Clinic - "Jigsaw Man". A guitar tuned to sitar, a voice tuned to ghosts. And the melodica? The melodica's just a melodica, that inbetween instrument that appears in the strangest of places, here creeping among the weeds toward the Wicker Man. The fire leaps at the Man's knees, leaps toward the weeds, but the melodica's not gonna get too close. If you're smart, you'll stay back beside it. If you're brave (brave and not smart), you'll dive in with the guitar and the voice, doing a dance in the dust, flames glinting in your eyes. And you know what that means.

This is the b-side from Clinic's new single. The a-side, "Tusk", is exceedingly different - a trashy rustynail punk song, - and I love setting the two tracks next to each other, listening to them in sequence, imagining them as siblings. Tusk could beat Jigsaw Man in a fight. But Jigsaw Man, oh Jigsaw Man could swallow Tusk right down, quick as silver.

[Hear "Tusk" at Clinic's website, anticipate their upcoming LP.]

Peasant - "Joanna". A song with the quietest handclaps I've ever heard, but they're enough to pull me in. It's a song where everything rests upon the modest hummability of the chorus, just how sincere the sincere singer sings. "Joanna / forever. / You'll be / remembered." It's earnest almost to the point of caricature. "You'll never be a sad song." No it's earnest to the point of caricature. But what counts is not the silliness. What counts is whether I believe it, and want to hear it again. And I do. A song to snuggle into.

I think the best description would be the description composed by my friend P, writing about a different song, and making fun of me: If a song can remind you what it felt like to be buying cheap snails at the shellfish market during a primary school field trip, this song would surely be one of the top two choices of that specfic genre.

[buy Fear Not, Distant Lover / myspace has NY/PA tourdates]

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Bishop Allen, the best unsigned rock band in America, are releasing an EP a month for a year. They are lunatics. But boy, does Justin Rice have an ear for song. "Corazon", which you can listen to at their site, is good - but "The Bullet and Big D", for which you need to pay yr measly $5, is even better. Go on then - there are only 1000 to be had.