Phantom Buffalo - "Stark Glass Man". We are all attuned to certain kinds of voices, certain kinds of chords, certain guitar sounds, their sustain and shake. Some like the warble, others the croon; some like the shout, some the breathed. There is a catalogue of things I like, an unwritten taxonomy. One of the chapters is headed: THIS. The heading is in fact a recording of the song "Stark Glass Man", by Phantom Buffalo. It is recorded in a nice big typeface, in gold foil, so that even the half-blind can read it. Even in their dark tower rooms they can flip open my Book of Likes and find this fall jangle, this Portland intuition, this rosy cerulean song, see-through like stained glass. Seven years after I first heard them, Phantom Buffalo have made an album of kings and queens, valleys and mists, jerkins and bucklers. This is a fanciful thing, a small indulgence, but the songs are as likable and direct - just instead of flashing like puddles, they flash like fish. "Stark Glass Man" is an off-phase pop song about a man who may or may not be made of glass, who may only figuratively be made of glass, who is happy and sad and singing wordless "da-da-da", full of wistful longing. Jonathan Balzano-Brookes has a voice like a bell that's about to ring and his band will gallop for miles, if he asks them. [Tadaloora is out Nov 5 on Microcultures. Video teaser here. Or play the Tadaloora Adventures online video game.]

Pat Jordache - "Steps (Damaged Goods)". A new ropeadope from Montreal's extraordinary Jordache. Melting funk, cowbell roast-beef, Ziggy Stardust plummeting Baumgartner-style from subspace to terra. Bluetooth headset blinks, sharp blue light, mayday / octoberday / saxophone. Play two records on rival turntables, align them, make them perfect, break up with the DJ. Break up with the DJ - and see if those records wobble. See if they scratch. See if they keep on turning, 33 or 45, unstoppable diamond needle, as the earth takes a deep breath and decides to quake. [Soundcloud / buy Pat's preceding album / the new one can't come soon enough]

[Photo: Fête sportive à la commune libre de Montmartre, avec les deux bibendum (Source Bnf), 1922.]