Bombadil - "Angeline". The first track from Bombadil's new indie-pop ziggurat - a tune that's spry, cheerful, sturdy as piano-ivory. There's the wink and echo of the Kinks, a mixture of baroque decorum and bluejean freedom that could only be American. A pastoral of overgrown alleys, concrete lakesides, beachballs from the WalMart. A Monty Python sketch in a suburban record store, a dog that's learned how to drive. I'm not sure I've ever heard Bombadil so stately, or so rosily, unselfconsciously fond. [stream Metrics of Affection/buy]

Donovan - "Get Thy Bearings". Choose your marbles wisely. Some situations call for glass ones, some for ceramic, some for ketchup or mustard or cat's-eye. Weigh the marble in your hand, evaluate its roll. Touch the ground: is it dusty? is it concrete? Click the marble against it. Sometimes you need a wandering marble, sometimes one that's obedient. Sometimes you need to know where everything is headed and other times you want the changes to be driven by reflex, context, instinctive new habits. [buy]

(painting by Tyson Anthony Roberts)