Patrick Watson - "Fireweed". Patrick Watson's Wooden Arms is leaps & bounds better than his debut and it is an album full of leaps and bounds. He is a pretty singer, and his lyrics lilt, yet it's the instrumental landscape that thrums, hums, brings the record shuddering to life. Tracks like "Big Bird in a Small Cage" are as lovely as bowls full of fruit, but the bounding-er, leaping-er tracks - "Tracy's Waters", "Beijing", "Where the Wild Things Are" - are the ones that carry this across a ravine from Cibelle, Tom Waits, Andrew Bird. I like Patrick Watson best on the threshold between chanson and Sigur Ros.

And "Fireweed" is bigger than the melody that Patrick Watson is singing. It is a song with geothermal wells, old crows, creaking schist. Watson dwells in it, rents a room, brings his friends to sit by the window and hum. But "Fireweed" has a sea that's separate from the Montrealer's croon; has crevasses and groves. There are forces tunneling under his feet, and travelling between the stars. There's stuff in the steam. [pre-order Wooden Arms from Secret City/or from iTunes]

Elfin Saddle - "The Bringer". Ramshackle and kind, Elfin Saddle might be the eeriest band in Montreal. They play a secret music, something from the underside of gardens, the bellies of hills. Ringing For The Begin Again, on Constellation, is twinned with Clues' debut - but it is a vastly different creature, painted in verdant greens and new shades of black. Hear it all in "The Bringer"'s grim, sorcerous crescendo: slow promises, Appalachian groans, memories of old, weird Japan. There's none of night's comfort, here. There's nowhere to hide. This is the fearsome creep of daylight. [buy]

---

I asked about Lafayette a little while ago (sorry I didn't get back to you), but after getting a clearer itinerary it seems that it's New Orleans where I'm going to have some time to myself on an upcoming trip... Are there any New Orleans readers? I'd love to find someone to go see some jazz with. Please email me!

(photo of Riyadh sandstorm is a wire image)