Modern Merchant :: "Like Minded"

Playing a languid form of the outsider pop that has recently charmed audiences with its deftness and lilting harmonies, Modern Merchant, a Brooklyn four-piece, offer their voice to the chorus on "Like Minded". A bit like Local Natives set in a sultry lounge scene, the band crafts a sparse guitar lick to offset the languorous vocals, eventually soaring with the addition of synthesizers at the edges. The arrangement glides along without obvious friction, a pleasant male-female duet announcing the second movement, a mildly more urgent take on the original conceit, rich and moving harmonies set against a stirring progression. More than just one song, the band's most recent EP, For The Fields, is as good an extended player to come out of Brooklyn this year, offering odes to Grizzly Bear and the aforementioned Local Natives, without feeling a bit derivative.