Snailhouse - "Superstitious". Is this the catchiest double-negative in songwriting history? Snailhouse has spent years feeling, writing, but here it's like he found an old mail-order catalogue, something from the Hudson's Bay Company, and redecorated the whole alleyway. He ordered wool blankets, brass plaques, spruce-trees, strings; he got lap steel and organ, flashlights, Scotch, and quick, impulsive kisses that only half-land on the cheek. This is a handsome song, an elegant song, but there's a wilderness in its murmurs and a wistfulness in its rhymes. Sometimes you watch a strolling cat and it reminds you how lonely you are; sometimes you watch two lovers dance and it reminds you how capably you can light a fire. Sometimes, in other words, one kind of moment is hidden inside the other.

On Lies on the Prize, Snailhouse's songs hit harder, shine fiercer, than any that came before. It's due in large part to the production by Arcade Fire's Jeremy Gara. I love the affection in each track, the richness of sound, the amethysts & seashells & uppercuts they found. Snailhouse is Mike Feuerstack, who also plays in the Wooden Stars and Bell Orchestre. Sappy Records released a Snailhouse tribute album last year.

Oh, and Lies for the Prize - go get it. (With artwork by Kit Malo!)

[buy / back-catalogue]

(photo is a wire shot of the Argungu Fishing Festival)