Music for Robots deals with a "hump day" by showcasing the dancey stuff (albeit with classic Belle & Sebastian); me, I turn to comfort music. Warm, fuzzy, close in your ear.

The Hotel Alexis - "OK". Brian very, very kindly introduced me to this record, The Shining Example is Lying On the Floor. It's a really beautiful piece of work, hazy afterflow and pedal steel sighs. Sidney Alexis is a member of Torrez, but where that band cherishes shadow, this record is about the candlelight that reveals faces. "The Season For Working" has got a hazy, almost drunken stumble - twang and a sing-song that reminds me of Yo La Tengo. "It's Obvious Now" nods to Neil Young, suns rising and falling behind the hills. But "OK" is my favourite - the chant of organ and drifting noise, the slow introduction of guitar. Alexis knows that his voice isn't anything special, but he uses as if it could be, as if he can say what he's saying better than anyone else. "Okay," he sings, loosely. "Ok." Then the dirge opens up even further, purples and pinks bleeding into the watercolour, the memory of a trumpet. Smoke, almost invisible on an empty street. [buy]

Iron and Wine - "He Lays in the Reins [live]". Recently, I've cooled a lot too Iron & Wine. The new record was ultimately a big disappointment: too clean, too rich. More than anything, though, it's the similarity of Sam Beam's songs that bothers me. A lot of his tracks are banal - rural images and yup his soft voice, - but banality is forgivable if it's one-of-a-kind. As it becomes clear, however, that Beam can crank these sort of songs out, it's harder to give him the benefit of the doubt. And while I still hold "Upward Over the Mountain" close to my heart, much of the rest has withered under the glare of longterm listening.

But Eric sent me this live recording of an unreleased tune, a song called "He Lays in the Reins." And even though it's that familiar old sound, this is one of those performances that justifies Beam's existence. There's something greater in his voice's ache, in the conversation of guitar and lap steel. It's like watching Chaplin walk, the weary shuffle that hides a dance, an individual spirit. The song's not just pretty, or sad - it's calling out to something, reaching, straining. The lyrics keep asking - "one more," "one more," - and while there's no exclamation mark I imagine the desperation behind that prayer, the desperation of someone who's tired of this world's absurdity, of empty pretty things.

(oh, and eric tells me that "the only version [of this song] that most people can locate is REALLY bad. And I mean, almost bad enough that you can't hear the vocals." so even if you know the tune it might be worth grabbing in case you don't know this recording.)

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Mae-Shi will be releasing their first record on Kill Rock Stars/5rc, later this month. In the meantime, listen to their Supper 2004 Mix CD (95meg zipped mp3s). It's a giddy, electic, fantastic mashup, like Strictly Kev's 20th Century bootleg, but an even more furious mix of Magnetic Fields-to-Jay-Z-to-AC/DC. Mesmerizing - and a little overwhelming.