Marissa Nadler
Bird on the Water
ITUNES MYSPACE
Acoustic meditations best
heard after the lights go out
This Providence painter ditched
her brush and transformed her-
self into a charming neo-folkie,
summoning up effortless late-
night reveries. Her third album
features sweet, gentle vocals
matched with lightly plucked
guitar and the occasional cello
or keyboard. Like any good
artiste, Nadler digs strange
things like raincoats and graves,
but she’s most memorable
when paying tribute to gal
pals: “Sylvia” (a muse she finds

underwater) and the tragically doomed “Rachel.” JASON GROSS

Of Montreal
Hissing Fauna, Are You
the Destroyer? ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
A giddy free-for-all from
multitasking pop auteur
Athens, Georgia’s Of Montreal
have practically become a one-
man psych band, and Kevin
Barnes’ pleasantly nasal
voice—many, many multi-
tracked versions of it—harmo-
nizes on nearly every track of
his eighth album. Zany as ever,
Barnes runs himself ragged
composing swirls of synth-

heavy disco pop with inexplicable titles: “Faberge Falls for Shuggie” sounds like Scissor Sisters chillin’ with Beck, while the glitchy “Suffer for Fashion” sits reasonably well next to the Beatles-ish indietronica groove of “Cato as a Pun.” Hissing Fauna might be an album of ego trips, but at least Barnes is on the good stuff. CARYN GANZ

 

The One AM Radio
This Too Will Pass
ITUNES MYSPACE
Breathe deeply, proceed
directly to the chill-out room
Devendra Banhart a little too
freaky for you? Then singer/

guitarist/drummer/cellist
Hrishikesh Hirway may be the
answer. Backed by mini string
and horn sections, the Los
Angeleno’s third album has a
relaxed, even-keeled feel, even
though it was written while he
shuttled between India and
America dealing with personal
upheavals. Think the Postal
Service gone yoga or an un-
self-conscious James Taylor
gone minimal techno—though
neither could come up with
something as sweeping as
“In the Time We’ve Got” or
as dreamy as “Lest I Forget.”
JASON GROSS

Jesse Sykes: She’s guaranteed to
haunt your every thought.
Mild-mannered boys,
appropriately sheepish
about their success

Yoko Ono
Yes, I’m a Witch
ITUNES MYSPACE
Despite the extreme make-
over, it’s still the old Yoko
Contemporary tinkerers such
as the Flaming Lips, Peaches,
and Cat Power overhaul origi-
nal Yoko Ono tracks on this
hybrid tribute album; and while
the results are mixed, they all
retain the flowing quiver of
Ono’s inimitable vocals. Blow
Up give “Every Man Has a
Woman Who Loves Him” a
vaguely Western New Order
gallop; Le Tigre giddily disco-fy
“Sisters O Sisters”; Porcupine
Tree make “Death of Samantha”
gothlike. Mostly grainy rhythm-
conscious pop rock, the collec-
tion manages to achieve formal
freedom, hit-record verve, and
one woman’s personal super-
natural. JAMES HUNTER

The Psychic Paramount Origins and Primitives Vol. 1 + 2 MYSPACE Closet-emptying sound clashes from Brooklyn guitarist

Not Fade Away

This prog-core power trio makes the Mars Volta sound like Phil Collins–era Genesis, such is the Paramount’s pounding heft, guitar histrionics, and complicated menace. (Check out 2005’s amazing Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural for the full story.) This double CD is essentially an archive of Paramount guitarist Drew St. Ivany’s ovoid guitar experiments from before the band existed. Save for a few grimy demos with drums, disc one echoes and reverbs like Philip Glass ringtones. Disc two’s electro-acoustic shimmer is chill-out music for basement-show geeks. JOE GROSS

On scrappy second album, Internet phenoms prove they belong
Clap Your Hands
Say Yeah
Some Loud Thunder
⁵
blog-obsessed, Bit Torrent-
blazing generation of music
consumers than they did.

All of the dreams that little
bands dream actually came
true for Clap Your Hands Say
Yeah. They sold a lot of
albums without a record
label, toured the world,
earned endearments
from both the staunchest
scenesters and industry big-
wigs. Legends they probably
idolized—David Byrne and
David Bowie—appeared at
their gigs. As 2005’s indie-
rock revival wound down, no
new band meant more to the

And while the band’s uneven live shows have left more than a few early adopters dismayed, this set of songs recaptures much of their original nonchalant magic. It’s intentionally raw, with singer Alec Ounsworth’s already squeaky voice warped to near-painful levels of distortion on the title track, an unsure confessional constructed off some great opening verses. “That’s just a part of the story,” Ounsworth squeals. “Well, it could maybe be something complete.”

disco “Satan Said Dance” and the pretty, Elvis Costello–like love song “Emily Jean Stock” have been staples of the band’s live set—but it’s also a deft move in an unexpectedly retro direction. “Underwater (You and Me)” finds

They recapture much
of their original
nonchalant magic.
Thunder has its familiar
moments—the giddy faux-

Ounsworth sounding like Buddy Holly, and the rousing tale of nationalistic confusion “Yankee Go Home” borrows its architecture from Motown, but in a streamlined garage-pop way. So save your bandwidth, kids. It’s a good one. PETER GASTON

Elvis Perkins
Ash Wednesday ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Son survives tragedy, com-
poses a haunting song cycle
Elvis Perkins has a singularly
woeful story: He’s the son of
actors Anthony Perkins (best
known for Psycho), who suc-
cumbed to AIDS on September
¹², ¹⁹⁹², and Berry Berenson,
who was a passenger aboard
an airplane hijacked on
September 11, 2001. The latter
fact is the defining influence
on this mostly acoustic,
wholly engaging debut,
chronologically sequenced to
pre- and postdate his mother’s
death. While the album
begins with confident forays
into folk pop, it takes a melan-
cholic turn midway through,
as the title and penultimate
tracks swell with velvety
strings, elegizing a tragic
skyline. JULIA SIMON

Sloan
Never Hear the
End of It
ITUNES MYSPACE
Great White Northerners aim
for “White Album” greatness
These Canadian power-pop
wizards routinely write songs
with dozens of parts. Now
they’ve written an album with
dozens of songs. Never Hear
the End of It, Sloan’s eighth
studio full-length, contains 30
separate tunes—evidence of
their bottomless bag of hooks,
as well as a testament to end-
less Canadian winters, when
leaving the studio ain’t much of
an option. The result plays like
the greatest British Invasion
best-of you’ve never heard.
Reach in and pull out anything;
even the so-so ones are gone in
60 seconds. MIKAEL WOOD

FROM LEFT: MATTIAS ELGEMARK/COURTESY BIG HASSLE; DARA ROSENWASSER/COURTESY BARSUK RECORDS

¹² FEBRUARY ²⁰⁰⁷ WWW.SPIN.COM