Lucy Rose was Bombay Bicycle Club’s duet partner on that lovely cover of “Video Games” I posted the other day, and the British singer’s solo material is even better. “Middle of the Bed” shifts flawlessly from finely wrought folk to marble-smooth dream-pop and back in three minutes; it evokes White Ladder-era David Gray, LP2 Kings of Convenience, every band we like. Enjoy. (Also, hey, she’s pretty! Congratulations, you have eyes.)
North Highlands – Wild One
Genuinely quirky Brooklyn chamber-folk act goes electric and hypnotic with its debut album. Come for the hooks, stay for the guitars. | Buy
Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire
Not his most wildly poetic lyrics, perhaps, but the Alternative Country troubadour’s latest is an exquisitely emotional piece of work. He’s rarely been a better performer. | Live Review | All Posts | Buy
A Classic Education – Call It Blazing
At its best, the Italian band’s debut album is as propulsive and tuneful as the Shins’ early work. Even when they slow down, their usual toolbox — aquatic guitars, forlorn vocals, thoughtful drumming — gets the job done. | “Night Owl” Video | Buy “Night Owl”:mp3
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I reviewed Atlas Sounds’ excellent new album for the A.V. Club:
Cox side-project Atlas Sound, with its bedroom genesis and intimate intent, has always felt like his refuge. Parallax, Cox’s third Atlas full-length, is as attentively produced as 2009’s superbly spacey Logos, but the songs shed some of his usual studio trickery in favor of broad melodies and open chords.
My favorite sweet-talking Swede (and his finger-snapping percussionist!) plays a handful of recent jams, including hopeful LP4 heart-breaker “I Want a Pair of Cowboy Boots,” for NPR’s video series. You can download the audio at NPR’s site.
An excellent show from L.A.’s Big Moves (sounding exceptionally smooth), Gothic Tropic (sounding reasonably reverb-y) and Brooklyn’s In One Wind. The New York band’s latest, How Bright a Shadow, is one of the year’s most promising debuts, a chamber-folk plate piled high with male-female harmonies and intricate songwriting. At times, the songs twist into knots they can’t untie — puzzles that Dirty Projectors, In One Wind‘s most obvious influence, would slice in two with sheer virtuosity. But getting within spitting distance of their Brooklyn neighbors’ sonic ambition is an achievement nearly all of this year’s new bands failed to attempt: credit for that, and for the moments that make it look easy.
Among the really great things in the video for Real Estate’s “It’s Real”: adorable hipster puppies, aspirational sweaters, and a clever little nod toward the played-out Super 8 aesthetic of every indie rock video of the last three years. Woof.
Real Estate’s Days, of course, remains one of the year’s very best records, as I wrote about here.
I reviewed Atlas Sounds’ excellent new album for the A.V. Club:
