Adam Haworth Stephens - We Live On Cliffs

Adam Haworth Stephens - We Live On Cliffs - September 28 - Saddle Creek - After four critically-praised albums as singer and songwriter for San Francisco duo Two Gallants, Stephens steps out with his first solo album. Producer Joe Chiccarelli (My Morning Jacket, The Shins) is at the studio helm for an album of striking alt-folk/pop tunes straddling lyrical introspection and scruffy pop melodies. “These songs are about desperation,” says Stephens. “The desperation to make something of living, to find a sense of ease, to find someone to love and to maintain that fleeting feeling of love.” Guests include Patrick Hallahan and Bo Koster of My Morning Jacket.

Adam Haworth Stephens - "The Cities That You've Burned" (from the album We Live On Cliffs)

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Alberta Cross - Broken Side of Time

Described by one critic as sounding like "the Kings of Leon with a shot of valium", scruffy Anglo-Swede neo-roots rockers Alberta Cross follow up their acclaimed 2007 EP debut with new album Broken Side of Time out digitally this fall is finally set to arrive on CD March 9 via ATO. The strong critical buzz that emerged upon the release of the seven-track The Thief and the Heartbreaker eventually led to a Leon-like U.K. base of adoring fans and press and their inclusion on the fall '08 Oasis tour at the personal request of Noel Gallagher. Once again, more ecstatic reviews.

Brit music bible NME declared "each tune comes like a fragile gesture - rich with euphoric choruses, layered guitars and raw harmonies. And when a quietly appreciative crowd allows the band to transport them down an abandoned highway to the spiritual home of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - honestly you could hear a heartbeat." Another critic declared that the band "pulls of Fleet Foxes' trick of simultaneously sounding like lost treasure and something fresh and new."  AC founder and guitarist/vocalist Petter Ericson Stakee says of the new project, "It's kind of a desperation album, a darker album; it's definitely angrier. We've been in a crazy place during the whole album and you can hear that." Lead tracks "ATX" and "Taking Control" back him up with a vengeance. Recommended.

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Alberta Cross - "Taking Control" (from the album Broken Side of Time)

Alberta Cross - "ATX" (from the album Broken Side of Time)

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Alejandro Escovedo - Street Songs of Love

"A band record" is how Austin roots-rocker Alejandro Escovedo succinctly describes his upcoming tenth solo album Street Songs of Love (June 29, Fantasy/Concord), a point driven home from the moment the guitars ring out and the drums kick in on lead track "Anchor." This is clearly an album powered by a fine-tuned band cruising comfortably on all cylinders and light years from Escovedo's earlier jagged, punk-fueled alt-country work. As a follow up to 2008's Real Animal, the new project shares some inescapable comparison to the more recent work of Bruce Springsteen in more than simply the liberating, fist-pumping, air-guitar anthems comprised of equal amounts of journeyman sweat and poetic grace: both Escovedo and Springsteen now share Jon Landau as manager. The Boss even shows up on the song "Faith" to trade some rough-and-ready riffs.

Escovedo relies on his excellent band The Sensitive Boys to flex some musical muscles, well-toned from countless nights roadtesting and hammering the Street Songs into shape. He also gets solid collaborative support from well-respected songwriting partner Chuck Prophet, legendary producer Tony Visconti (David Bowie, U2) -- who also handled Real Animal -- and famed Springsteen engineer Bob Clearmountain.  After some personal struggles -- including an debilitating illness a few years ago -- Escovedo is in a good place and shining some light into previously dark corners. "It ended up being an album about love," he sums up, "the pursuit of a feeling that is forever elusive, mysterious, and addictive." Recommended.

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Alejandro Escovedo - "Anchor" (from Street Songs of Love)

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Allison Moorer - Crows Acoustic EP

Allison Moorer mixed things up a bit on her February album Crows, moving away from her alt-country and Americana-influenced folk to a more sophisticated and dynamic pop edge. But what didn't change is Moorer's way around a great melody -- something that comes into more distinct and up-close focus on her new solo Crows Acoustic EP, arriving digitally May 25. Stripping away the studio backing of six tracks that originally appeared on Crows, Moorer gives each song a more private and personal reading with the help of producer Jason Finkel. The new EP also comes just in time for the beginning of Moorer's summer concert tour and just weeks after giving birth to her first child with alt-country pioneer Steve Earle in early April.

Speaking of birth, Moorer says of the new EP: “I always like to give people an opportunity to hear a song in the form it was born in. And sometimes with a twist. That’s what this recording is about.” Songs include a haunting version of "Sorrow Don't Come Around" a track we called "a magnificent ballad written at the time that she found that she was pregnant -- and seven months after an earlier miscarriage. Also on tap is DC favorite "Broken Girl", "When You Wake Up Feeling Bad" and the Crows' title track. Recommended. More on Allison Moorer and Crows here.

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Allison Moorer - "Sorrow (Don't Come Around)" (solo piano version live, original from the album Crows)

Allison Moorer - "Broken Girl" (acoustic version, original from the album Crows)

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ALO - Man of the World

Even if ALO keyboardist Zach Gill hadn't gone to college with Jack Johnson, the band's improvisational jam/pop would be a comfortable fit on Johnson's own laidback Brushfire label -- an overview that comes into even tighter focus with the forthcoming Johnson-produced ALO project Man of the World (February 9). Building on a sound that is part Dead-ish doodling atmospherics, part center-line groove driven, melodic pop/rock, ALO (or Animal Liberation Orchestra) decided to go for what they call "their most natural, their most organic and their most pure" collection of songs yet. The easy camaraderie and skilled intuitive interplay of the band's excellent players may serve as their internal nerve system but, as Johnson points out, "they've got these songs that really stick in your head as well."

 To capture the band's live prowess on disc, ALO headed to the balmy confines of Johnson's Oahu, Hawaii studio and laid down World's tracks in what guitarist Dan Lebowitz calls a "workshop" environment: building and then tearing down arrangements and then rebuilding them again. "In a really great way, Jack shook things up for us," he adds. "(He) got us to rethink how we do things." The end product is an album that is both sophisticated and basic with a range of styles and moods that easily drift from rambunctious, hip-shaking rock (the galloping title track) to dreamy, stretched out improv passages that seem to have an ever-evolving direction (the mindbending, aptly titled "Suspended." Notes Gill: "You actually get to hear the sound of people in a room making something together. Not an artificial simulation. This was really amazing for all of us."

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ALO - "Man of the World" (from the album Man of the World)

ALO - "Suspended" (from the album Man of the World)

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Alpha Rev - New Morning

After a well-received 2007 independently released debut, Casey McPherson and his Austin TX band Alpha Rev return with some retooled favorites along with new songs on New Morning, due April 27 (Hollywood). Combining passionate, often orchestral melodic rock with a singer/songwriter's personal touch, Alpha Rev has carved out a niche of intelligent, emotionally driven songs played out on an expansive creative stage. Led by the fine new title track (now at iTunes - video after the jump), New Morning redefines the substantial passionate edge of one of Austin's best kept secrets with solid production from veteran studio knob-twiddler David Kahne (The Strokes, Regina Spektor), breathing new life into the band's signature songs such as "Colder Months", "Phoenix Burn" and "Get Out."

Live and in the studio, Alpha Rev utilizes a pair of string players to heighten the dramatic impact of McPherson's songs of desperation and isolation, allowing the frontman's charismatic intensity to shine through. As we've noted here earlier, Alpha Rev "build songs of drama and vision, at turns grandiose, soulful, gritty and mesmerizing." "The music and lyrics come from a very honest place," says McPherson. "You realize there is a relationship between the listener and the songwriter, and you want to build on that relationship. You want to challenge, but you also want to bring people with you." 

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Alpha Rev - "New Morning" (from the album New Morning)

Alpha Rev - "Colder Months" (original version)

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Amelia Curran - Hunter Hunter

Halifax singer/songwriter Amelia Curran describes her craft as “expressing the inexpressible, a means of describing the indescribable," a skill that comes to good use on her latest album Hunter Hunter, released last year in Canada and now readied for a U.S. release September 21 (Six Shooter). As a document of a broken relationship, Curran's latest -- her fourth in six years -- was originally supposed to take just a few weeks. But after nearly two years of on-again-off-again writing and recording with producer Don Ellis, where she tossed out more than half of her songs and rewrote many, the album emerged from the emotional ashes with scars and bruises intact. "I wanted to describe the chase for love when you've been cut down by loneliness and can't think of anything else," says Curran.

Hunter Hunter has proven to be a watershed album, emotionally and professionally. Nominated this year for the national music honor the Polaris Prize, the critically acclaimed project was awarded a Juno this spring for Best Solo Traditional and Roots album. "The Mistress" exemplifies Curran's ability to marry a stark blues-folk melody to a tumble of searing lyrics, jagged shards of anger and hurt piercing the poetry in a brutal if beautifully worded confession of life as "the other woman". "Ah Me" tells of "lovers with their bleeding hearts who talk like silk and touch like darts" as acoustic guitar lines echo in sparse accompaniment. "The cloud is gone and took the silver lining along" she sings with resigned despair. At the end, the lyrics have a cathartic effect, slate cleaned, tears dried. "Sadness", says Curran simply, "demands to be communicated." The remarkable Hunter Hunter does just that.

Amelia Curran - "Goodbye Montreal" (from the album Hunter Hunter)

Amelia Curran - "The Mistress" (from the album Hunter Hunter)

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Amy Cook - Let The Light In

Singer/songwriter Amy Cook's masterful new April 6 roots/rock album Let The Light In is blessed with a number of musical guests who, in a way, help define the gutsy and extraordinary diversity at work here. For starters, there's Alejandro Escovedo, her prominent and praised fellow Austinite who marks Light as his first job as producer and adds his own distinctive guitar edge as well. Ben Kweller, another Lone Star luminary and friend, teams up with Cook for a co-write credit while the gifted Patty Griffin and Tosca String Quartet add harmonies and orchestration respectively, most notably on the heavenly lead track "Hotel Lights."

But by the time the last note fades, it's clear that Let The Light In is decidedly Cook's own impressive work, a scrappy, sumptuous album of scattered moods and intensities, from blistering, blissful, ragged-around-the-edges roots rock ("Moonrise", "I Wanna Be Your Marianne") to finely crafted, gritty and soulful drama ("Mescaline") to divine ballads ("Hotel Lights", the title track). Taking center stage is Cook's feisty musical persona, a tough and tender singer who's not afraid to mix things up, keep the atmosphere loose and get a little dirty and sweaty in the process of prodding things along with a jolt of distorted guitar or note-bending wail. Recommended.

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Amy Cook - "Hotel Lights" (from the album Let the Light In)

Amy Cook - "Saltwater" (from the album Let the Light In)

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Amy MacDonald - A Curious Thing

For her brisk and confident sophomore album A Curious Thing, arriving March 9 in Europe (U.S. TBD), 22-year-old Scottish singer/songwriter Amy MacDonald has managed to harness the blustery folk thrust of her 2007 3-million selling This Is the Life debut and make an album that's even richer, bolder and more dramatic than her first. "That’s because I’ve just toured constantly," MacDonald explains, "and just spent all that time with my band, who are all amazing musicians...Those experiences made me think we could get in a lot of instruments and make this really big-sounding album."

That expansive, generally upbeat production of her Curious project is best exemplified in lead single "Don't Tell Me That It's Over", a shimmering, simmering rocker that sounds akin to a lost U2 or Big Country track, all the propulsive wall-of sound energy of a breezy folk busker cranked to eleven and driven at 90 miles an hour. MacDonald's voice, a combination of throaty assertiveness and tender vulnerability, is a wonder throughout, whether leading the charge on the album's preponderance of stomping folk/rock anthems or the occasional ballad, most notably on the lovely piano-accompanied album closer "What Happiness Means To Me". "I love that it’s quiet and raw," she says, "that there are no effects on my vocal. It felt like the right way to end to the album." Highly recommended. Note: a Deluxe version of A Curious Thing contains a second disc featuring a live concert recorded in Glasgow.

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Amy MacDonald - "Don't Tell Me That It's Over" (from the album A Curious Thing)

Amy MacDonald - A Curious Thing Sampler

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Anais Mitchell - Hadestown

As labors of love go, they don't get much more ambitious than Hadestown (March 9, Righteous Babe), a modern "folk opera" based on an ancient Greek myth composed and performed by Vermont singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell -- along with some notable guests. Written and reworked since debuting in 2006, Hadestown tells the tale of the poet Orpheus and his doomed quest to rescue his wife Eurydice from the underworld with the story set in a timeless small American town ravaged by economic hardship. The roles in the song cycle are played by Mitchell (Eurydice), folk legend Greg Brown (Hades), Justin Vernon of Bon Iver (Orpheus) and anti-folk goddess Ani DiFranco (Hades' wife Persephone).

Despite the dramatic weight, however, Hadestown is a surprisingly lithe collection of resplendent contemporary Americana folk songs, aided in no small measure by the exquisite orchestrated arrangements by Mitchell collaborator Michael Chorney. In the end, however, it's the compelling story at the heart of the songs that makes Hadestown such a special work. "I recognized in the Orpheus character something a lot of artists feel: his heartbreaking optimism," observes Mitchell. "In the underworld, the rules are the rules, you don’t get a dead person back— but Orpheus believes if he can just sing/play/write something beautiful enough, maybe he can do the impossible, move the heart of stone, get through to someone. I've felt that feeling…" So have we. Highly recommended.

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Anais Mitchell - "Flowers (Eurydice's Song) (from Hadestown)

Anais Mitchell - "Wedding Song" (with Justin Vernon) (from Hadestown)

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Andrew Belle - The Ladder

Chicago-raised Andrew Belle first came on our radar as a 10% share of this year's Ten Out of Tenn tour, a wonderful and uniformly excellent, ever-changing collaborative mix of mostly Nashville-based singer/songwriters. Hearing his music it comes as no surprise that in high school Belle often escaped to his bedroom to revel in what he calls the "meaningful pop music" of the time: the melodic rock of Counting Crows, Verve Pipe and Third Eye Blind. Wondering "maybe I can do this someday", Belle began to write and then perform his own songs. Now after logging hundreds of shows on his own, Belle is following up on the promise of his recent 5-track EP All The Pretty Lights with with his debut full length The Ladder.

Even with the success of his shows, it's clear that Belle's bright, densely layered songs are meant for a grander production scale onstage, more Fray meets Coldplay than solo personal introspection. First track from Ladders, "Static Waves" (featuring TOT tour cohort Katie Herzig) is a scarily infectious gem of staggered rhythms and detailed construction with an ear candy hook of monumental proportions. We're guessing that Ladder will also up the ante with some more muscular pop/rock on display via the Lights EP, where the arena-sized guitar riffs and anthemic choruses of tracks like "Replace Me" and "In Your Sleep" add some welcome heft.

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Andrew Belle - Static Waves (w/ Katie Herzig) (from the album Ladders)

Andrew Belle - "All The Pretty Lights" (from the EP All The Pretty Lights)

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Andreya Triana - Lost Where I Belong

Andreya  Triana - Lost Where I Belong - September 7 - Ninja Tune - Relaxed, low-keyed trip hop fused with chilled acoustic soul from a British singer/songwriter teamed with famed U.K. mixmaster Bonobo (aka Simon Green). There are mellow grooves aplenty on Lost, but it is Triana's songs and what the LA Weekly calls her "beautifully haunting vocals" that best get our attention. Among the best of the lot is "Draw the Stars", a track that builds gradually with chiming percussive notes, takes off with a snaking melody and sweetens with a gently swaying tempo perched atop like whipped froth.

Andreya Triana - "Draw the Stars" (from the album Lost Where I Belong)

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Ane Brun - Live at Stockholm Concert Hall

Swedish songstress Ane Brun has a voice that's well suited for heartache and despair, a fragile instrument that has a particular bruised, imperfect quality, ideal for the emotional longings and musings of a troubled, lonesome soul. Since her debut album in 2003, Brun has become a focal point in European and U.S. folk circles, moving from coffee houses to concert halls on the strength of her tender, often intense songwriting. Brun, raised in Norway and now living in Stockholm, epitomizes in many respects the cool, expressive Scandinavian essence of bleak melancholy wrapped in sweetly mesmerizing melodies.

Live at Stockholm Concert Hall finally makes it's official appearance stateside digitally after a 2009 CD and DVD release in Europe. A mix of stripped acoustic renderings and fuller band support, the recording is a gorgeous capture of Brun's bittersweet menu of pathos and irony, wit and doleful longing, resilience and icy dispassion, all served with a side of warm, knowing candor. Her tremulous voice, touched with hairline cracks of vulnerability, is the soft, seductive light that shines throughout her own songs and choice covers, including Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" and Alphaville's "Big In Japan".

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Ane Brun - "Big In Japan" (from Live at Stockholm Concert Hall)

Ane Brun - "True Colors" (from Live at Stockholm Concert Hall)

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Angus and Julia Stone - Down the Way

 Unlike most duos who usually work together on songwriting , the music of Aussie folk/pop siblings Angus and Julia Stone has always been reflective of the distinct personal styles that each brings to the studio and the live performance. In many respects the Stones are solo artists, each composing songs individually and then simply switching off to each other, live and in the studio, as two solo performers sharing a stage might do. Their new album Down The Way, arriving March 30 via Nettwerk and the follow up to their exquisite 2008 debut A Book Like This, compounds that chosen divide with the additional elements of space and distance as the two found studio time -- from Cornwall to New York to Coolangatta -- between tours and traveling. "All the songs were written so far away from each other that the styles and moods are really different," explains Angus of the album.

 But despite the farflung distances and diverse styles, Down The Way, co-produced by the pair with Brad Albetta (Martha Wainwright), maintains a seamless aural quality. Lead track "And The Boys", features Julia's divine, waif-like vocals,  pulsing, shimmering guitar punctuations and a stately production that perfectly frames the track's quiet, relentless drive. Angus' "Black Crow" and "Hush", meanwhile, add a fuller folk/rock production and rhythmic balance, setting his plaintive singing atop a rich and glistening organic sound. As with their debut, there's nothing glaring or overstated here and the tone is often hushed even when the energy level rises. But with the intimacy imparted, the subdued atmosphere on display, Down The Way becomes one of those exceptionally personal albums that draws you back again and again. Highly recommended.

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Angus and Julia Stone - Down The Way Album Sampler

Angus and Julia Stone - "Black Crow" (from the album Down The Way)

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Annalivia - Barrier Falls

Annalivia is a Boston-based acoustic quintet adept at combining neo-traditional Anglo-Celtic folk with its Appalachian-styled American off-spring. Fronted by singers Liz Simmons and Flynn Cohen , the group juxtaposes lamenting ballads with spry uptempo reels with a virtuosic array of string instruments from Cape Breton fiddle to clawhammer banjo to acoustic bass. New sophomore album Barrier Falls (May 18, 5 String) is another shining example of classic folk moving easily into a modern setting as traditional compositions sit comfortably next to original songs.

We first took notice of Annalivia when they covered the classic Richard Thompson track "Walking On A Wire"and reworked the classic Pentangle track "When I Was In My Prime" for their self-titled debut. To these ears it's the ability to span genres and generations that makes the Barrier Falls work in a special way. Taking on the traditional "John Riley", a song that's been covered by the likes of Joan Baez and The Byrds, Annalivia breathes new life into the track with a flurry of plucked strings and sharply defined fiddle backing Simmons' clear, softly sanded vocals. Everything old is indeed new again with Annalivia. Recommended.

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Annalivia - "John Riley" (from the album Barrier Falls)

Annalivia - "When I Was In My Prime" (from the album Annalivia)

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Annie Lennox - A Christmas Cornucopia

Of course you didn't expect an Annie Lennox "holiday" album to be anything ordinary, did you? A Christmas Cornucopia, arriving November 16 via new label Decca, promises to live up to what Lennox calls her "labor of love", an album that begins a new stage in her career and allows her "to pursue my passion in my own individual way." Led by the lone self-penned track "Universal Child", Cornucopia delivers eleven more traditional songs and carols of the season but most with a unique twist: the addition of The African Childrens Choir and the goal of imparting "simply a human message" along with the religious themes.

"When I was seven or eight years old I used to sing in choirs in my home town," Lennox says. "We always used to sing these traditional Christmas carols that I think are exquisitely beautiful. And some of these carols have a kind of African flavor about them." She adds, "It seems to work well, that you could put something so traditional as English Christmas carols and that you could...fuse them with something African...and it works, it's amazing." All that's needed, she says, are "fresh ears and an open mind." Watch the video on the making of A Christmas Cornucopia after the jump.

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Annie Lennox - A Christmas Cornucopia Sampler

Annie Lennox - "Universal Child" (from the album A Christmas Cornucopia)

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April Smith & The Great Picture Show - Songs For A Sinking Ship

We've followed the rise of Brooklyn's April Smith & The Great Picture Show for a few years now, catching her striking live performances from Philly to Austin and listening as her sound has evolved from hearty and hooky indie rock to a more distinctive theatrical mix of sassy and swinging retro pop, raggedy ragtime and what April calls "vocally-driven-cinemelodic rock". With a voice that swoops and soars with reckless but pitch perfect abandon, Smith transcends contemporary borders with a jaunty beat, carnival organ, and jangling guitar edge melded to a daring vocal intensity. Think a feminine Gene Pitney meeting Tom Waits at a honky-tonk cabaret.

 Songs for a Sinking Ship, arriving February 23, is light years beyond Smith's promising '05 debut with a maturity and focused musical vision that has come together in a style that's all her own. Lead track "Colors" sums up in under 3 minutes what's at work (and play) here: a sharply etched, classic-styled melody, bouncy rock beat and a voice that struts and saunters. And did we mention the warbly kazoo-ish solo? “When things sound too perfect, it’s too contrived for me," says the diminutive Smith. "You need a little dirt, a little f---up that puts you in that moment.” Recommended.

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April Smith - "Colors" (demo from the album Songs For A Sinking Ship)

April Smith - "Terrible Things" (demo from the album Songs For A Sinking Ship)

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Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Revisiting his childhood home in Houston, Texas, Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler found the underlying theme for the Montreal-based art-rock collective's new August 3 album The Suburbs. Perhaps it was simply part of the process of growing older and coming to grips with the past. Maybe it was the needed escape to his roots after a grueling 100-city worldwide tour in support of the 2007 Neon Bible project. But for whatever reason, Butler found inspiration in the concept of growing up rediscovering one's own sense of place -- a concept that connects with the band's own meteoric rise since their 2004 debut Funeral. Near-universal critical acclaim and a pair of Grammy nominations for Funeral and Neon Bible have helped make The Suburbs one of the most eagerly anticipated albums of 2010.

And for good reason. Few bands are able to straddle their influences -- in this case, primarily angular Anglo 80's rock a la Echo and Bunnymen and David Bowie --  and a distinctive sound of their own with such creative authority and finesse. Arcade Fire have the ability to sound grandly progressive without pomp and artsy posing as well as an appreciation for the power of dense, grinding (and melodic) rock coupled with propulsive rhythmic thrust. New songs such as first single "Ready to Start" and "Month of May" have a relentless but swinging drive at their core, a combination of in-your-face New Order-ish bass-lines, arena-friendly guitars and the occasional dab of synth or string sweetening layered on top. It is, says Butler, a mix that allows the album to lie between of what he calls "these extremes": "a rock'n'roll thing" and "more electronics." Highly recommended.

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Arcade Fire - "Ready to Start" (from the album The Suburbs)

Arcade Fire - "Month of May" (from the album The Suburbs)

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Atlantic/Pacific - Meet Your New Love

Atlantic/Pacific is the Brooklyn duo of Garrett Klahn and John Herguth, two Brooklyn indie scene vets who began writing together 2008 in Klahn's apartment and then, guitars in hand, took their new songs on the road to U.S. and European clubs and festivals. A self-made debut EP Autumn Edition Volume 1 dropped last fall to solid reviews and the pair found then found themselves ensconced in the studio again, this time with producer and multi-instrumentalist (and self-described "phantom third member") Ian Love in tow to help them hone their songs and flesh out -- with a subtle touch -- their sound. Atlantic/Pacific's full-length debut Meet Your New Love is set for release October 26 via No Sleep Records.

After cutting their teeth on the fuller rock productions of their prior bands, Klahn and Herguth step back and then sideways to explore a more intimate sound on Meet Your New Love. Preview track "Patterns" is like a less mannered, steroid laced version of Kings of Convenience with a bristling edge of driving energy and a tender-hooked melody more 80's Prefab Sprout than post-emo grit. "Some Weary Valentine" is dreamy art/pop of the highest order, an amalgam of pulsing bass rhythms, acoustic jangle, dense, hymn-like keys and exquisite piano shadings forming a seamless backdrop to hushed, harmonied vocals that fill the spaces like errant wafts of smoke. Lovely.

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Atlantic/Pacific - "Some Weary Valentine" (from the album Meet Your New Love)

Atlantic Pacific - "Patterns" (from the album Meet Your New Love)

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Azure Ray - Drawing Down the Moon

Wistful, languid dream pop is the order of the day on Azure Ray's Drawing Down the Moon (September 14, Saddle Creek), the long-awaited creative re-pairing of Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor and the duo's first new studio output since 2003's Hold On Love. Both Fink and Taylor have kept busy since their '04 split, with a variety of solo albums -- most recently with 2009 efforts LadyLuck from Taylor and Ask the Night from Fink -- and Fink has intrigued us with the fine collaborative pairings Art in Manila and last year's excellent, more experimental electronic outing O+S.

But it seems logical -- and welcome --  that Taylor and Fink are back together again. For our money (and theirs, hopefully) the combination of these two voices wrapped around a ballad of graceful, impossibly intimate melancholy is the epitome of sublime alt-pop. Recorded in the hills of Asheville, NC with producer Eric Bachmann, Drawing Down the Moon reflects both a maturity in approach and sly nod to the stylistic center, hardly mainstream fare but with subtle touches that promise the songs a wider, more commercial appeal. Lead track "Don't Leave My Mind" is a swaying slice of sweet, ethereal charms, voices entwined in delicious harmony as the percussive beats and gentle jangle swirl beneath the surface.

Azure Ray - "Don't Leave My Mind" (from Drawing Down the Moon)

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