The Easy Gramophone ft Chris Garneau

1. Chris Garneau - Not Nice
One of the most beautiful and sad songs I've heard this year. Garneau sings over piano and a touch of cello, more pause than voice, like Antony (of The Johnsons) with every ounce of histrionics removed. No hysteria, no tears: just a serious, aching sadness. Not Nice is a song so carefully sung that it could only be the product of a dismantled heart.
Download at: http://www.absolutelykosher.com/garneau.htm

2. Grizzly Bear - On a Neck, on a Spit
These purveyors of lush folk-pop leave Brooklyn for a European tour this month, visiting Edinburgh on Nov 25th and Glasgow on the 26th. This sample from 'Yellow House' is sleepy-deafening, like an orchestra packed into a bedside table. Voices blend over jaunty acoustic guitar; the cold front comes in; thunder, rain, rainbow. Don't bring an umbrella.
Download at: http://www.myspace.com/grizzlybear

3. Basia Bulat - Someday
Someday is a song by The Strokes and Basia Bulat is a Canadian singer with a mesmerising voice. This recording is humble, home-sewn, just Bulat in a room with her friends, laughing and chatting as they play. Plucked violin takes the part of drowsy electric guitar, but the body of the song is the glimmer of Bulat's singing, just the thing to come wafting out a window.
Download at: http://www.myspace.com/basiamyspace

4. The Winks - Guitar Swing
A song of muddled indie rock with strokes of strings and a doowop crescendo. Like the Magic Numbers arm-in-arm with Architecture in Helsinki, and maybe Arcade Fire along for the ride. I like the way their voices get all tangled and caught; sheepwool left on the fence. Slightly twee without being twee in the least.
Download at: http://www.acherecords.com/releases.php?release=32

5. Shinobu - T- T- T- Trepanning
The roughest kind of pop-punk: nothing Californian about it, nothing Blink 182, just feedback and guitars and a torn voice yelling a catchy riff. It's a song about drilling a hole in your head but it's more likely to inspire glad roars to the ceiling. Rip it up when all your buttons bust.
Download at: http://www.myspace.com/shinobu