The Easy Gramophone ft BARR

1. Francois Virot - 'My Head is Blank'
A Frenchman gasps and yelps and strings us along with a ratty guitar-line, clappin' his hands like a member of the Animal Collective. Part mantra, part love-song, part alarm clock: Virot wants to rouse himself from a winter blues, from an "empty" head. And it's like Paul Simon's "Graceland" crossed with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
Download at: http://fat-cat.co.uk/demo/artist.php?id=121

2. Fulton Lights - 'Thank God For The Evening News'
Dusty beats and forlorn piano make for a song that recalls Portishead or early Massive Attack, even if Fulton Lights is more singer-songwriter than trip-hop. There's a very urban malaise here: "What are we looking for and what do we see?" the singer asks, strings shimmering in his peripheral vision.
Download at: http://www.fultonlights.com/

3. Grumpy Bear - 'Luis Bunuel'
As an ode to the surrealist film-maker it's appropriate that "Luis Bunuel" drifts arbitrarily from one melody to another: at first the gentle strum of Iron & Wine covering The Postal Service, then some sixties pop zing, and finally a John Mellencamp mutter over precise electric guitar. It's pretty brilliant, like three great singles squeezed into one schizophrenic track.
Download at: http://abandonedloverecords.com/store.htm

4. Sandro Perri - 'Circles'
This is a song for mornings, slow and easy, with a golden french horn and Sandro Perri's sleepy voice. You could roll out of bed and then back into bed, in and out of consciousness, putting this soft song on repeat and listening to the tambourine as it reappears, disappears, reappears. If your bedroom has a stereo and you have this song, you may never rise again.
Download at: http://www.southern.com/southern/band/PERRI/CST42.php

5. BARR - 'Half of Two Times Two'
Piano chords ring, ring, ring as BARR's singer plows forward, reading a manifesto of oblivion and hope: "And here it goes and it's a toast / and it's a toast to us / and it goes: / Eyes closed / eyes open." It's only a scattered sermon, the throughline a little hard to grasp, but as the drums skip and scamper, as the piano rings on, it's difficult not to get caught up in the crescendo. Like the final montage from a Wes Anderson film, the characters suddenly springing into action, medicine cabinets slamming shut, this simple song taking them all out to war.
Download at: http://www.upsettherhythm.co.uk/barr.html