James Irwin - "Needleye". This is a new song by James Irwin, whose album Western Transport is the best LP of any unsigned act in Montreal. "Needleye" is woozy and deliberate, patient, all ghostwater and sinking, will o'wisp & folded cloud & gentle saxophone. Rivers rise, shaker shakes, electronics sing. "I don't know why I went alone," James speak-sings. "Somehow staying here felt wrong." His lyrics are always chosen and wrong, accords he finds in dream. His voice is flat as paper. Sometimes he writes his songs quickly and sometimes very slowly. Imagine if you could do the same thing with a tree - cut it down quickly or cut it down slowly, depending on the tree. Imagine if a sinking ship could choose how long it would take, as it eases into the iceberg. The wood would say, This long. No this long. When a needle slips into an eye it does not hurt: it is like a light that enters another light, a shadow that crosses another shadow, a time that becomes another time. You realize only later what has happened, the ruin that was wrought, what the needle has done. Blood pools. Night falls, slowly.

For a short time, listen to the rest of Western Transport at James's website. If you are a record company man, with a tie around your neck, or a shiny blouse, you can write to James here. He will play a concert in Montreal on May 5th, at L'Onestar, a clubhouse he founded in 2011.

(photograph by Frédéric Lebain)