Nadastrom - House Shoes

Like an unhinged light bulb flickering between its loose connection to the bedside lamp, Nadastrom's House Shoes is filled with a half light that oozes unease and fractured darkness. Ethereal whispering is not an under utilised trick within Modern Disco/ Darkwave music, yet here it is put to use to such an effective degree, that you will be mumbling the hook long after the song has ended. (Uhhh Elizabeth Fraser much?) Diggin it:

Felt - Primitive Painters

For this week's installment of Look Back In Anger, we focus our feelers on Felt. Felt flew largely under the radar through most of the 80s and 90s, but proved to be hugely influential on modern day Indie/Post-Punk/guitar bands etc. Their sound falls somewhere between Close Lobsters, The Fall, and Cocteau Twins. For one of their more recogonizable songs, Felt enlisted some powerful back-up vox from Cocteau Twins' dreamstress, Elizabeth Fraser. Primitive Painters is both sleepy and driving with a heavy lacquering of jangley guitars, plus Lawrence Hayward's David Byrne-esque talk singing overtop of Fraser's mysterious ghost wails. Check it:

Snowbird - Porcelain

The glittering flames that are the legacy of Cocteau Twins, have been rekindled with this haunting ballad by Snowbird. Stephanie Dosen, who's vocal territory is somewhere between Erica Foster and Elizabeth Fraser, joins former Cocteau Twins mastermind, Simon Raymonde. With this jam I keep hoping some spectre of a guitar is going to jangle into the foreground, but instead we get a few wisps of a piano, played beneath Dosen's voice. This is not a club banger, but it is pretty neat!