“Bobby” is a song you escape into as a listener. Like Moses all swaddled up for his first big adventure, it embraces you and gently carries you along its melodic currents. It’s the sort of song you suddenly realize you’ve been listening to for three minutes without really ever having been aware, the soundtrack to a reverie.

These are all intended as compliments, of course, a testimony on behalf of Butcher the Bar‘s talent for concocting a finely articulated sense of mood. And it certainly isn’t to say that “Bobby” (the second song on Butcher the Bar’s recently released sophomore long-player, For Each A Future Tethered) isn’t deserving of your full attention–far from it! The track has nuance to spare with its deft touches of piano and trumpet, and a folksy groove that Belle and Sebastian would’ve swooned over a decade and a half ago.

Mancunian Joel Nicholson possesses that most enviable of songwriter traits: the ability to singlehandedly conceive of and erect full formed musical ideas which sound like they were the work of a full band. As Butcher the Bar, Nicholson leaves little to be desired in the way his music is written, recorded, and produced. Without this knack, “Bobby” wouldn’t be the beautiful half-dream it is and we would all be the poorer for not having being carried away by its melodies.

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Efterklang “Modern Drift”

Destroyer “Chinatown”

Brazos “Day Glo”

Grayson Sanders, leader of Brooklyn’s Snowmine, has a background in classical music and it shows. “Beast in Air, Beast in Water,” a track from Snowmine’s debut Laminate Pet Animal, betrays a classical musician’s ear for structure, orchestration, and drama.

The first movement of “Beast in Air, Beast in Water” begins with languid guitars over percussion before hushed vocals enter the picture. More voices enter in harmony when the song bursts into its bright chorus. More instruments are added to the mix until there are string and horn sections swirling around the main melody. The vocal harmonies get more complex until the song reaches its racing crescendo and string sections reminiscent of John Barry help it along to its conclusion.

In addition to his classical grasp of music, Sanders demonstrates a poet’s way with words. His lyrics are impressionistic but evocative. “Tell me that you long for me,” he sings at the song’s rousing climax. “That you share all of my troubles / You get all the voices in my head are yelling / And my friends can’t hear a thing / And I’m a far cry from the old me.” It’s an effective statement of the longing to understand and be understood by another human being.

Snowmine are still a relatively unknown band, but on the strength of “Beast in Air, Beast in Water” they shouldn’t stay that way for long. This is a band with a huge amount of ambition with the talent and ability to see their ambition through.

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June 2011 MP3 Rewind

Long before the term “twee” lost its subcultural cachet and Zooey Deschanel had her own sitcom on Fox, Lupe Núñez-Fernández was helping reshape the twee aesthetic as half of the shamefully overlooked indie-pop act Pipas. Alongside Londoner Mark Powell, the native Spaniard Fernández whipped up songs in fleeting bursts which were precious (though never cloyingly so). Pipas built a modest yet exceptionally ardent fan base by taking a relaxed approach to their performances–one I caught a decade ago was dappled with apologies for missed chords or botched lyrics–but they always somehow managed to make it work.

Now Fernández has struck up another collaboration with a different Englishman. This time around, it’s Alasdair MacLean from another longtime favorite (and previously spotlighted) act, The Clientele. The new duo has united under the sobriquet of Amor de Días and the results illustrate just how well-suited the pair are for one another’s musical leanings. Separately, both of the members’ other projects have had distinct musical arcs: Pipas’ output progressively moved away from their lo-fi bedsit pop origins toward faster paced songs propelled by drum machine beats, while The Clientele ditched some of their delicate vaporousness in favor of more enterprising arrangements.

In many respects, “Bunhill Fields” is the apotheosis of these two musical arcs intersecting. The third track from the band’s new Merge Records debut, The Street of the Love of Days, begins with a hushed, hollow programmed beat that casually bulks up as the song moves forward. Acoustic guitar and Fernández’s vocals are the next instruments to enter the mix; they do so simultaneously and with similarly whispered notes.

Once the chorus drops, Amor de Días presses hard on the gas. The trumpet bursts and undulating strings of The Clientele’s recent efforts are ushered in and the song suddenly becomes as robust as its early moments were austere. It is impressive to have such contrasts contained within such a brief song, and even if Amor de Días is a partnership that sounds exactly like you might imagine it will, that is positively not ashame. On “Bunhill Fields,” Fernández and MacLean provide indie-pop listeners with a lot to love.

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

Sambassadeur “Days”

Efterklang “Modern Drift”

Codeine Velvet Club “Hollywood”

The singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar is probably the most primal form of pop music – anything beyond that is embellishment. But if it it’s the most basic form of music, it’s also one of the trickiest to pull off well – the line between what is simple and powerful and what is sentimental and maudlin is a thin one. On the surface, songs like the beloved “The Blower’s Daughter” by Damien Rice and the reviled “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt might sound similar, but in their depths they are worlds apart.

On “George Square,” New Jersey musician and poet David Berkeley lands firmly in the Rice camp. Superficially, there’s not much that separates the song from thousands of “longing for my lover” songs by thousands of sensitive singer-songwriters, but Berkeley manages to nail the right alchemy in his combination of imagery, melody, and arrangement to make “George Square” a keeper. It could have been cloying and mawkish but Berkeley makes it heartfelt and moving, adorning his song with just enough instrumentation to enhance the mood but not enough to mask the simple acoustic performance at its core.

Sometimes the simplest approaches to art are the most dangerous to attempt. An acoustic troubadour can’t hide behind layers of feedback and sonic trickery – if his songwriting is deficient, he’s got no place to hide. Like Damien Rice, Ron Sexsmith, Josh Ritter, and David Gray at his best, David Berkeley has the talent to withstand the scrutiny.

“George Square” is the lead track on Berkeley’s self-released new album, Some Kind of Cure.

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Jenny and Johnny “Big Wave”

February 2011 MP3 Rewind

Princeton “Sadie and Andy”