Only skin

Image: Nina Hartmann

Skin Lieutenant - My Teenage Stride

From Lesser Demons (eMusic), Myspace


Image: Liu Zheng

LCD - Mathematicians

Myspace


Image: Brian Finke

Lights & Music (Superdiscount remix) - Cut Copy

From Lights & Music EP (Amazon, eMusic), Myspace


Image: Mary Coble

Lions After Slumber - Scritti Politti

From Early (Amazon, eMusic), Myspace


Image: Suzy Poling

Navigate, Navigate (Loving Hand remix) - These New Puritans

Myspace


Image: Ringl & Pit

Los Ninos Del Parque - Liaisons Dangereuses

From Disco Not Disco 1974-1986 (Amazon, eMusic), Myspace


Image: Levi van Veluw

Converging in the Quiet - Crystal Stilts

From Crystal Stilts (eMusic), Myspace


Image: Hellen van Meene

Kast - Silje Nes

From Yellow (eMusic), Myspace


Zip file of April mix

Smallest in the crowd

Image: Cathy Cullis

I Don't Feel Young - Wye Oak

A lot of indie pop bands, to their credit, recast the misery of being young and awkward and self-conscious as a magic of infinite possibility, constant discovery and profound connections. But what of that unaddressed misery--the lack of control, the sense that you speak too fast and laugh too loud and can't trust anyone enough to unburden the lead backpack of secrets from your shoulders? Wye Oak speaks of the purgatorial space between not feeling young but not being old enough to do anything about it. In words, but also in sound, engulfing singer Jenn Wasner's unhappiness in a snowstorm of buzzing cymbals and loud liquid guitar chords.

From If Children (eMusic, Amazon), Myspace

Great things:

Cathy Cullis' poetic textile and mixed media collages (see above).

Jezebel's mad, literary letterpress cards.

All hail second albums

Image: wondercabinet

I Feel Better - Frightened Rabbit

I didn't really see it before, comparisons to fellow Scots, The Twilight Sad. But now that Frightened Rabbit has traded their small-scale art songs for broad mural-scope anthems with dramatic instrumental builds, the points of convergence are coming into focus. The band's lyrical pessimism and Scott Hutchison's mournful voice works both in scrappy and -- on the new album The Midnight Organ Fight -- ambitious modes. So whether you'll like the new album better or worse than Sings the Greys is probably going to be an aesthetic, not a critical, choice. I'm a little leery about a few Coldplay-falsetto moments, but there are plenty of awesome, ultra-catchy tracks here like "Modern Leper" (I posted a live version last year), "Good Arms vs. Bad Arms," "Floating in the Forth" and "I Feel Better." The last works in sort of a"You're So Vain" vein. Hutchison promises "This is the last song I ever sing about you," but the way he chants "I feel better and better" like he's shredding the sofa with his teeth, suggests otherwise.

Previous posts on Frightened Rabbit here, here, here, here and here. Buy The Midnight Organ Fight (Amazon), Myspace.