal, they reveal more about my terrible memory than about their beautiful unselfconscious soul-warming, englishness? now I can't get them out of my itunes. I'm still trying to figure out what it is. but I'm too far gone and have already spent two nights pressing 'repeat'. promise, it's not too late, you oughta run while you can. lou

jane birkin rendez-vous (capitol): this good, though not great, album frames jane b's (now stronger) trademark breathy birdsong against a sequence of other people's songs—and, to generally lovely effect. the highlight is "canary, canary" with yosui enque, the lowlight "smile" with some guy called brian molko—a puzzling, nasal aberation explicable perhaps only as a management pitch to the indie audience. / serge is there of course, ghostly in the background (how could he not be?)—particularly on ''je m'apelle jane" and manu chao's "te souveniens-tu" but unlike on its slightly cheesy predecessor arabesque—a world music tinged take on a collection of gainsbourgia, jane sounds like she's having fun with a selection of new / old men (and the odd woman). I'm glad. stephen

devendra banhart rejoicing in the hands (young god): he's a handsome kook and tries just so hard (like sitting atop a silly pillow like he's a meditating yogi—on stage!) it's so easy to hate him for all the hype. but this record is a quiet delight—better than the other stuff and we're superimpressed. he used to give us our takeout orders at angelica kitchen you know. gail

david kilgour frozen orange (merge): one of new zealand's grandmasters teamed up with lambchop seems like something I'd make up for myself. mr. kilgour's scruffy miniatures have been deserving the breadth of nashville's finest since becky davis put "point that thing someplace else" on her turntable and I felt the world widen. (echo & the bunnymen, too: thanks, ms. davis, wherever you are.) wide, lazy, spacey and crumbly, these songs are easy on the ears and easy on the head and well, just plain easy. nice deepsea paintings, too. daniel

home home (emi): around this house we like our benjamin biolay. if it took a while to get used to home, the project he shares with his hideously deformed wife (uh, not) chiara mastroianni, it's because we wish we were singing duets with the dear boy. the happily married duo is unpretentiously trying to make an album of road trip music for the butt-crack generation and mostly it's likable pop. benji darling, no need to impersonate serge, we adore you as you are. gail

benjamin biolay rose kennedy (virgin): I never thought a concept album about the kennedy clan made by a french pop dude with cute shaggy hair would change my life so much but I really play this shit like there are no other records in the house. it's suave and elegant and just plain beautifully marvellous, marvellously beautiful. the one with samples of marilyn monroe is my favorite by far; it just puts me in a mood for flirting. can't wait for his third solo thing. gail

benjamin biolay négatif (virgin): a gorgeous but indulgent double album that in no way lives up to the promise of rose kennedy but it is still better than about 97% of the records in existence. gail

keren ann not going anywhere (capitol): cf coverstar does her great french pop in english here which is okay but we like the french stuff. like kings of convenience, she is digging into some heavy shit lyrically perhaps it's better to not know what she's singing about (so buy the frenchie one!). no, really, get them both. she's a master of craft and twinkle. gail

coralie clément salle des pas perdus (nettwerk/capitol): another super ancient record (sorry, but it had to be reviewed!) by benjamin biolay's little sister, coralie clement who has a high voice and sings very pretty songs. gail

the magnetic fields i (nonesuch): honestly now could any songwriter follow up an epic thingie such as 69 love songs with anything quite as grand? there is no way. of course the gimmick of sequencing something in alphabetical order is not such a great idea but it is classic stephin merritt—I'm sure his record company were not happy about it. all magnetic fields albums to me have their standouts and this one has plenty: the exquisite gay club dance floor filler "I thought you were my boyfriend," a too-slow version of the classic 1998 seven-inch that appeared on the chickfactor compilation "I don't believe you" (arguably one of the man's top tracks ever) and "I don't really love you anymore." which means that to my ears there are no more hits here. however. I just returned from touring with the MFs across europe, where every audience giggles and beams at "I wish I had an evil twin". so these songs are ingrained in my brain but they fail to sparkle in the way that "with whom to dance" or "take ecstasy once did." so I do heart i but not 100% kids. gail

joe and bing daybreak (rev-ola): in their ongoing quest to unearth and reissue lush lost pop gems, rev-ola have very wisely begun to call on the expertise of long-time friend of chickfactor and all round good guy keith darcy. this time keith's found a wonderful (and cripplingly rare) piece of 1971 acoustic folk-pop which, strangely, found itself arranged and dollied up by none other than brazilian wonder deodato. doesn't that sound extraordinary? largely, it is. tim

max richter the blue notebooks (fatcat): I find it rare these days that music can evoke a sense of another world—or of the 'otherworldly' but this really does that for me—as did 'memoryhouse'—max richter's earlier suite of harmonic imagery ("album" somehow seems an inappropriate description). there are no lyrics - just tilda swinton occasionally intoning virginia woolfesque pieces over the tapping of an antique typewriter. all the pat descriptions: 'contemporary classical', 'ambient electronica' and so on don't really do—and wouldn't convince you but I swear you will be moved by this—in a quiet afternoon sort of way. I don't know anything about max richter apart from these sounds—the name sounds like he could be in german porn movies but there is no sex in this music—and it's all the better for that. stephen

denise james it's not enough to love (rainbow quartz): a big-haired classic pop throwback who we just went to see at the 12 bar, detroit's denise james is just from another time and place and we love her. it's jangly and sad in a way that would get you through a seriously bad bad bad breakup. gail

nellie mckay get away from me (columbia): there's this store in downtown olympia called drees. it's like a fancy gift shop that sells china and bric-a-brac. it's a fascinating place because although it is a deeply comforting environment (beautiful china settings and damask table cloths) it has also got this weird "you don't belong here" vibe. when anyone with the slightest whiff of sketchiness (by their definition) comes in the door, one of the salesladies follows said shopper around to make sure they don't swipe anything. the music that they play is always this type of jazzy show-tunery that is seemingly sent through a compressor that robs it of any vitality. so, to get to the point: nellie mckay's aunt chris is one of the aforementioned salesladies at drees and nellie mckay's music sounds exactly like the music that has played at that shop for over two decades. weird. lois

fennesz venice (touch): love him, love him, and when plays came out it sounded like a tour-guide's cruise around the future. but this is exactly the same kind of tool-building he's been doing for the last few albums, and the same tools are coming out of it: to say he ought to use it in the service of something bigger is not the same thing as saying he ought to get david sylvian to sing on one of his pieces, which is what he does here. plenty of fire beneath "circassian," otherwise this is to endless summer what spirit of america was to the beach boys' endless summer. clarissa

would-be-goods the morning after (matinee): naturally someone else should be reviewing this! but no one else has so it's gotta be me. I took the photos all over the album, which are quite lovely, and somehow grown up and beautiful in a way that makes sense with the album. the would-be-goods are a very english band led by jessica griffin, she is a lady with many stories to tell and also a mum, and her songs are definitely showing that maturity these days. still, that doesn't stop them from rocking out in classic pop style and I love the ones with the girl group harmonies the best, like "miss la-di-dah." gail

robert wyatt cuckooland (hannibal): it would be difficult and seem churlish not to like a record by robert wyatt—for the worthy reasons of history, sympathy and human politics alone. but fortunately this wonderful, whimsical, wonky music—a study in insouciance and elegantly layered complexity—makes worthiness unnecessary. it is simply very beautiful, haunted and poetic. it's leavened with a dash of humour and is underpinned by an enviable lyrical and musical insight. it is worth purchasing—or downloading or whatever you do—for the delightful, sad version of "raining in my heart" alone. I want to be like this when I am older—avec beard, sans wheelchair. stephen

mark tranmer scoop of ice cream moon (kooky uk): he is one of the montgolfier brothers of salford (suburb of manchester which you should know cause so much british music royalty emerged from it), england, and he is the one behind all their beauteous, chilled instrumental songs and expressive guitar playing. this one is 12 songs that I immediately wanted to put into movies that haven't been made yet (lynne ramsay, take note). it is taking the edge off this ultracreepy and stressful time of our lives. gail

björk medulla (elektra): beautiful in conception, beautiful in execution: the owner of one of the world's most glorious natural vocal instruments calls all of her favorite voices that sound nothing like hers in to make a record. so why don't I ever feel like actually listening to it? maybe because it drapes itself sylphlike over its marble bench, arches its back, and stays like that for 45 minutes. björk has defined "björksong" into a corner, and it's a corner with a mirror in it, where she keeps striking her favorite poses. she needed a shakeup of her formula, and getting rid of the nonvoice sounds was surprisingly not it—she needs a foil. clarissa

kings of convenience riot on an empty street (astralwerks): once kindercore records' finest catch, now selling out venues in london before I know there is a show. the norwegian simon & garfunkel, and in case anyone didn't think so they start the album with a song called "homesick" which belongs on my old friends s&g compilation somewhere on disc 1. I know they annoy a few people but I would argue: forget about the lack of "originality"... feel the quality. refreshingly these boys can actually sing. also features some nice vocals by canadian chanteuse feist. a keeper. (itunes files under "alternative & punk". why?) josh

(the real) tuesday weld I, lucifer (dreamy) (six degrees) (pias): this album is 2 years old but it's been released so many times that it's kinda sorta new again. each version is different-ish but no better than the original. stephen coates put music to his pal glen duncan's novel (called I, lucifer) and this is the result: dapper smoking jacket cabaret with a devilish wink. as kitschy as they are, the recordings have a depth and resonance that are somehow lost live. we've always adored the studio magic that mr. weld is capable of and we hope the next album he puts out is all new material please! gail

feist let it die (polydor): personally biggest musical surprise this year. totally eclectic vocalist and songwriter. in my coded jargon "eclectic", much like "funky", is a tip-off that something really sucks. not true in this case! website (www.listentofeist.com) claims that "this album for the missing link between ye old folk, the brill building era, doo-wop and minimal pop arrangements." I know, it sounds a bit horrible and tragic but in fact is pretty amazing. you would do yourself a disservice if you didn't give this record a chance. indescribably good, fantastic production. my nominee for best record of 2004. in the future middle-aged jewish advertising executives will be listening to this in their car instead of streisand. (itunes files under "rock"??? ) josh

my favorite the happiest days of our lives (double agent): smiths devoteés to the bitter end, these new romantic gloomy synthpop kids from long island have put out their louder than bombs—all three joan of arc EPs are here in their entirety, along with the "lost" fourth EP, all of it obsessed with high school, detectives, mental institutions and lonely international travel. a couple of tracks have been fiddled with, but the real excess is in the second disc, where 14 "controversial" remixes await the particularly faithful. I was hoping for a new longplayer—some of these songs are becoming quite ragged tigers—and on some of the new tracks singer michael grace's tenor is a little wobbly (eh, I know you and you cannot sing, that's nothing, you should hear me play piano), but it wouldn't be louder than bombs if it weren't all a bit too much. best title: "james dean (awaiting ambulance)." daniel

the blue nile high (sanctuary): I so much wanted to like this—partly because of the devastating effect their album hats had on me and partly because of the preposterous way they conduct business. paul buchanan could sing a takeaway pizza menu and you would cry (and feel better and suddenly realise how meaningful everything is) but the music doesn't sound as if it should have taken them as long to make as it has. it's not bad—just rather pedestrian. the weight of a consensus of critical approbation makes most things difficult to listen to—I can't even look at the cover of pet sounds now—but ten years was perhaps too long to wait for this—not because it's bad but just because it isn't amazing. stephen

various artists so young but so cold: underground french music 1977­1983 (tigersushi): the difference, of course, being that when french people turn into robots, they don't think the idea is kind of funny, they think it's kind of profound. which means there's a kind of exuberance missing here that would do a lot of good for some of these new-wave-by-numbers bands. they've got the chilly mechanical sound, but maybe only kas product's siouxsie-with-mascara-in-her-mouth title track is as vigorous as it ought to be. clarissa

susanna & the magical orchestra list of lights and buoys (rune grammophon): heavy ethereal and cinematic shit from norwegian electro-folkists whose backing music is breathtakingly beautiful and yet the knockout girl singer kind of overwhelms the beauty—she is too prominent in the mix and she overdoes it on the dolly parton cover—but it certainly has its charms. gail

fan modine homeland (grimsey): the magically delicious world of fan modine (aka one-man band gordon zacharias plus a select crew of his extravagantly talented friends like cf gal joan wasser) is too twee, perhaps, for those who think the hives hung the moon, but for lovers—of love, of aural drama, of visionary down-tempo pop—homeland should be your fall weekend-getaway destination. cuddle up in your favorite woolly with your favorite mate and... you'll soon figure out what to do when you arrive. on homeland, zacharias further explores the obsessive themes of love, death and travel (usually of the armchair variety) he shares with the magnetic fields, though homeland's warm, buzzing synths and whispery vocals are more akin to grandaddy slowed down and reverbed to infinity. on the album's choicest tracks, zacharias' breathy tenor is brilliantly backed by new orleans band hercules (see also: cf mixtape 1) and a terrific string ensemble, harkening back to the less frantic moments of the divine comedy and momus, or morrissey at his most music-hall. but these comparisons are merely for reference's sake: fan modine is a true original; despite the obviousness of some of his influences, what zacharias has done with them is utterly unique and at times terrifyingly beautiful. warming as a lemon-scented hot toddy, homeland is zacharias at his best. more, please! taphenia

various artists world of make believe (chartreuse): you realise this whole album is like the doors even though it's a bunch of different songs you dumbass. sometimes we find mike alway's aesthetic is so narrow it's hard for anyone else's ears to squeeze into the tunnel. standards, kitsch, peter sellers soundtrax, no dark side, but a little sinister and ultimately quite likable. we are glad he is doing what he is doing because no one else is really. gail

elvis costello & the imposters the delivery man (lost highway): how like elvis to take the imposters to the deep south to try to get the "moe-joe" dr. evil talks about. how like him to actually get it. bastard. great to hear him back with a band so hot all he has to do is let loose—"button my lip" isn't a very good song as such, but if the whole album sounded like that it'd sort of be his best record. best indulgence of his r&b fetish: "monkey to man," a riff on dave bartholomew's "the monkey," which he's also recorded, I hear. best vocal: lucinda williams' on "there's a story in your voice." also, at some point this was apparently going to be a concept album, and three cheers for letting go of that. clarissa

james william hindle prospect park (badman): this one came out of nowhere to me and rates high on the "gorgeous indoor winter listening" scale. my boyfriend thinks the intros all sound like sting, but I think he's crazy: this gentle, folksy paean to the new york area is sublime throughout, and hindle kind of sounds like chris stamey, which gets big bonus points in this camp. three thumbs up. liz

broadcast ha ha sound (warp): yeah I know this one is ancient but I have to review it because it's like the best LP of all of, what year was it? 2002? watching trish do "colour me in" gave me hope that all bands could just get mind-bogglingly better with each album. I can't wait to hear the next one. and you have to love her pushing mod fashion back into the mainstream (who didn't appreciate all those vintage-style white patent gogo boots flooding the market last year after ms keenan posed in vogue in her eley kishimoto). she seems quite comfy in the spotlight at last. gail

laura nyro eli and the thirteenth confession, new york tendaberry, gonna take a miracle (sony): laura nyro is one of the great american voices, a writer of deathless songs, the original soul diva latina (yes, latina: born laura nigro in the bronx in 1947, died of cancer at 49). so why don't hipsters listen to her? maybe some gentlemen are put off by the fact that she's been claimed by the ladies. sure, lots of her fans are crazy earth goddesses who burn incense and are in love with her, but what's not to love? no one has ever done that sultry soul hippie look better, and no one has ever sung better than on these, her three acknowledged classic albums. now's your chance to make up for lost time, since they have been reissued with extra tunes and new liner notes at low prices. eli from 1968 is the ground-breaker, a virtuoso soul/rock/folk/jazz/broadway/gospel fusion never since equalled. it should sit next to astral weeks in the anal lists of all-time greatest albums. tendaberry from 1969 is a totally far-out orchestrated song-cycle (don't start with this one). miracle from 1971 is a passionate live-in-the-studio assault on soul classics with labelle (sounds better on vinyl, where the singing all mushes together). p.s. actually her unacknowledged classic, the debut album that she recorded in 1966 when she was eighteen, is just as good as these three—better, if what you really like is pop songs. it was originally called more than a new discovery, then reissued as laura nyro, now available as a cheap cd called first songs. it features "stoney end", the most perfect song ever written. peter m.

belle & sebastian dear catastrophe waitress (rough trade): it's not their best if you ask us—but each album they do has some of their best ones on it. but it is inspirational and sounds even better after leaving it for a few months. the thin lizzy ish track is not my favourite but lupe plays it like every morning. I'm sure I don't see ear to ear with the boy rock critics but I can't get enough of "if you find yourself caught in love" and "asleep on a sunbeam" and I don't think it took a trevor horn to make these songs some of the best pop ever. more sarah martin vocals please.gail

air talkie walkie (astralwerks): are they on planet weed? planet fluff? we only like air when we sing along and make up our own obscene lyrics. their prog sounds are nice—sometimes they even remind us of our beloved mr biolay—but there's also a hollow hole where the spiritual should be. oops, I did it again: I am expecting way too much from pop music. sorry! gail

brian wilson smile (nonesuch): it takes courage to mess with a legend, or so we're led to believe. reconstructed and re-thought by big bri, his old mate van dyke and his new pals in the wondermints, this is like a happy dream of how a pensionable brian might have presented smile back then. there's sometimes a shadow of the imaginary real smile over the whole thing, especially where familiar moments are re-thought (or sung in a 40 years-older voice). it's a piece which needs you to be caught up in its suite-y swirl. now and again, I find myself too involved in working out what's inspiration and what's forensics. also, it seems to have become compulsory to type the title as smile, and it's driving me mad. tim

eleni mandell afternoon (zedtone): los angelina and chickfactor interviewee miss mandell has made another countryish record for getting you through the wee hours when your nicotine brain pain won't admit you to slumberland. her woozy voice is the stuff dreams are made of. da top track here is called "american boy" and it's making me think of one in particular right now. you can hear it if you want here: http://www.elenimandell.com/. gail

mia schoen champions (library): once you get used to it, it's best voice out of the southern hemisphere other than gal costa. I've always been a fan of tone deaf guitars. lupe

bebel gilberto s/t (six degrees): basically this is a lot like the last bebel gilberto record except with fewer production gimmicks overall. this will make it slightly less popular for trendy bars and restaurants to play while you tuck into your 10oz sirloin but have no fear I'm sure they will find a way to get ahold of the inevitable daft punk remixes or something. highlight is "every day you've been away" as it features only guitar and vocals. not quite as immediately catchy as "tanto tempo" but enthusiasts should not be dissatisfied. I paid hard currency for this record and don't regret it. (itunes files under "latin".) josh

angel dean & sue garner pot liquor (diesel only): oh, what's not to love about this album of sorrow-laden, country-fried tunes about graveyards, bad dreams, and the dangers of being trapped by the swirling tides (both symbolic and real)? as naïve (and self-aware) as a collection of carter family tunes, and as purposefully archaic as late-period freakwater, it's hard to tell just how serious we're meant to take these sweetly melodic, over-the-top hoedown tunes, but there's little irony or condescension here; instead there's a wealth of convincingly heartfelt emotions tempered by the two lasses' twisted harmonies and mordant wit. it's like trailor bride without the kitsch, or salem 66 after singing lessons and a trip to nashville. buy this record if you miss the geraldine fibbers, or just feel like getting sloppy to the sound of cicadas and mockingbirds somewhere below the mason-dixon line. ldb

kate rusby underneath the stars (pure): hither comes the soldier trudging from his company / nearer comes the sailor boy returning from the sea / yonder dreams the farmer's lad beneath the apple tree / all fell for the yellowhammer song of kate rusby / keening as she leans upon a grave upon a moor / tinkling like a brook that splashes falling from the tor / waiting by the woeful waves that wash the stony shore / makes me think I cannot live without her any more / some folk think they're going back to 1981 / or stretching far in time to find the sixties fun fun fun / rusby understands the centuries the music's come / kisses it to life again to give to everyone / let me be, she sings and lets the rhythm ply her pain / all around the sound is whispering spring is here again. joe

cat power you are free (matador): the simplest of songs, timeless. a couple notes and it couldn't be anyone else. there are songs here that you could listen to forever (and at some of her shows it feels like you do). the first five on their own would still have been the best album of the year. no one has done this numb, bare thing so well since neil young in the 70s; he can finally retire now. doesn't matter whether she's a kook or a freak, what's real and what's an act, where she's coming from or who she knows. it's not about the person, it's about the voice. peter m.

all girl summer fun band summer of 98 (magic marker): we love the summertime fun of portland's best girlpop act as much as we love sno-cones, bomb pops, and mojitos. they probably invented the word 'rad' too. gail

sam phillips a boot and a shoe (nonesuch): "when no one's listening / I have so much to say," croons ex-xtian-pop diva sam phillips on her gorgeous new album—her second release on nonesuch, home to 'uncommercial' artists ranging from laurie anderson to wilco and our lord stephin merritt. phillips hits her musical stride with this fancifully titled album. like 2001's fan dance, another exquisite collection of miniatures, a boot and a shoe abandons complex production for intimate, sensual recordings—barely more than acoustic guitar and drums—that focus on the sheer beauty of phillips' slightly ravaged alto, rich melodies and casually brilliant poetry. ballads like "if I could write" and "how to quit" welcome you into her twilight world even as the album's dramatic finale, "one day late" ("help is coming/one day late..."), sends a chill through the place your heart once was. ldb

phoenix alphabetical (astralwerks): steely dan for a generation that missed out. personally I like it. except track 3, which sucks. drums are crisp and "punchy". nice breathy synthy-style vocals. if I were french, I would join this band as I would be assured of getting all the ladies. josh

camera obscura underachievers please try harder (elefant/merge): someone once remarked, at a chickfactor party where camera obscura were performing actually, that they sounded like they'd never had sex. that is pretty harsh, okay, and hey they are a very saucy and attractive band I must say. but that fellow had a point: they are breezy, innocent, childlike—and damn catchy. I would have to say they sound so totally like belle & sebastian even if I didn't know the onetime romantic links between the two bands' frontpersons. gail

eternal sunshine soundtrack (hollywood): jon brion writes the swooniest, loopiest, most thoughtful movie music around. any new score by him (especially as his albums are as rare as halley's comet) is cause for excitement. this one is particularly rich, playing of the movie's themes of memory, identity, and love lost and found. it's not quite as romantic as punch-drunk love, but what it lacks in full-out seductive power it makes up for in drama. beck's version of korgis's "everybody's gotta learn sometimes" and the classic elo "mr. blue sky" make up for the polyphonic spree song, which has even grown on me a little. though don't get me wrong, those people are weird. lisa

the sixth form s/t (chartreuse): more english fetishism from mike alway's new label. it's like being present at a cast party after a bbc taping of a nancy mitford story. digestive biscuits and pg tips, anyone? gail

patty waters you thrill me (water): an album that exists to illuminate another album, namely sings, and specifically its vein-popping freakout on "black is the colour of my true love's hair." the context is that that was the only time she did that—most of this is like the rest of sings, the purring miniatures that could've been the soundtrack to the composition of the pen-and-ink drawings in the joy of sex, beards and all. plus a few billie holiday covers (the kind men like!!), plus a beer commercial that's sort of the key to it all: this was the mode she could switch on any time, whether she was falling in love or shilling for brew. clarissa

the delgados universal audio (chemikal underground): emma delgado is the kinda girl chickfactor wishes it was—as unfussy and cool as a girl in a band can possibly get. still, this one is less epic than that last one and I have to say I wish emma sang all the songs cause I'm not as keen on the boy. gail

trash can sinatras weightlifting (spinart): stuart belle & sebastian reportedly helped these scots laddies make their first album in a decade, and let's face it, we yanks stopped noticing them after cake. it's the same gig: postcardy melodies and orange juicey vocals with a layer of shoegaze sheen, although this has faded to a slightly drippy vh1 thing in the decade gone by (mr. murdoch, did you consider producing?). the opening "welcome back" makes you roll down the windows and grin because you have a perfect pop album in your hands; this doesn't hold out for the whole thing, I'm afraid, but still: trashcan sinatras, thanks for holding out and coming back. next up pretty please: the darling buds. daniel

saint etienne finisterre (mantra): back into the breach this glimmery trio goes, with the inside-joke samples and the unabashed eurodisco beats and the increasingly angry leftist lyrics rubbing well-dressed shoulders with the usual stiff-upper-lip rainy melancholy. as always, there are some gorgeous sonics—the acoustic guitar CD-skipping on "action," the oldies turntable coda on "B92," and the motown hammond on "stop and think it over." as always, too, there's a clunker—a guest rapper isn't the only thing wrong with the cringey anthem "soft like me"—but cracknell & co. are still the finest band to put you on the dancefloor and get you weepy, all at the same time. daniel

nina nastasia run to ruin (touch and go): nina's crossover record this ain't. it makes her previous stuff sound like the beach boys' party album. the music is weird and disorienting (I'm talking about nina now): often both the vocal tunes and the accompaniment (mostly acoustic plucking, bowing, and hitting) seem to have only reluctant relation to a chord sequence. the words are very compressed and powerful: strangely, they are even more effective to read than to hear, which is often true of classical songs, seldom of pop. if she isn't a poet, she could be. the dominant lyrical mode is counterfactual—in the shadow of how things should have been. her tone is by turns regretful, bitter, ironic, or just plain dark. the result is haunting but not depressing: the touch is light. she'd make a good ghost. peter m.

mark robinson origami & urbanism (tomlab): just when it looked like mr. robinson had blipped out forevermore we get this, the album of the year (excluded from competition: musicians I know personally.) tiny songs with big sonics: it's like madelines and strong, strong coffee. mark gives up the usual tonguetwister breathy lyrics, with some oddly separated tinkertoy guitars and occasional bursts of enormous organ thanks to calvin johnson, who produced. boy oh boy am I liking this. daniel

scout niblett I am (secretly canadian): this record is a fake. peter m.

holly golightly slowly but surely (damaged goods): as reliable in the sense of you-know-what-you're-getting at this point as her old mentor billy childish. a minor-key waltz with major chords thrown in for surprise value, or vice versa, or a reverently deadpan cover of somebody's forgotten ripoff of "fever," or a song that sounds like someone preternaturally calmly singing one of the angriest songs on nuggets: that's holly g. territory, nobody else's. and mean, oh yes: stick "mother earth," a pre-1952 copyright that sounds like it's where "down in the flood" came from, at the end of a poker-faced sequence of breakup songs, and it comes off like the world's most final kiss-off. clarissa

stephin merritt pieces of april soundtrack (nonesuch): it's like hearing a merritt mixtape I made for someone in the late 90s. I didn't see the movie and even this music wouldn't make me want to. sorry, katie, you and I have the same birthday but it isn't enough. gail

aretha franklin the queen in waiting (sony): now I'm as ready as anyone to worship at the shrine of the greatest female singer of our time, but I must dissent from the chorus of revisionist euphoria that greeted the release of this 2-cd selection from the ten (!) albums that aretha recorded for columbia between 1960 and 1965. when I was a lad the view was that columbia didn't understand the 18-year-old gospel singer: they felt that aretha's awesome vocal and musical abilities obliged them to show her off in the "classy" settings associated with the reigning queen of song, ella fitzgerald. so we got standards and showtunes performed at a snail's pace, with a very quiet jazz combo or orchestra lurking behind the vocal pyrotechnics. all very impressive but the only really fun numbers are the handful of tunes in postwar vernacular idioms (pop, country, r&b). I'd recommend hunting down the 1964 album running out of fools instead of this. nice pix of the stylish young aretha though. peter m.

new order retro (london): whoever saw fit to send me a promotional copy of this new order box set, I love you. retro is a strong argument that new order is the most perfect band of our time—sure, they only do one thing, but each relentless beat and each flat, surfy guitar note has the chilly perfection of that one snapshot someone took of you at a party and you look fantastic even though your mouth is open and half the frame is taken up by some girl's arm. disc 1: all the hits, everything everything, and you know every word. disc 2: the best tracks, all the early gloomy stuff including those great froggy noises on "the perfect kiss." disc 3: 12" mixes, a little heavy on the later stuff for my taste but, sheesh, those vocoders on the 12" of "bizarre love triangle" and the mix of "shellshock" rescued from the pretty in pink soundtrack just slay me. disc 4: live, unlistenable. daniel

stephen duffy & the lilac time keep going (folk modern): sometimes the old guys who've been at it for, oh, a number of years tell you oh yeah this latest album is my best and it's like oh yeah right mr duffy. but in this case the rich and famous songwriter (barenaked ladies), producer (robbie williams) and ex-duran duran boy may have a point. it's a really personal and touching record and the songs are as infectious as a virus on the tube. even the song about 9-11 is rather inoffensive. gail

the masionettes heartache avenue: the very best of (cherry red): from the inexhaustible vault of cherry red comes a collection from a band who wore black turtlenecks, hung around in vintage sportscars, hired two fashion models to sing backups while wearing op-art miniskirts and then announced they weren't throwbacks. and they weren't, really: these go-go pop tunes are so synth-drenched that the style council's version of the 1960s sounds brutally authentic in comparison. while playing this album no less than three people walked into the room, and one by one they all did the same thing: put on enormous fake smiles, exaggeratedly shimmied, and then stopped and sullenly stalked out of the room. daniel

quigley's point at swim two birds (vespertine): mr roger quigley, otherwise known as the velvet-piped redheaded lyricist in the montgolfier brothers, arrives on the scene with a crackly and melancholy platter we have played many times. I prefer "darling"—always makes me think of that film with julie christie and dirk bogarde. gail

the pastels last great wilderness (geographic): a chimey little soundtrack by our scots friends, with wisps of the chicago scene courtesy producer john mcentire. the sly stone cover is a bit dull, but jarvis cocker comes on board towards the end to sing "I picked a flower," which I've put on a couple of indian summer mix tapes. daniel

liz janes poison & snakes (asthmatic kitty): this here's a new chickfactor star—ms. janes isn't afraid to put a little grit in her poetry, add a little feedback to her ukulele and put a little snarl in the vocals even when there's a vibraphone involved. there's bluegrass and country here, tempered by some elegant little flourishes—music for putting on vintage clothes just to hit the dive bars. daniel

gillian welch soul journey (acony): come election day the marshals getting off trains from down the mountain and smacking their batons at the schoolhouse door so wendell and myself just took the horses to the river and talking about what miss gillian done. wendell saying she sings higher and more lonesome than any cuckoo troubadour from here to ethel, but I shrugging and wondering, thinking she's making with these drummers and electric boys but she don't sound such a high lonesome sound. but she done that before, wendell says, an he's right too so I'm just thinking it's what she sings not making me all sigh inside. she treads bob's flaming steps, wendell says, yarning about wrecking ball going back in time been in the lowlands too long, that voice that don't care while it walks the territory. I know, but it's only when she sings a lover's prayer with the mouthorgan lonely like the last catfish in the lake that she makes me go flutter again. then we finished with the horses and we looking back down the mountain. joe

the saturday people s/t (foxyboy): the best d.c. band in recent times gives up a first and apparently final long player and it's a perfect dish. we wish they'd get off their duffs and come to london to play shows. gail

various artists romantic and square is hip and aware (matinee): the smiths are not an easy band to cover, and I'm not sure anyone should be making tribute albums to them! it's just total madness. still, for some reason, and I know I sound totally predictable with this assessment, but the winners here are the girls: lupe pipas doing a sinister take on "this night has opened my eyes"; jessica would-be-goods doing a la-la-lovely version of "back to the old house"; and pam pines does "ask" and makes it all look so damn easy as usual. the boys' takes vary in quality however but are generally too faithful in execution, too deliberately smithsy in style (danger!). gail

morrissey you are the quarry (attack): donald davie understood, leave what you love: for england is filled with hate and ruinous, stupid people, and better dreamed amid grain silos and vast cool libraries. but the black atlantic's tide swings, absence makes them fidget and wonder, and your silence will draw them in the end begging for words. take a long spoon back, the porridge is thick. ­ we could be fwiends, you and me. ­ no, jonathan, I don't think so: that reaffirmation of negation, cleaving to the adolescent refusal whose nailing was reynolds' finest five minutes, was as inspiring a gesture as most of the record itself. "irish blood, english heart" is puissant and gnomic, "I'm not sorry" swirling and hypnotic. but the ladders of acclaim are about as bogus as he'd all along deemed the snakes of derision: in all this is possibly no better than kill uncle, which I expect makes it one of the records of the year. joe

ac newman the slow wonder (matador): grows on me every time I hear it, and I can't blame him for wanting something easier than the logistical issues of the new pornographers every once in a while; it is tough, though, not to hold a grudge against it for not being a np album. overcome this urge. it's a great little catalogue of power-pop strategies that doesn't even quote the old masters, and he gets extra credit for having one musician over quota in his touring group—you know, an additional guy to play all the little oboe and maraca and sampler parts that nudge a song into the next higher point-scoring category. it is, however, impossible to tell what the hell he's singing about most of the time. clarissa

the verlaines you're just too obscure for me (flying nun): the "control" element in any experiment for what is good. unless the "control element" should be officially the most mediocre thing—because the verlaines are the best thing. I am happy with the measurement "oh the beatles? they are about .4 of a verlaine". have you ever heard the verlaines? you have to, to know what music is. david

the finishing school destination girl (track & field): for these guys the musical clock stopped in 1967, before rock's unfettering vietnam roar of angst and pretension. no problem: retrophiliacs tend to cope better with the lighter side of their musical heritage than the darker. sasha bell and her essex green chums have taken the trouble to understand the mechanics of mid-1960s pop, rather than just grabbing at the aesthetic as many tragic indie bands have done. the tunes are fresh, memorable, varied, and sung with panache. the school offer a convincing impersonation of well brought-up college kids who've let their hair grow and smoked a little pot. but a spiteful murmur insists that bell has worn red clogs and culottes on stage, so we must be wary. peter m.

deerhoof milk man (kill rock stars/atp): a cutie trout mask replica, except even stranger. yet miraculously unpretentious, fresh, and delightful. moomin-voiced bass-wrangler satomi matsuzaki is surely a chickfactor star in waiting. peter m.

stars heart (paper bag): from the moment they hit the chorus on "elevator love song" I knew that track would make me misty for the rest of my life. one reason is that the word "home" is the saddest thing I can hear in a song, who knows why, even when I am home and am standing outside my kitchen sipping a negroni and getting misty over the new stars song. but the other reason is that stars, when they're not futzing around being martini-shaker clever, nail that perfect sad quiet thing that makes you feel all bruised and lonely for that one time you sat on the train by yourself and the bitter truth of the world hit you. "look up" and a couple others have a similar affect but it's "elevator love song" that's song of the year. daniel

decemberists her majesty (kill rock stars): all of the hype is deserved, little decemberists. firmly ensconced in the new west coast paisley underground (god, remember when that meant something?) of beachwood sparks, her majesty also has elements of all of our favorite twee bands from overseas. one quibble: if you insist on writing a song about a midlist writer, why myla goldberg? she doesn't need your publicity. how about jonathan coe? there's an easy name to rhyme. lisa

the fairways this is farewell (matinée): delectably fluffy gentlepop from san francisco band with aislers connections (ex). it's odds and ends and tour singles and stuff and it's sadly the end of these guys hence the title but if you dig it they are now called the young tradition. the one that puts me in a better place is called "fine day"—I guess a lot of us would rather stay indoors these days. it sounds far bouncier at times than anything I can be comfortable with but these guys were one really sweet band. gail

lloyd cole music in a foreign language (sanctuary): "what pale fire I ever had is gone / but you don't want to hear that in a song". how characteristic of the dear fellow to insert at the record's very start this teasing allusion—not, in truth, very thoroughly obscured, as though he did not want his audience to miss the jest—to the occasion in january 2000 when my editor and I met in camden to attend one of his concerts, and I arrived clutching a copy of that self-same novel (on which my editor proceeded to expostulate, though he would claim two years later that he had not then read it). elsewhere, too, he does tellingly little to hide the benign influence of my own earlier articles on his work. (see also inter alia review of etc, cf15, 2002, and "a long way down", papercuts 2, spring 1999, passim.) joe

the rogers sisters three fingers (troubleman unlimited): one more finger and a thumb away from the b-52's, so all hail the rhythm section. there's more conviction here than there is songwriting, though: look at the title of "freight elevator" and it's hard to remember how it goes, ditto for looking at the lyrics. and then miyuki turns on his new wave hiccup and the sisters lean into the hook and it's oh yeah this one. the only words that stick are "fantasies are nice," which still sounds like a first draft. three of the four songs where miyuki is credited first involve counting. clarissa

the clean anthology (merge): the only clean you'll ever need. thank you. lisa

movietone the sand and the stars (drag city): everyone's doing this heavy shit. it makes us wonder what the flying saucer attack guy is doing now. gail

andrew happy to be here (the bus stop label): there is a problem of wastage. andrew sandoval is making music the spitting image of the lame pop records of the late 60s you can pick up in thrift stores if not op shops around the world for 50¢, provided they are by no one the person who prices records has ever heard of. I mean, "mike preston," a case in point. this is simply wastage. the people who want to hear these kinds of records should not be supporting andrew's attempts when there is already such incredible excess. does this make me a person who doesn't believe in making new cups and cutlery while there is so much old cups and cutlery? yes. also, on the back of his record andrew looks like athol guy in 1968. that, I can dig. david

isobel campbell amorino (instinct): first long player under her own name, the wee ex cellist/singer of belle & sebastian, after a few records under the name gentle waves natch. this one is a grand orchestral and cinematic adventure thanks to bill wells and lots of her orch-pop mates—it conjures lee and nancy, mr morricone and occasionally even a marching band. you can really imagine a lot of the tracks in the movies. I quite like the helium voiced one's "love for tomorrow." gail

tindersticks waiting for the moon (beggars group): I could never get on board with these guys. they're sad, is that the thing? and he still sounds like aaron neville. yes he does. go listen to aaron neville and then tell me he doesn't sound like aaron neville. even gloomy mr. snicket wishes that the divine comedy would slap these chaps across the face with a velvet glove, drag them over to the stereo and play them some otis redding. daniel

britta phillips & dean wareham l'avventura (jetset): of all the nancy & lee albums, this is the most nancy & lee I've heard except for the albums that are actually by nancy & lee. the audible half of luna lay their jokey, deadpan vocals on top of thick, sluggish layers of gooey guitar and trucked-in drum sounds. it's a hipster's wet dream of cover choices—I recognized buffy saint marie and angel corpus christi, but the rest of you will have to tell me the others—and some smarmish originals that make you want to take a bath. in a good way. but still, in a way that makes you want a bath. daniel

color plates the forest of alvary (rock stars drop out): the first thing that's weird about this record is the artwork—I think it's a little strange to do a collage and then give photo credits to like, corel, inc., but that's just me. beneath the tolkien/stoner art lies some pretty swell folky pop, reminiscent of almost everything at the same time, and thus comforting in its familiarity. the tone of the record is a little dippy (the most outrageous title being "when villages were safe with smiles"), but I like the color plates despite, and perhaps for, their total unawareness of irony. liz

john fahey red cross (revenant): who knows how I got on the folk music promotional list, but this isn't really folk music anyway, just a posthumous cumulus cloud of sullen and growly guitar, including the chilliest version of "summertime" you've ever heard. I was sad when mr. fahey died but judging from this it sounds like he was about ready to shake off the mortal coil. comforting music for those who can't stand to be comforted. daniel

sidonie let it flow (rainbow quartz/bip bip): by the time this spanish three-piece are launching into their cover of madonna's "beautiful stranger" you are thinking not only "wow this sounds like the church" but also "when did the sitar stop sounding like an indian instrument and start sounding like some campy added-in carnaby street via cool britannia drag?" (and possibly adding the words "for christ's sake"). then you see the picture of them under the cd tray where they kind of look like an early 70s faces-type group of larrikins and you imagine them being "the band" in a movie starring frankie howerd as the owner of the hope and anchor and the director has just told them to wander round the set looking menacingly uninterested in society's values. the middle songs of the album like "all is cool in the evening" and "curious change" are heaps better, really driving and clever, and the soaring jacksons-meet-tavares (can you imagine that blend!) end to "through the hole" is pretty spectacular. david

janet bean and the concertina wire dragging wonder lake (thrill jockey): the freakwater/eleventh dream day gal gives us an album in the "I've seen it all, I've done it all, and gosh life is a strange thing on a long, dusty road, or anyway, that's what the barman tells me" vibe, complete with songs by randy newman and neil young, some whiskey-throated backups by kelly hogan and an ensemble of chicago's finest trying to un-thrill jockey themselves as much as they can. daniel

pram dark island (domino): pram, whose atmospheric nocturnal soundscapes surely gave inspiration to fellow brummies broadcast, now seem to have been on the receiving end of the influence. more open spaces, more keyboards, less guitar (pity, since they have one of the few good axemen around). rosie, the queen of discordant vocals, has stopped singing like a sleepwalker, and the lyrics are more of this world than before. the defining pram sound now is a lilting morriconic trumpet melody over cluster chords on a toy organ, with some ticking and rattling under the floorboards. you're never sure whether you're being lulled or spooked. music for a miniature expressionist automaton ballet. peter m.

palomar palomar iii, the revenge of palomar (self-starter foundation): clocking in at a pop-perfect 37 minutes, piii's exquisite pop sheen and infectious joy will help you face the world with a smile on your lips and a song in your heart—or your ipod. the bright faces donned by this brooklyn quartet (three girls with guitars, a guy drummer) give you the impression that every day is sunny at camp palomar. and maybe it is. combining the retrofit 60s girlie-pop of aisler's set with the wood-be-goods' pithy verbal assault and elf power's loud, melodic guitars, giddy harmonies and summery hallucinations, piii is upbeat without being witless, cloying or simply creepy—an object lesson that bands like polyphonic spree and cocorosie, among countless other young and sincere types, should study closely. even on potential downers, like "you dance bad," "work is a state function" and the vicious good fun of "knitting for pleasure"—palomar keeps it all buoyant, hooky and endlessly engaging. and anyone who uses a squeezy toy sample as a clicktrack gets my utter adoration. ldb

annie lennox bare (j): oh ms. lennox, dear me, dear me, dear me. daniel

bee and flower what's mine is yours (neurot): little criminals, an album by randy newman, has a great song called "rider in the rain", which I think is about a cowardly cowboy or something. bee and flower have a song called "riding on empty" which is kind of a stirring, gaudy, hipster development from this same great song, to which it actually bears no relation except in my mind. altogether the record is languid, dusty and even has a few streaks of old black grease on it, metaphorically speaking. sometimes they just bumsuck. but the first two minutes of "let it shine" is powerful like being really drunk and hearing some amazing gossip about two people who really never should have had sex with anyone, let alone each other, and then the next day it all makes sense. then the singing starts and it's a lovely carly simon-type thing. but anyway if I had to do a one-word review, I'd say "languid", definitely, or "linguini". david

andrew bird weather systems (grimsey): after a few jazz-type efforts with his band bowl of fire, mr. bird heads to the plains for this very pleasing, slightly countrified outing. much whistling and slidely violin, fingerpicking and singing saw, but little of that retro front-porch stuff that has become so tiresome. another quietly brilliant release from a label that's gaining on radio khartoum. daniel

dressy bessy little music (kindercore): great on headphones, cyndi lauper told me she really likes this band. "lipstick"—oh who on earth ever gets lipstick on their collar? you might as well just write contagion on your chest in mascara. no, I wasn't kissing anyone darling, but some dumb moll pashed my shirt. guess what, the song "fuzzy" has all this fuzz guitar on it—I keep mistyping it as "fuxxy", "fuxx", which is of course what my inner spirit really thinks. mind you that song is really good. but most of the record is a colouring book, discarded by some other kid. david

sufjan stevens seven swans (sounds familyre): mr. stevens's greetings from michigan! is an epic and beautiful thing, full of glockenspiels imitating waterfalls and horn sections swinging in mid-song to represent the forces of capitalist industry. supposedly it was the first of 50 state-based concept albums, but seven swans is, instead, a banjo-soaked quiet album of devout faith with tons of help from the danielsons. it's nice, but I was really hoping for greetings from hawaii! daniel

burnside project the networks, the circuits, the streams, the harmonies (bar/none): trashy electronic pop falling somewhere between your postal service and your saint etiennes on the cleverness scale. sunny and addictive (even when they're singing about philip seymour hoffman!) liz

wall of orchids (the bus stop label): hey, me, remember when you had that long correspondence with that guy who lived in glasgow and he was always sending you these incredible scottish pop songs just when lloyd cole was getting popular and those groups like the big dish and then I suppose josef k and stuff who had already broken up but somehow he had access to these immensely incredible scottish pop groups. boy does wall of orchids remind me of that stuff. the first song "great blue" is truly terrible, so perhaps that wasn't the song to put on first on your five-track ep, but the second "if not now, when?" is magnificent. the third, "no-one is looking at the rain" is somehow rather world party but it seems to work in context. they get kind of motown-through-an-early-80s lens at the end. well, what are you going to do about it. david

aerospace the bright idea called soul (summersound): I was prepared to like this because it is swedish, but it's desparately cloying, overcheerful pop that makes me feel kind of shaky, and not in a pleasing way. please turn it off. liz

coco rosie la maison de mon reve (touch and go): anyone who rhymes "apple pies" with "black eyes" is asking for trouble, as are ex-brooklynite sisters sierra and bianca, whose debut record is just too dreary to endure. featuring their badly recorded fake-billie-holiday warbles pitted against rudimentary guitar, rather better keyboards, and inept (but often intriguing) bits of percussion, la maison de mon reve is a horror which will undoubtedly appeal to those currently making such a fuss over fellow atonalist devendra banhart. only the closer, "lyla," fails to annoy. ldb

matmos the civil war (matador): these guys always know how to make it interesting, which is why björk keeps calling on them to sample rats in cages and walk through a tray of snow, turning her albums into the headphone epiphanies they are. here, the two fellas go a little ren fair, picking up some very old instruments and hooking them up to some very new electronics to make the sort of loping, haunting, spiky effort that mary timony would throw on the turntables if they ever asked her to dj. here's hoping they do. daniel

the sea and cake one bedroom (thrill jockey): more of the same. pretty, pretty sea and cake. lisa

tahiti 80 wallpaper for the soul (minty fresh): all of the carefully constructed camp of the aluminum group but little of the snap, if you know what I mean. there's a certain mancini charm to the proceedings, but the breeziness feels a little forced. maybe I'm just getting old, but this album feels like the end of an era, marking the moment when a free design guitar figure, a bossa nova drum beat and a few gurgly electronics just can't carry an album all by themselves. daniel

owl and the pussycat (kill rock stars): "I hate the sun": why would you want to write an answer song to frente's "accidently kelly street"? "blinds": why would you want to write an answer song to david crosby's first album? were these works questions?!? no! "tigers" is an answer song to joni mitchell's "don juan's reckless daughter". then the batteries in my cd player ran out, so I played it through the computer and it sounded beautifully like the transistor radio of 1978, though a bit religious. david

azita enantiodromia (drag city): what is this? oh my god, turn it off! turn it off turn it off turn it off! oh dear god in heaven, look at these liner notes, what is it, a series of prose poems? somebody help me please, dear god in heaven, now there's a piano instrumental entitled "departure of the boats," is there no one here to help me? actually, this next track sounds—no! no! stop it! turn it off! daniel

lys guillorn s/t (little cowgirl): a darker shade of laura cantrell and a lighter shade of lucinda williams. this album has lots of southern gothic touches, finest of all "little wren" which is a simply fantastic song. lois

mary's 9th cut plays...swan song (dogprint): shimmy-worthy songs chirped in a thick japanese accent over peppy guitars and tinkly synths, with drums and bass loud in the mix so it sounds extra bratty. daniel

pernice brothers yours, mine & ours (ashmont): their best effort in a couple of albums, very much in the am radio bread box mr. pernice had been hanging out in lately. "baby in two" and "weakest shade of blue" are both standouts, but you wish he would write a real jump around the room song like "clear spot." lisa

matthew shipp equilibrium (thirsty ear): there's no question but that there's a new jazz in certain kinds of electronic music, with an elastic sense of rhythm, a deluge of product and a gang of deadpan men who keep tinkering with the rules while the steam wafts its way to the mainstream, and you can't blame mr. shipp, whose cubist piano techniques suddenly sound dated, for wanting to get on board and win back some of those brow-furrowing goatee-sporting boys who've strayed from the blue note and even the knitting factory in favor of an imac slicing up the wail of a malfunctioning car alarm. but convening a standard jazz quartet to do its thing and then getting a guy to pile on some synthesizers and programming will only make people think you have two records playing at once. and if you like two records playing at once you might as well do that. in fact I've just put prince's "1999" on my computer and the new yo la tengo on the stereo and guess what, you'll never believe this, it sounds like crap. daniel

roger mcguinn treasures from the folk den (appleseed): forty, fifty years since the kids pushed open the grainy door of the folk den, started passing around rediscovered word troves and new chords along with cigarettes. it's hard to find now, it's not on the map, it's just conjured for an hour when jim mcguinn makes a long haul up the republic's coast, pulls up in an unassuming driveway, enters past the cedars and sprinklers, sets up his microphones and boxes and joins some forgotten voice, who probably shares her cookies once it's done. jim and tommy makem play "finnegan's wake", a nice idea; jim plucks majestic 12-string through a rough take or two with pete seeger; but the one that keeps me rewinding is "john riley" with judy collins, layers of guitar, shadows of true love's sacrifices, drownded neath the deep salt sea, somehow an even deeper sea here than in 1966. joe

brent arnold & the spheres last boat (up): unobjectionable if slightly moody art-pop buoyed by mr. arnold's sliding cello riffs and a few analog keyboard things. music for freshwater lakes, high in the mountains where it's probably too cold to swim. daniel

ben weaver hollerin' at a woodpecker (30/30): very traditional and very clean country bluegrass acousticness, all about judgment day and driving around in trucks, sung by a gravelly, unshaven guy who's too hick to be hip. if I knew mr. weaver I'd fix him up with ld beghtol but my life is too cloistered so I'll just mail ld the album. daniel

the general store local honey (not lame): a guy plays shaggy countryish tunes all by himself in a vaguely 70s hotel california type of vibe, and then, all of a sudden, he covers the friggin' thompson twins. I guess the idea is, "the thompson twins' gimmicky production obscured the fact that 'hold me now' is a gorgeous song," but it actually made me want a thompson twins revival because, let's face it, better the gimmicks than an acoustic 70s version of "hold me now." I mean, the twins' songs weren't great, but all those prophet V synthesizers and those ringing gongs and the engineer's cap that alannah currie used to wear! where's her chickfactor interview and jim-o'rourke-produced comeback ep on drag city with guest vocals by edith frost? daniel

the children's hour sos jfk (minty fresh): a few pretty songs, but not an album's worth. lisa

the soft pink truth do you party? (sounds like): one of the guys from matmos gives it up with some supertrashy electro sample-ridden dance things, including a vanity 6 cover—not my personal favorite "such a pretty mess" but still, this will do. do you party? you bet I party. whoo hoo! daniel

monk hughes & the outer realm a tribute to brother weldon (stones throw): hip-hop oddball madlib rounded up a band of jazzbos to make this album in tribute to weldon irvine, a jazz guy you've never heard of. (no, you haven't.) spacey and wiggy without being catchy, they're playing this stuff all over my town right now and I for one am tired of it. what, pray tell, is wrong with real jazz—is there not enough of it?—that requires pallid remakes? how come string quartet tributes to bowie albums are rightfully denounced but this stuff actually has cred? daniel

all-time quarterback! s/t (barsuk): this is a rerelease of a solo project by the death cab for cutie guy, a charming lo-fi crinkle of ukuleles, plinky keyboards and very cheap percussion. a toy-piano-drenched cover of mr. merritt's "why I cry" is not quite the right statement of purpose here—it's more of a mountain goats thing he has going on—but at least he has the idea of singing it in falsetto rather than copying the original's throaty baritone. daniel

the barry gemso experience la via vie (siesta): slightly schizo collection of va-va-voom go-go tunes that fit perfectly with italian sportscars and enormous sunglasses. I prefer the la buena vida end of the siesta spectrum, but if you like to wear leather bikinis while you zip around in your vespa stopping only for the occasional double espresso under the op-art cinzano umbrella, then mr. gemso and his experience just might be your cup of, um, double espresso under the op-art cinzano umbrella. daniel

replicant kuuki no soko (radio khartoum): surprisingly faceless pop from a label that usually displays more panache than this. a japanese duo sings some accented pop tunes and wheedles around on a few synthesizers in a vaguely bossanova way. daniel

mean red spiders still life fast moving (clairecords): soft, sweet, sarah-esque pop replete with fake-4AD artwork, but I'm not feelin' the soul. liz

doug hilsinger with caroleen beatty brian eno's taking tiger mountain (dbk works): possibly too rock for most cf readers, this enticing act of mimesis was released to coincide with the 30th-anniversary rerelease of brian eno's 1974 experimental album, taking tiger mountain by strategy. masterminded and performed entirely by largely unknown san francisco multi-instrumentalist doug hilsinger and crooned to perfection by largely unsung diva, caroleen beatty, it was released recently to much effusion from eno himself (who was "deeply touched" by the tribute album) and the inevitable, well-deserved gush from the music press; it is unlikely hilsinger and beatty—indie-rock vets and members of the ultra-wondrous and largely unheard band waycross—will be remain in obscurity for long. all swirling keyboards and texturized vocals, tiger mountain has influenced artists as varied as bowie and emo band burning airlines. hilsinger's impeccably performed and recorded version faithfully reproduces the original's intricate arrangements, but ups the ante with swarms of treated pedal steel and other guitars, sinuous sitars and twinkly glocks (the percussion instrument, not the semi-automatic weapon), plus great walloping drums. combined with beatty's warm, androgy voice, the whole is more thrilling than rauschenberg's famous erased de kooning drawing, and potentially just as historic. ldb

sally crewe & sudden moves drive it like you stole it (12xu): really nice, easy-flowing rock songs here in a not-so-vaguely blondie spirit. "everything to lose" and a few other songs could stand to lose the keyboards, however. "tonight" kicks, though. sassy! liz

artisokka a hiding place in the arbor (shelflife): the cover of this album suggests that artisokka believe that an arbor is a harbor (a.k.a. "a harbour") but their record suggests they are probably smarter than that. in a few years when we will all be able to do these grotesque home re-edits of our favourite films and put new music on the soundtracks, I will be taking all the jazz out of manhattan and putting this music in instead. you know, just to see, but I feel it will be super. and I will edit spalding gray into the cast. anyway this is one of those records they used to call mellow, it would sit there next to the first everything but the girl album, pretending not to notice it until at the last minute making a ludicrous bid to hold hands. in the end it would go home with the second spinanes album or something. a very very good mellow melodic enjoyable fine album, however. david

bettie serveert log 22 (palomine/parasol): bettie s. is still kicking and totally still enjoyable, if a little more commercial-sounding than before. these songs are more—dare I say dancy?—than the band used to be back when indie-rock was still going on, but log 22 has plenty of awkward, loping pleasures, though I do miss the more emotionally wrung-out serveert of old. liz

royalchord hug the shadows (cavalier): I hear two things going at once: two magnificently talented singer-songwriters, tammy hader and eliza hiscox, and a whole amazing wealth of tradition, influences, ideas and feelings that resonate behind their music. a testament to royalchord's ability to conjure up something timeless and fresh anytime you want it. at the same time, I hear herb alpert's "the lonely bull" in there; I hear the specials' "ghost town" and even a birkinless "je t'aime." "a million miles" is a late night am country radio number, olivia newton john could have had a hit with it after "sam", that's the hiscox hit; the one hader number on the record, "fall in line" is more early 70s gram parsons or sweetheart of the rodeo stuff, totally irresistible. david

lilys precollection (manifesto): these guys really let me down this time. where are the snappy brit-invasion melodies? the mock-epic philosophizing? the careful sonic arrangement? all we got here is some storebought guitar rock. the last time I expected so much and got so little was that quiet piano ballad thing lambchop got away with last year. daniel

love of diagrams the target is you (unstable ape): someone from the dirty three once told me that the dirty three were created to showcase jim's drums and I reckon, though lod have these immense tunes, that lod were created (by god) to showcase the fact that monika fikerle is one of the all time greatest drummers of the new millennium. you will reply "you can't be all time and of a time" but that's monika's special talent—she is. luke and antonia also play really finely. and if I may focus on the one track with a vocal (track 3), how great! but what on earth...? scary! other exotic excursions include "raise no monuments," which is very hokusai waves, and "big chord champion" which is sort of origami at the dodgems in 1973 in alvin stardust-type boots being accidentally menacing. "building better codes" would be great at a fast-paced funeral. you have to hear this album. david

black devil disco club (rephlex): way back in the early '80s, when I was a fresh young fellow living in memphis, tn, the height of sophistication and glamour (and decadence, of course) was driving down to new orleans to stand around infinitely late at night at jewel's tavern, a very heavy gay leather bar, listening to dj doug bryson (r.i.p) play fabulous new wave, interspersed with weird homemade remixes—I mean the type made on reel-to-reel with a razor and splicing tape—of stuff I'd never heard before or since. rare even then, and thus the holy grail of most dark-minded djs, was the mindblowing disco club 12-inch. its meth-enhanced beats italo-disco, super-slinky synths, guitar loops and vocodered vocals have seldom been equalled by anyone since, though you know the likes of new order, telex and aphex twin have tried and failed. remastered and reissued, this seldom-heard 1978 classic, which seemed way ahead of its time even then, is now available both on vinyl and as two cd-singles. disco club was made in a recording studio in the suburbs of paris using monophonic synths and occasional tape loops and—get this, kiddies—a live drummer... no midi or computers. one listen will have you wishing that poppers didn't cause strokes and that you could still smoke in bars in the u.s.a. ldb

ross vells s/t (luckyhorse industries): six perfect songs. keep it on repeat, because it ends before you have a chance to really appreciate it. lisa

peter loveday a bend in the road (petercharlesloveday@hotmail.com): the brisbalona sound. peter loveday was in an australian london band called tinytown about 20 years ago. then he did not just angular music but triangular, really, or angle-grinder. now he writes songs that elvis would have liked to sing, had he understood the subtexts. "in a song" is a bit "house of the rising sun", only greater. a very sparse 7-song record made in barcelona you are very likely to enjoy. david

ken stringfellow soft commands (yep roc): whether playing solo at an outdoors barbeque in austin, texas, fighting the humidity to keep his six-string in tune, rocking out with the many incarnations of his beloved powerpop band the posies, or onstage with big star or rem, holding his own (both musically and metaphorically) against the likes of sacred monsters alex chilton and michael stipe, charismatic singer-guitarist ken stringfellow knows how to work a crowd. his studied nonchalance makes the whole thing seem effortless—almost like anybody could, and maybe should do it, too—and endlessly endearing. and happily, his very direct connection with the audience is something quite apart from the usual "hey [insert city here]! it's great to be here!" pose peddled by many performers. he means it, and it shows. on soft commands, stringfellow's impeccable songwriting combines the best of classic '60s pop craft (endless hooks, brevity and precision, choruses to die for) with a strong feeling for the confessional first-person lyric that routinely transcends standard singer-songwriter clichés. best of all is his crystalline tenor voice—by turns fragile and sexy, soaring and exultant—which draws from a deep emotional well that is pure and seemingly bottomless. ldb

ed harcourt (astralwerks): gail, nothing to say here. one good song, "bittersweetheart." then I'm audi. lisa

blur think tank (virgin): I didn't pay attention to these guys when they were famous, but now that no one cares they're making lovely records, actually. the times when they rock don't, um, rock, but all the blurry ballads are very nice, particularly "on the way to the club" which captures the feeling of being inside a hot, loud bar and then stepping out tipsy onto the night street and getting sad for no reason as you wait for a cab to take you home, home, home. the closing track is a nice angry slow thing that radiohead used to do nicely before this weary technological nightmare of a world made them decide that scowling wasn't Significant Enough, and don't panic when you see all those guest musicians from morocco in the credits. they pass unnoticed. really. daniel

van oehlen rock and roll is here to die (blue chopsticks): this is a very funny record, and it is probably meant to be, to some degree, though it may also be meant to be disturbing, which it is not. is albert oehlen a musician? everything mayo thompson is involved in is by definition grand. david

broken social scene (arts and crafts): this record is around five thousand things I shouldn't like—noisy, arty, canadian, for starters—but its one of my favorites of the past year. completely unexpected, brazen, oddly pretty at moments. it's the jolie laide of music. lisa

mogwai happy songs for happy people (matador): not quite as masterfully chilly as rock action, there's still plenty to brood over here. music for feeling sullen when someone calls to cancel at the last minute and all your other friends have gone out already so you're left wincing at a book you don't like, eating some clammy leftovers and scowling out your filthy window at some lousy weather. daniel

iron and wine our endless numbered days (sub pop): even the fire-and-brimstone title reminds me of palace records before the drum machine—floaty, sad outtakes from the anthology of american folk music made on today's recording equipment. and the drawing on the cover looks exactly like chris moth wrangler! lisa

red krayola singles (drag city): every phrase of these weirdos is here—from the early texas-acid days hanging with the barthelmes, to the 80s brit-punk days when lora logic sang along, to the brush-ups with pere ubu and out into the pomo incarnations starring jim o'rourke and david grubbs. this means that it's a very very twitchy disc—I've listened to magazine tie-in label promotional cds with more consistency of sound—but throughout you can't shake the feeling that it all makes sense to mayo thompson. but then again, what the hell doesn't make sense to this guy? and what's up with "radio edits" of songs that will never ever in a million years get played on the radio? daniel

bob dylan live 1964: concert at philharmonic hall­the bootleg series volume 6 (columbia): starts all kind of serious like this is important gather round people and every cat in black is concentrating like they're working out how to stop the bomb, till he goes weird on them singing darkness at the president of the united states and all the grey cats are frowning like professors in college reading blake or melville, but bob's a different kind of cat now, he doesn't mean it that way, he just wants to be friends, and he says the songs all have got nothin' to do with nothin', and when he says anything he laughs like he can't believe he's saying it. it's just halloween, he goofs... I have my bob dylan mask on... I'm masquerading. he starts "I don't believe you" and has to ask if anyone knows the words to this song anyway, and it don't matter how much he forgets, he is walking on thin water in d minor. joe

slowly minute tomorrow world (bubblecore): pretty noodlings in an acoustic-piano/laptop mode, with song titles as inexplicable as the single quotation mark in the album title. who am I to argue with "if you hand ice cream, a girl's excitement will stop."? daniel

phillips & driver togetherness (bar/none): it sounds like a chickfactor interview question: if you could make an album of ten covers, what would they be? and lo and behold, gretchen phillips and david driver have done (nearly) exactly that. alongside two great originals, they've dusted off some 70s aor favorites, a couple of show tunes and a classic joe pernice number. glancing backwards to the shielded yearnings of "I loved you once in silence" (from camelot), jimmie rodgers' "secretly" and badfinger's "day after day", they've created an homage to the songs that saw them through the upheavals of gay adolescence. (or would have, had they known about them.) now, pardon me, but I'm off to make my album featuring "I'm not in love" by 10cc and "love will find a way" by pablo cruise. lois

jim moray sweet england (niblick is a giraffe): on radio 2 any night a carthy or a harding is likely warbling that folk is a living tradition, remade every generation, malleable in newcomers' hands. I sometimes long for some lone voice to say the opposite—handle with care! don't adulterate our musical traditions!—for the heck of it, but anyway, all must have given thanks when moray showed, intuitively making received wisdom into sonic practice. it's folk—the vocal inflections, lyrics of sweet maids in april, melodies from the medieval midlands—but shot up with electric guitars, electronic beats and fx, an old-new constellation to play to the disbelievers and prove the tradition endures and changes. at times I can almost imagine he is to the old ballads what merritt is to the great white way, could his innocent intonation support such a notion. only young yet, he has many years to grow, into a long future, into a long past. joe

mclennan songs from the brittle building (w minc): note of warning: I think ross mclennan is a really nice guy. this is going to make me overcompensate with megaharsh criticisms eg "hey! 'symphobia' sounds like julian lennon (in the singing bit) with joe strummer (in the talking bit) over some over-30 person's idea of 'beats' "... so there! but, unfortunately for all of us, my sense of fair play takes over and exposure to a song like "gifts for the kids" makes me have to say, this is a ridiculously successful album. ross plays everything, practically, except when his friends sing, and you kind of realise with a shock (by track 4) he really truly could fill the shoes of anyone in the who. but better than that, he has one of those amazing musical minds like a richard scarry double-spread. last track is perfect. I advocate him. david

double u life behind a window (wool): drony electro-pop in a variety of moods, perfect for doing chores or for sitting on the couch staring out a foggy window deciding that doing chores is for chumps. daniel

clinic winchester cathedral (domino): extract from interview with clinic in chickfactor #37: cf: so why did you decide not to release winchester cathedral back in 2004? ade clinic: you know, we worked really hard on that album, but just as it was about to come out, we gave it one last listen, and we thought, god, you know, we've already made this record, but we called it walking with thee last time, and it was a little more fun then. so we stuck it away in the vault, took a couple of months off and went back for a fresh start, trying not to repeat ourselves. of course, that's when we made habits, and we all know how that turned out. lucky thing. then last year we were going through some old discs, and we found the master of winchester cathedral. we'd totally forgotten about it. anyway, it's not quite "the great lost album" people talk about, but I hope some of the fans like it. clarissa

green peppers joni's garden (neon tetra): this arrived in the post today thanks to the hard-driving pr chick known as isobel campbell (who sings on it). jim here was in the soup dragons, bmx bandits and superstar but we can't believe he wasn't in teenage fanclub too! so scottish, so rambling in a generic scottish way. lupe finds it rather james taylory but prefers its elliott smithy moments. gail

fiery furnaces blueberry boat (rough trade): this is honestly the weirdest album I've heard in a long, long time—like since the first time I heard the residents (late night pbs, 1982) or maybe when someone put on "james brown is dead" at a party circa 1988 and everybody thought the stereo was broken. the sibs furnaces gallivant through a gazillion songs on 15 tracks, veering from chamber rock to funk to bluesy scrabblings while various squawking electronic things cut in every so often as if to say, "hey! were you getting comfortable? were you?" not exactly catchy, more like catching—gorgeous in an unruly way and occasionally nailbitingly irritating but overall it's unprecedented—like if tom waits produced the orb, or if the who teamed up with sebadoh and kraftwerk to play sea chanteys, or if royal trux's twin infinitives were actually something you could listen to as well as appreciate. you will say "wow" when you listen to this record, and even if you're not always saying "wow" in a good way, it's refreshing in these post-prog idm lofi stream-of-consciousness times that an album can actually be this weird on the ears, right? daniel

the delays faded seaside glamour (rough trade): the press release said that the male lead singer sounds like a cross between stevie nicks and elizabeth fraser, and I didn't believe it either but I swear it's true. the voice is really the band's only trick, besides a quiet steel drum loop on "wanderlust," but with an eerie falsetto like this you could sing mush. which he does. but still, it's mush that sounds like a cross between stevie nicks and elizabeth fraser, and the album title's lovely too. daniel

northern state dying in stereo (startime): three white girls from long island rapping about all kinds of shit and just having a laugh and we kind of enjoy it actually. but not all of it. gail

david garza a strange mess of flowers (wide open): this made me very sad, because surely there's somebody who would be thrilled to receive a box set like this. four discs (plus dvd) of mr. garza, stung by major labels, who holed up and released these originally in small, private pressings or some such. have you noticed that mainstream folks are getting sneaky and trying to appear fringe? packaged to look like daniel johnston or maybe badly drawn boy, this guy plays straight-ahead jeff buckley rock, singing in that gravelly neo-soul voice you can hear on the radio any ole time, occasionally stopping to indulge in a "wacky" spoken word thing. there's nothing wrong with all this, really, except that I don't like it, and it seems a shame that someone sent it to me. so I'll send it to you! the first one to e-mail their postal address to staylate@americanchickens.com will get my copy. entrants must correctly complete the following sentence: "david bowie's best album is ______." (hint: it's not ziggy.) daniel

fannypack so stylistic (tommy boy): music to buy tight jeans and lurex shrugs to. ail

daniel johnston fear yourself (gammon): this is where I come clean after years and admit that my least favorite part of any yo la tengo show is the dread moment when some audience yoyo starts shouting for "speeding motorcycle," one of time's most overrated (and overplayed) songs, and I have to stand there clenching my teeth and hoping they won't play it. this experience in itself colours my approach to any and all encounters with the work of daniel johnston, though this LP has some really great spots, I'll concede: "syrup of tears" blossoms like a spring flower, though much of fear yourself's hopeful/doomed naiveté leaves me a bit underwhelmed, the rockers on this record (as opposed to the more rote lo-fi moments) are stunning in a raw, great plains/dump sort of way. liz

jeff hanson son (kill rock stars): jimmy scott and chet baker fans will rejoice at the first note from mr. hanson's jaw-droppingly girly falsetto. it's produced by a bright eyes collaborator, but the songs are more straightforward and the arrangements have none of that all-my-drunk-friends-are-singing-too-and-we're-all-a-ragged-choir-of-esprit-de-corps thing that mr. oberst is working on. it's a shame to say what it sounds like, actually, because I'm sure mr. hanson is tired of hearing the phrase "elliott smith." daniel

jay farrar terroir blues (artemis) + slaughter rule st (bloodshot): both of these efforts find farrar experimenting with repetition. film music lends itself better to that kind of experiment, but the album is not without redeeming songs. luckily he knows which ones the good ones are and those are the ones he repeats. other contributors to the slaughter rule include freakwater, neko case, and vic chesnutt. lisa

the postal service give up (sub pop): the guy from death cab for cutie sings clever if awkward lyrics over an electronic bed of squiggles and chords. me, I love the technopop, and it's getting to hard to find bands that aren't kidding when they do it. "recycled air" even breathes a little cyberlife into the numb airplane song—the electronic equivalent of a rock song about a girl. daniel

good for cows bebop fantasy (asian man): two guys play upright bass and a drum set to make some very vague jazz somethings. if you like your ambient music busy and nonelectronic—that is, if you don't like ambient music—you might like this. daniel