InRadio 4.3 In Between the Days, September/October 2006

To hear these and other great artists, order now.

Beirut
Ba da bing! Records
Though he is just 20 years old, New Mexico native Zach Condon is getting raves for the intensely emotional, tunefully catchy Balkan brass music he makes under the moniker Beirut. Condon is a precocious multi-instrumentalist who dropped out of both high school and college before finding his voice in the dirges of bygone Eastern Europe. Recording almost entirely at home, Condon (armed with horns, violins, cellos, ukeleles, mandolins, glockenspiels, drums, tambourines, congos, organs, pianos, clarinets, and accordions) creates a rich, antique soundscape to accompany his own deep-voiced, distinctly modern vocals.

Sunset Rubdown
Absolutely Kosher Records
Though he's better known as the warbly crooner and principle songwriter for the popular noise-pop outfit Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown presents an opportunity for Canada's Spencer Krug to explore his more experimental side. It started as a solo project for Krug, but now includes Jordan Robson Cramer, Mike Doerkson and Camilla Wynne Ingr, an ex-member of former InRadio featured artist, Pony Up!. Some overlap in material does, however, exist: the catchy "I'll Believe In Anything You'll Believe in Anything" from Wolf Parade's much-loved Apologies to the Queen Mary was actually written pre-Parade by Krug for the Sunset project. Sunset Rubdown released their debut album, Shut Up I'm Dreaming, in early May on Absolutely Kosher.

Delaney
Pehr Records
Delaney is 33 year old Parisian Christelle Delaney, purveyor of exceedingly listenable lo-fi electro-pop. Accompanied alternately by just her acoustic guitar and a mellow backing band, Delaney favors her native French while venturing into English on some tunes for the benefit of the Anglophones. The People's Dance Party has said of Delaney: "Similar in tone to Stereolab's Laeticia Sadier ... with the intimate quality of someone singing a lullaby ... her words glide over the music and through the speakers, seeping into surrounding walls like clouds of smoke ... somber yet enticing."


Camera Obscura
Merge Records
In the fall of 2005, Camera Obscura traveled from Scotland to Stockholm to begin work on a new album with acclaimed producer Jari Haapalainen (The Concretes, Ed Harcourt, Nicolai Dunger, International (Noise) Conspiracy). The result? The infectious new Let's Get Out of this Country, released state-side on InRadio favorite, Merge Records. Camera Obscura formed in Glasgow in 1996, releasing a slew of singles leading up to their debut CD, Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi, which garnered immediate attention. Heady and hyper-literate, the band's interests aren't limited to sweet indie-pop melody; check out the "bios" section of their website, where each member weighs in individually on film, music, and, in the case of the drummer Kenny, knowledge generally.

Thao Nguyen
Kill Rock Stars Records
Watch out-the young singer-songwriter Thao Nguyen lies in wait to steal your heart. Nguyen is in the midst of her first national tour to support her bittersweet acoustic music, and the road is wide open for her. Nguyen's new-found exposure is due in large part to her inclusion on Kill Rock Stars' "The Sound the Hare Heard" compilation, a sort of nation-wide competition for singer-songwriters where those that impressed KRS owner Slim Moon earned a spot on the release. Nguyen jokes that her dexterity on guitar is due to years of helping out her mother at the family Laundromat, doing "laundry origami" behind the counter. Wherever her talent derives, her music serves as a pronouncement that she, for one, won't end up folded in the sock drawer.

Danielson
Secretly Canadian Records
Daniel Smith, who released his latest effort under the moniker "Danielson," has spent many more years honing his particular pop sound. Somewhat of a cult hero, Smith started recording with various friends and family as a part of his art school senior thesis, and his experiments have only expanded. He has recorded as Danielson Famile, Tri-Danielson and Br. Danielson-all collaborations with his inner circle-but his latest release, Ships is his most encompassing: Deerhoof, Sufjan Stevens, Why?, and Serena Maneesh join his usual coterie of intimates.

Crown City Rockers
Basement Records
The Crown City Rockers aren't really rockers at all, but live hip-hoppers from southern California. But taking it a step back, the Rockers story starts in Boston, where several of the members attended the famous Berklee School of Music before they decided to try out life on the other coast. Though they barely survived the road trip-an 18-wheeler demolished their van and all their equipment along the way-the group has flourished into a genre-bending collective whose provocative tunes carry the torch of pioneers like The Roots, De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest.

The Court and Spark
Absolutely Kosher Records
Formed in 1998 in decidedly un-country San Francisco, the Court & Spark have honed a sound distinctly their own. With few obvious alternative country comparisons, as they are neither drawn to the psychedelic sounds common to bands like Beachwood Sparks nor the rootsy rock of Son Volt and their ilk, the Court & Spark specialize in twangy mood music. Formed around the nucleus of Scott Hirsch, Alex Stimmel, James Kim, and laconic lead vocalist M.C. Taylor, the San Francisco band moved past a noisier early incarnation to take cues from the classic sounds of the early country-rock era.

Pants Yell!
Asaurus Records
"We're more along the lines of Orange Juice or Joseph K. than Lois or Tullycraft," says Andrew Churchman, singer and guitarist of indie-poppers Pants Yell!. The translation: "Our music may sound sweet, but we're not singing about true love stayed true or bows on kittens, alright?." Pants Yell! came together three years ago, after its members met attending art school in Boston. The young band-all its member are in their early 20s-just released their second full-length entitled, Recent Drama.

The Coral Sea
Hidden Agenda
The Coral Sea are full of surprises. The first? That silky sweet croon doesn't come from a woman, but is in fact the androgynous sound of frontman Rey Villalobos. The second surprise? The Coral Sea hail from very un-indie Santa Barbara. Or maybe that's not a surprise: the Coral Sea do make atmospheric dream/art rock that sort of reflects that city's Mediterranean climate and purple mountains majesty. The band's first single, "Look at Her Face," has quickly gained credibility in unlikely mediums such as television's Grey's Anatomy. The Coral Sea have even just wrapped up a tour in England on the strength of that single.

Ladyhawk
Jagjaguwar Records
Canadian indie rock quartet Ladyhawk specializes in emotionally charged guitar rock reminiscent of the Replacements, Dinosaur Jr., and Neil Young & Crazy Horse. Formed outside of Vancouver, British Columbia, the band consists of vocalists/guitarists Duffy Driediger and Darcy Hancock, bassist/vocalist Sean Hawryluk, and drummer/vocalist Ryan Peters. Their eponymous debut, released on Jagjaguwar Records, arrived in June 2006.

Evangelicals
Misra Records
Evangelicals are Josh Jones (ex-student body president/homecoming king, age 24), Kyle Davis (straight-A professional writing student, Oklahoma University, age 21) and Austin Stephens, (longtime local drummer, age 26) all native Oklahomans. In fact, Austin and Josh have known each other for upwards of a decade, attending middle school in Norman, OK, together-the same town that birthed The Flaming Lips and InRadio 4.2 featured artist Starlight Mints. Originally the brainchild of Josh Jones (much of the original tracking of So Gone was Jones on his own), Evangelicals quickly evolved into a full-time band. In just one year time they have managed to play more than 40 shows and record So Gone and a healthy chunk of a follow-up album.

Tilly and the Wall
Team Love Records
Another band from the indie hotbed of Omaha, Tilly and the Wall are the happy result of five friends with a penchant for the same classic 60's pop, boy/girl harmonies and Americana folk records. Neely and Jamie were once in a band with Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst, and that association has lasted, leading to the release of their albums on Oberst's label, Team Love. Bottoms of Barrels is the follow-up to their well-received 2004 debut Wild Like Children. According to the label, BOB sees the Tillys "taking their signature sound to the next level. The choruses are more rousing, the tapping more intense, the instrumentation fuller, each sound painting broad brush strokes across your speakers."

Yonder Mountain String Band
Vanguard Records
Although the Yonder Mountain String Band was formed in Nederland, CO, its origins go back to Urbana, IL, where college student and banjo player Dave Johnston met mandolin player Jeff Austin. Austin moved west and settled in Nederland. Johnston joined him there, and the two met bass player Ben Kauffman and guitarist Adam Aijala at a club called the Verve. In December 1998, they formed the Yonder Mountain String Band to open for a band at the Fox Theatre in Boulder. They developed a following among bluegrass fans and also among jam band fans as they played extensively and worked their way up the bar and club circuit in the West.

Headlights
Polyvinyl Records
Having gone through numerous name changes, losing a founding member, funding a self-booked national tour on CD-R demo burns(and managing to make enough money to pay their rent), Headlights now find themselves with a new label to call home. Like-minded indie label Polyvinyl recently released the Headlights debut, Kill them with Kindness, making 2006 nothing if not a bright year so far. Headlights is currently wrapping up a monstrous 72-date tour and the band has also just released a split 7" with Ontario's Most Serene Republic (Arts & Crafts), another former InRadio featured artist.

Rainer Maria
Grunion Records
If band monikers are any indication, Madison, WI, emo trio Rainer Maria have a soft spot for modernist poetry. Singer/guitarist Kyle Fischer and drummer William Kuehn first joined forces in the combo Ezra Pound before enlisting singer/bassist Caithlin De Marrais and morphing into Rainer Maria, after the Bohemian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. During the past three years, the band has focused almost exclusively on writing, recording and mixing their latest, Catastrophe Keeps Us Together. After extensive touring in the U.S., Japan, Canada, and Europe for the better part of 2003 and 2004, they returned to the studio. Drummer William Kuehn explains: "We came home from touring without a set label situation. It would have been easy to go back to doing things the way we had for so long. Instead we wrote the most personal songs we could, without timelines or deadlines, answering to no one but ourselves."

The Speakers
Self-released
The Speakers consists of just two members: Brian Miller, a guitarist in the fabulous Jolie Holland's band, and Peter Musselman. They play almost all the instruments and write all the music on their latest, Yeats is Greats. But the twist is that the lyrics are all written by-you guessed it!-Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Though their music couldn't be more different, it seems The Speakers share some interests with rowdy Rainer Maria.