The Easy Gramophone ft Swan Lake

1. Swan Lake - 'The Freedom'
Dan Bejar, also of Destroyer and The New Pornographers, leads this song alongside Frog Eyes' Carey Mercer and Wolf Parade's Spencer Krug. 'The Freedom' is a weird mix of clap and groan, Modest Mousey strain mixed with the splendour that marks Canadian indie rock of late. And when the noisy bit comes, piano raining silverblue, it's like all the scariest bits are locked outside - on the other side of the cabin walls. Bejar's lyrics are notes passed among seers, half-meanings that promise and predict.
Download at: http://www.jagjaguwar.com/onesheet.php?cat=JAG098

2. Sleeping States - 'Rivers'
Guitar strings pull in and back like oars, and London's Sleeping States is paddling down something narrower than the Thames. There are trees and deer and little shrubs. Must be the Cam. Or the Dee. Must be voices like Grizzly Bear and riffs from Pavement's laziest Saturday afternoon.
Download at: http://www.myspace.com/sleepingstates

3. Samamidon - 'Tribulation'
With piano, guitar, organs wheezy and wobbly, Sam Amidon and Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman) make a song to warm any Appalachian night. It's a yearning that isn't constant: it flares and flashes, ebbs and fades. As piano-notes resound, Amidon sings - and when he's done there's an answer spelled in pattering drums, whistling synths.
Download at: http://www.samamidon.com/thischicken.html

4. Blood Music - 'The Hair'
It starts as wonky awkward pop in the vein of Herman Dune or Jeffrey Lewis, but Blood Music meets Daft Punk less than a minute in, becoming a duet for mandolin and cybernetic voice. This is of course a fucking brilliant move: by the time the bongo solo's done, you want to lift your hands and holler along. "Ain't it good to be alive?!" 'The Hair', my friends, is a Flaming Lips hit in the making.
Download at: http://www.makeithappen.org/thehair.html

5. Paul Duncan - 'Red Eagle'
Funny that a man can sound a little like Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and a little like Tracy Chapman. But Duncan does, serious as black tea, while strings and pedal steel lap against his acoustic guitar. When the song recedes, four minutes young, it's like the eponymous bird.
Download at: http://www.home-tapes.com/mp3/redeagle.mp3