Philly foursome Arc in Round make music that fits squarely within the indie rock tradition but it manages to criss-cross that landscape with ease. There are neo-shoegaze elements of contemporaries like Asobi Seksu, nods to the pastiche pop of Broadcast, and shades of indie traditionalists such as Built to Spill. If this suggests a lot of territory to cover over the course of four minutes… well, it is. Arc in Round’s greatest bit of sleight of hand is to make the trick appear so effortless.

“Spirit” is the sixth track on the band’s recently released eponymous debut LP, which features appearances from Kurt Vile and Pattern is Movement’s Chris Ward. Synth pad chords gently usher themselves in and out of the background, giving deference to the track’s syncopated guitar notes and androgynous harmonies. Beneath it all, Matt Ricchini’s drumming helps define the song’s off-balance rhythm (perhaps there’s a little Tortoise in there, too?) as he inflects a bit of a push-pull dynamic into “Spirit” without ever taking things off the rails.

If you liked this song, you should also check out:

Dum Dum Girls “Jail La La”

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti “Round and Round”

Jay Reatard “Wounded”

“I caught you streaking in your Birkenstocks / A scary thought in the 2K,” begins “Tigers,” the first track from Mirror Traffic, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks’ fifth (or possibly fourth or third depending on how you count such things) full-length, which Matador Records will release on August 23, 2011.

Malkmus continues in his trademark croon, “Change is all we need to improve.” I’m going to have to disagree with you here, Stephen. “Tigers” delights precisely because it serves up Malkmus in his purest form. With vocal inflections that careen like light off a rearview mirror, his style is recognizable immediately.

“Tigers” would be right at home on Brighten the Corners. Should we abandon Malkmus for not mixing it up more? He doesn’t think so. He beats doubters to the punch singing, “Trust me because / I’m worth hating,” a line he delivers with customary Malkmusian self-absorption.

Malkmus is a singular genius who has a good thing going. Why mess with it? Even after Malkmus enlisted Beck (another singular genius) to produce Mirror Traffic, “Tigers” doesn’t sound the tiniest bit like anyone but Stockton’s favorite son (sorry, Spiral).

As Malkmus has aged he has conceded to let his lyrics tell the occasional story. (Search for linear storytelling in “Summer Babe” or “Gold Soundz” all you like, but it isn’t there.) It’s a rather large step toward convention from a songwriter so intentionally cryptic that he used to be identified only as “S.M.”

Lyrically, “Tigers” represents another tiny chink in Malkmus’ armor of inscrutability and fans are wise to peer in. The song stands poised to join Jicks-era classics like “Jenny and the Ess-Dog” and “Jo-Jo’s Jacket.”

If you liked this song, you should also check out:

Sweet Apple “I’ve Got A Feeling (That Won’t Change)”

Andy Clockwise “Stealing Cars (Second Wind)”

July & August 2011 MP3 Rewind

Over the next few days, One Track Mind will be spotlighting music from artists performing at this year’s Underground Music Showcase here in Denver, Colorado.

Catch today’s featured act, Gauntlet Hair, performing tonight, Thursday, July 21st, at 9:00 pm at Hi-Dive.

For a duo, Gauntlet Hair manage to make a lot of beautiful noise. The pair hail from the Denver suburb of Lafayette and first made waves with a show at the Rhinoceropolis art space run by (previously featured artist) Pictureplane. That performance led to the inclusion of this track, “I Was Thinking,” on Pictureplane’s MtyMx showcase mixtape.

From its opening moments, “I Was Thinking” demands the listener’s attention, shaking them into consciousness with heavily processed guitars and the sharp slap of a digital beat. It’s easy to see what made Pictureplane a fan of the band’s sound; there are undoubtedly some similarities between the two bands’ approaches. However, Gauntlet Hair’s influences tend toward other musical orbits, as well. There are trippy, tribal nods to Panda Bear in some places, while the guitar work elsewhere recalls A Certain Ratio’s minor key moments.

Of course, a band’s influences are hardly important if they don’t to something exceptional with them, and this is precisely where Gauntlet Hair excel. Over the course of five minutes, the pair turn in a singular performance which makes allusions to their musical heroes without ever sounding much like any of them in particular. It is a mesmerizing single, full of unexpected detours and ripe with melody and dissonance. Most of all, “I Was Thinking” piques interest about what these two gentlemen have in store for us next–namely their debut LP for the Dead Oceans imprint.

If you liked this song, you should also check out:

A Lull “Weapons for War”

We All Have Hooks for Hands “Made Up of Tiny Lights”

MGMT “Flash Delirium”

Cass McCombs is about the closest thing we have to a American bard in this day and age. His lyrics are written with the stilted airs of a Victorian poet and the melodies he sings them in are easily imagined being gently drummed out on a hammer dulcimer as he works them out. It’s not just his melodies or his lyrics that set him apart, though, it is his voice, a delicate vibrato that works to create very evocative, mournful overtones to anything he sings.

His 2009 release, Catacombs, stands as one of the best albums released this century, and today’s track, “County Line,” is the first song on of his follow-up record, Wit’s End. Although it’s being hailed as his darkest effort yet, that’s not to say that black and blue hues are the only ones that color these songs.

Here on “County Line,” for example, the Fender Rhodes that plinks out counter melodies to the vocal line is reminiscent of soft rock ballads of the 1970s per Christopher Cross and Seals and Croft. That organ line and McCombs’ soulful melodies set a lugubrious tone rather than an outright dour one. The mood set by the interplay of the instrumentation is sexy and sad, full of spent lust and reverie. To call Cass McCombs dark or lump him in with all the other sad bastards treading that populated swath would be to dismiss the beauty or the element of playfulness in his musicality.

Wit’s End is available on Domino Records, who released the album on April 26th.

If you liked this song, you should also check out:

The Lovetones “City Meets the Stars”