Small Wonder :: "Until I Open My Wings"

For this, you will have to work. Aptly titled Small Wonder, a Brooklyn band fronted by Henry Crawford, build a miniature metamorphosis on "Until I Open My Wings", the lead single from the band's coming LP, Wendy. The track opens to the brittle dawn of a vocal from Susannah Cutler - the first layer - the singer intones, "Each day my heart grows fonder / so one day I'll be you small wonder," name-checking the band in question and unleashing the idea of tiny brilliance that carries the arrangement to its crashing finish. The lyrics describe all states of becoming: moss growing on stone, rocks paving roads, butterflies, lovers in bloom, a song that snaps itself to full posture and then breaks into a run after the five-minute mark. It recalls the best parts of Loney Dear, a world where everything waits for a moment before being what it will be.

Mesita :: "XYXY"

A bit of downtown lounge-act veneer covers the surface of Mesita's latest single "XYXY". Following early 2012 LP , The Coyote, and its shimmering first song, "Ken Caryl", which recalled the better-than-the-best-of Loney, Dear, "XYXY" taps a different vein, though no less satisfying. The aesthetic here is loaded with splashy drums and little lyrical admonishments like, "you were not the thing I'm dreaming of," as Mesita sends a fuzzy melody against a sparse piano and watches the unfolding drama. Episodic in nature, "XYXY" pulls back into measures of isolated piano before unleashing itself again with a drum fill and James Cooley's signature warble. Think Tom Vek doing a lounge set, and then embrace the long, slow, outtro of keys and drums, a relaxed end to a spasmodic and mercurial arrangement of forces.

Loney Dear :: "Loney Blues"

Loney Dear mastermind Emil Svanagen seems to get a lot of mileage out of his project's name almost sounding like the word "lonely". This was particularly problematic in 2006 when the band's first LP broke into the hearts and minds of listeners with an ear for well-crafted bedroom pop, occasionally mistaking his name in confluence with his sound as "Lonely Dear". On latest promotional single, "Loney Blues", Svanagen leaves us with a self-referential signifier that does little more or less than its central lyric, "It gets to your head, it gets to your heart." In short, Loney Dear is back where he is most comfortable: making lonely, orchestral creations, this favoring slow-drive pop. The miracle isn't that he recovers from these lowest of lows, but rather that he never recovers from them. The ability to get and stay sad makes his work not of catharsis but of a more elemental depression. This darkness is not the moment before the clouds clear and the rain stops. This, in some sense, is the most terrible of fictions, the real opiate of modern life. It is, perhaps, just darkness, and darkness is enough.

Listen :: Loney Dear - "Loney Blues"

Loney Dear - "My Heart"

Not surprisingly, Loney Dear, is talking about his fracturing heart. Sweden's best purveyor of sad-sack, beautiful pop, returns with a new record, Hall Music, and appropriately-titled lead single, "My Heart". What begins as a small thing, an almost forgotten riff that it seems Emil Svanagen found at the bottom of a backpack after months of inattention, grows teeth, replete with bells and a rapidly swelling sense of scale. Of course, this is what he does best, building orchestral pop from the ground up and then marveling at you marveling at it. The chord resolution at 2:04 marks exactly this type of understated brilliance, a quiet transition into a final movement full of "sadness", "disappointment" and the final insistance, "I want what I asked for." He resolves to find it, quietly, in an archetecture of his own design where the most obviously broken thing is in the center of his chest.

Listen :: Loney Dear - "My Heart"
Listen ::  Loney Dear - "I Am John"
Listen :: Loney Dear - "Ignorant Boy, Beautiful Girl"

All Tiny Creatures - "An Iris" [Feat. Justin Vernon]

On All Tiny Creatures latest LP, Harbors, out this past Tuesday, the band continues to craft some of the best hushed, chamber pop available. "An Iris" roots in a spinning guitar loop and ethereal, sailing vocals with, of course, an assist from Bon Iver/Volcano Choir genius Justin Vernon. It is driving and propulsive without necessarily trying to be, finding a certain beauty in repetition or expansion on a theme; the kind of thing you've been listening to for 3:33 and it easily could have been a not unpleasant hour. Heads nod unconsciously, you strain to make out the lyrics. Mix Loney, Dear with shades of UK super-producer Clock Opera and you'll arrive at a soft little center All Tiny Creatures have found inside all this chaos. They embrace a certain cacophony, though they've rubbed the sharp edges from it and commanded it into rhythm. A cocoon, a compass - choose the image - but it is something shimmering and sensible floating on the deck of a surging sea.

Listen :: All Tiny Creatures - "An Iris" [Feat. Justin Vernon]
Listen :: All Tiny Creatures - "Glass Bubbles"

Loney Dear :: "Airport Surroundings"

Loney Dear's "Airport Surroundings" reminds me of my phone's alarm. The chimes in the background right before the chorus, well, they're the same as a possible alarm tone on a Blackberry Storm (WOOOOOOSHHHH!). Which means, there are parts of the chorus that evoke something painfully Pavlovian in me. Those chimes, those noises, say, "Wake up. And not in that epic Arcade Fire 'Wake Up' way. Wake up, in the tragic, 'you will feel awful for the next 90 minutes until you arrive at your job and realize you love what you do' way." 5:45am is a weird time. So, those chimes don't really elevate me. They make me exhausted.

But, "Airport Surroundings" has something dark and candid about it; something that reminds me about driving at night or taking a red-eye from California. You can almost feel the road slip under your tires. You can feel the tarmac release you from gravity until you wake up somewhere else. The vocals are hushed and full of nonsense (too many nas, not enough heys) but nonetheless front a song that feels moving. Because the only time you should wake up at 5:45am on the east coast is when you took off at 11pm in LA.

Listen :: Loney Dear - "Airport Surroundings"

Loney, Dear :: "Ignorant Boy, Beautiful Girl"

In 2006 I ran smack into Loney, Dear's "I Am John." There wasn't a cohesive rationale behind my affection, other than an immediate and unwavering need to listen to it. It was the cascading arrangement. It was the over-the-top cloying bells and chimes. It was that I couldn't quite make out the lyrics. It was a lot of things.

I had a job interview that afternoon on the top floor of a building on the East River in DUMBO. It was for a job teaching creative writing over the summer, a position for which I was incredibly unqualified. I had taught 4th grade English poorly for five months, which in my mind made me more or less able to teach creative writing to high achieving students in four-hour sessions through July. Or put another way, someone let me take care of their fish for the weekend and instead, I killed the fish and tried to steal their television. As I poked my way through the snow and up the stairs into the loft space that passed for an office, I pumped "I Am John" and it made me forget everything I just described to you. I was suddenly more than qualified. If they didn't hire me, it was certainly their loss.

I didn't get the job and two summers later I missed 2008's Loney, Dear's contribution, "Ignorant Boy, Beautiful Girl." It's dreadfully small and I wouldn't blame you if you missed it too. Based on a languid keyboard progression and looping vocals that sound like a drunk bee hive, "Ignorant Boy, Beautiful Girl" is the most beautiful thing since the 8th floor of that DUMBO loft. It's so tiny and so squeezed in the cracks; so brittle and so important. It's destructive in the most silent way possible and I defy you not to be moved by the final minute. It makes the eyes water and the spirit go sentimental. Put another way, it's overestimating yourself while watching snow blow across the East River.

Listen :: Loney, Dear - "Ignorant Boy, Beautiful Girl"

Bonus :: Loney, Dear - "I Am John"