The Easy Gramophone - November

1. Radiohead - Reckoner
How could I not greet you with this? More than any other artist - more than the Arctic Monkeys, Sandy Thom and Lily Allen put together - Radiohead have with In Rainbows demonstrated that they "get" the internet, that they understand its challenges, opportunities, and the so-simple way it can work. Ten days after announcing it was finished, they released an album and made it initially available only online; they asked you to pay what you liked; and it's this. Their simplest record in years, their prettiest ever, and at its centre this gorgeous ballad: falsetto, strings, scattering drums, the pearliest guitar-line you've ever heard. Remembering the lessons of Four Tet, Spoon and ten years on the sea.
Download at: http://www.inrainbows.com

2. Red Pony Clock - Here Comes the Sun
San Diego's Red Pony Clock sound like a bit of a shambles, but proudly so. This album's called "Paisley and Twee", there's squeezebox and melodica, off-key singing, a melody like the chug of smog from smokestacks. They'll not soon be duetting with Elton John, but I can imagine them sneaking into a screening of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, offering a weary, improvised soundtrack.
Download at: http://www.hhbtm.com/bands/rpc.html

3. Froggystein - The Flowers are Blooming
MySpace says their influences are: jokes, Xiu Xiu, coffee, Raymond Carver. But you might as well say wildflowers, fist-fights, the Flaming Lips, and sex. Because Froggystein's fucked up bedroom pop is as much thrown punches and cracked one-liners, as much psych-rock as mid-20th-century American fiction. That is to say, it's a mess of things; noisy, sudden, melancholy, beautiful, a kickstart to your ailing heart. "So flowers are blooming / and it's time to rise. / So get up to go on being you and me / you, me."
Download at: http://www.myspace.com/froggystein

4. Barons and Lengthy - Wheel and Deal (live)
Mr Barons and Lengthy has a ragged voice that recalls Bruce Springsteen, Ted Leo, even Win Butler, but there's a jubilance in the way he sings, a pleasure he takes in his hoarsening, that allows him to stand apart, and even at times above, those others. "Wheel and Deal" is back-room garage-pop infused with a modest Motown pulse, and it's more fun than even your favourite Friday night.
Download at: http://www.myspace.com/baronsandlengthy

5. Ezra Furman and the Harpoons - God is a Middle-Aged Woman
Ezra Furman dreams of being a young Bob Dylan - he and the Harpoons have even recorded a short film about "going electric". And this would be maddening or clichéd were Furman's talent not kinda incendiary, and at the very least a blast to discover. "God is a Middle-Aged Woman" is an elaborate metaphor about a sad universe, expressed as a country waltz with harmonica, electric guitar, Furman's straining vocals. "And I love the way [God] looks / and I just want her to be happy. / I wish I could talk some sense / into her troubled head."
Download at: http://myspace.com/ezrafurman