Fleet Foxes, 'Fleet Foxes' (Sub Pop)
After releasing Sun Giant, a five-track EP, earlier this year, Fleet Foxes have corralled their sprawling, harmony-laden rock into a remarkable debut album.
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Fern Knight, 'Fern Knight' (VHF)
Philadelphia hosts a booming community of psychedelic folksingers, and much like locals Espers (whose Greg Weeks produces here), Margaret Wienk is as influenced by the spacey thrills of the Incredible String Band as by the down-home mumbles of the Folkways catalog.
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The Chapin Sisters, 'Lake Bottom LP' (Plain Recordings)
In 2004, the Chapin Sisters' acoustic cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic" began popping up on Los Angeles radio stations; the trio may have been singing through smirks, but they converted the dance-pop grind into a genuinely unnerving (maybe even prescient?) saga of self-destruction.
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Ecstatic Sunshine, 'Way' (Cardboard)
This Baltimore duo began as a guitar-only ambient project, but for their third LP, they've folded even more diddles into the drone by way of "electronics" player Kieran Gillen, and the band's spastic curlicues (obviously inspired by experimental
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Vetiver, 'Thing of the Past' (Gnomonsong)
Frontman Andy Cabic's affinity for wheezing British folk -- see the Incredible String Band, Bert Jansch, Vashti Bunyan -- is long established, but on Vetiver's third LP, Cabic tackles 1960s Americana, covering tracks by Guthrie disciples Michael Hurley, Derroll Adams, Townes Van Zandt, and others.
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Dawn Landes, 'Fireproof' (Cooking Vinyl USA)
On her second solo album, Dawn Landes scurries out from behind the boards (she's worked as an engineer for Philip Glass, Ryan Adams, and Joseph Arthur) and uses an arsenal of thrift-store noisemakers (glockenspiel, accordion, cheap guitar) to convey her quirky songs.


