Greg Macpherson ft Hailey Primrose - "Tourists". A song like a hurled stone, ready to punch through paper. Primrose's dry voice levels over stripped, clipped drums, Macpherson's hot and ragged guitar. When the two sing together they're suddenly a team, a gang, a small army leaping over debris; you couldn't stop them if you tried. "Tourists" is not quite fighting but it's primed for a fight. It's been drinking. It's stared at the sun all day and now, under darkness, it's looking for any reason to turn off the lights; snap. [buy]

Tobias Jesso Jr - "True Love". I sure hope Vancouver's Tobias Jesso Jr is getting some money from Yamaha. He and his keyboard are a multi-million-dollar reminder of what a man can do with just a voice, a heart, an electric piano. A song's nothing more than some words and some notes, an arrangement of points. Yet pay attention to what it can do: to your room, your day, your poor spirit. Pay attention to the way these bare parts reshape a life, a few minutes at a time. Jesso wrote a great one, with the same old notes that all of us have, with the same stale alphabet. Sometimes a triumph is simple as sing. [more coming soon?]

(photo by James Henkel)