I've been listening all day to Lookout Mountain Lookout Sea, the new and secretly escaped album from Silver Jews. It's incredible, and beaming, and lots of fun, but I dare not post anything from it today. It doesn't come out until June. Call me a tease or whatever you like, I just don't want to do it quite yet. Let everyone else say their piece first. Today, I'll post a song that Silver Jews cover on their new album, from happy weirdo Japanese pop alchemists Maher Shalal Hash Baz.

Maher Shalal Hash Baz - "Open Field"

Open field, with a window, open field, waste no time...
Those are the only words, but even those are almost unnecessary, like narration that describes what you're already seeing. As if the soft puffing horn, softer than a question mark, the sunshine guitar with green grass strings, the chorus of golden "ahhhs", the tall and waltzing clarinet, weren't indication, illustration, enough. [Buy]

Bill Wells & Maher Shalal Hash Baz - "Tipsy Cat"

Here I feel like I'm listening to Hot 8 doing a TV show theme song. And a more welcome combination I couldn't imagine. If I had to write a show based on this theme song (and I do, Sean wants more and more for these posts) it would be called "The Desmonds". It would be about a struggling family in the Bronx in the 70s. The father is a beat cop, the mother trying to go back to school, the daughter coming of age and falling in love, and the son getting by as a kid in the city. And it would have heart, tons of it. [Buy]