Woodpigeon - "Music Belongs To Those Who Make It". This is, I presume, a song about the music business's empty suits. (And not, I hope, the biz's bloggers.) But Mark Hamilton's artistic license, his sticking guns, aren't represented in roaring shouts or a steely stare. Instead, he executes one of the most precise songs of his career: something carved out of piano, voice, clarinet and strings. Everything is perfectly measured; nothing is to excess. And yet the song is not timid. It is merely quiet, baroque, sturdy as a man with a notebook full of marvels.
[buy Die Stadt Muzikanten and get all of Balladeer, from which this is taken, for free.]

Midlake - "Rulers Ruling All Things". As the press release says, Midlake's new music forsakes 70s soft-rock for the glens and valleys of British folk-rock. But Jason Upshaw can't play guitar like John Renbourn, Tim Smith can't sing like Bert Jansch (let alone Sandy Denny), and Midlake aren't as haunted as Espers. So what I've heard of the result isn't much like "Tamn Lin": it's American; it's lakes and canyons; it's eagles and dust. Midlake's melancholy is warm, gorgeous, untouched by rain; full of birches. [buy 12"]

(photo by Alison Scarpulla - source)