The alt-country indie rock of These United States has a way drawing you in. Lead singer Jesse Elliot’s sultry, twangy croon drives each song, riding upon the band’s velvety slide-guitar laden version of Americana. It’s his laid-back charm that is both heartfelt and open, along with the sophisticated, seasoned sound of the band that catches. At moments I hear Tom Petty, but the closest comparison I can find in current music, is that of Delta Spirit.

Elliot’s writing process arises from his interest in the English language and his desire to create narrative arcs. The songs are filled with stories and characters that reference everything from Custer, Johnny Appleseed, and Jesse James, to Mark Twain and Tecumseh. Elliot conjures up ideas of saddle-riding sinners and silent heroes, all the while loquaciously commenting on everyday existence. As Elliot told NPR, “I’m a big fan of aesthetics, of just the way words sound, the way that phrases string together, the way that we use language.” And referencing the writing process, “It’s a way of coping with the serious amount of information that exists in the world these days. Stitching it together in some big, chaotic patchwork is kind of how I make sense of all the pieces that are flying our way and everyone’s way every day.” The songs are hopeful and demonstrate that These United States are still discovering pieces of gold in our dispirited country.

The band calls both Lexington, Kentucky and Washington, DC home. Elliot is both the founding and core member, filling out his vision with musicians and friends from both locales. He originally formed the group with David Strackany, who records as a singer-songwriter under the name Paleo. In just two years, the band has played 500 plus shows across the U.S., U.K., and northern Europe and appeared at SXSW, the CMJ Music Marathon, and the U.K.’s prestigious Glastonbury Festival.

With their third full-length release in 18 months, These United States are flowing with creative output. Each meticulously crafted album reveals a variety of musical approaches and the care that went into the recording process. They explore a variety of sounds, all riding within enticing southern-edged rock, sometimes soft and subtle, always filled with a sense of well-intentioned urgency. A Picture of the Three of Us at the Gate to the Garden of Eden was recorded by Elliott and Strackany in basements and hallways in Elgin, IL, Iowa City, IA, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, IL. Picture was released March 4, 2008 and just 6 weeks later, the band was in a Lexington recording Crimes as they had more material they wanted to work with. Crimes came out that September and received praise from Paste Magazine, Pitchfork Media, and NPR, despite (and in many cases because of) its sonic departure from the group’s debut. In February 2009, the band began recording its third album, Everything Touches Everything, in Arlington, VA, released in September 2009.

mp3: These United States – I Want You To Keep Everything – Everything Touches Everything (2009)
mp3: These United States – The Secret Door – Everything Touches Everything (2009)
mp3: These United States – I Want You To Keep Everything – Crimes (2008)

Experience These United States live at the Hi-Dive on New Year’s Eve w/ Paper Bird in Denver or at SXSW in March.

Website | MySpace

Download through Amazon: A Picture Of The Three Of Us At The Gate To The Garden Of Eden | Crimes | Everything Touches Everything

Leslie Helpert perfectly embodies my idea of an artist. She is beautifully quirky, speaks in a language of images, tells you about imaginary friends, and is keen to all that makes life potent. She lives inside of her art and isn’t meant to do much else. Throwing herself into the act of creation, she offers herself as poet, guitarist, songbird, novelist, dancer, and artist (the gorgeous image at the top of Lux Illuminates is hers).

Watching Helpert perform is a captivating, emotional experience. Her body is stirred by the movement of her song, adding bottomless depth to the art she offers.

The American songstress has rendered 5 albums in the last decade, all which resound with her artistry. Ulu is her most recent effort, a 4-song EP recorded in Barcelona with producer Dave Bianchi. Enticed by intuition, Helpert left the states in March for a 6-week tour from Rome to Paris. She was compelled to delay her return and through a series of serendipitous events encountered Bianchi and found herself recording in Barcelona for the month of August. Ulu (December 2009) was then crafted and released on Bianchi’s Barcelona/NYC label “Whatabout Music”.

On Ulu, Helpert conspired with musicians from Spain, Greece, Guinea, Israel, Portugal and California to add cello, harp, Gaida (Greek bagpipes), upright and electric basses, vocals, trumpet and drum-kit to her musings. Helpert’s musicality comes through on the release in the form of guitar, Rhodes piano, electric bass, percussion, beatboxing, and her effusive vocals.

Throughout Ulu, Helpert draws you in with her intoxicating style, using music a modality to deliver art into the moment. “Young Coconut Water”, the EP’s single, embodies this dreamy elegance. As in all of my favorite compositions by the one known as Serpentfly, the song travels through a variety of sections, illustrating the complexity of Helpert’s unique writing style. Soaring horns lift the song up as she wails, woven with nectar-filled harmonies and cymbal crashes.

The rest of the tracks of Ulu are sophisticated and intimate. They capture the potential of this wistful siren, carrying the intelligent listener into a world of living poetry and detailed narrative. Helpert explores the rich timbre of her voice, embodying at once punk music and the sounds of a distant time. Rhythmic lyric and melancholy balladry are accompanied by innovative drumming, sumptuous strings, and evocative vocalizations.

2009 has seen Helpert trying her songs on the keen ears of Europe in small rooms and large theaters throughout Italy, France, Spain, Holland, and England. December still finds Helpert in the romantic lands of Europe.

Below is “Young Coconut Water” along with a few of my favorites from previous releases.

mp3: Leslie Helpert – Young Coconut Water – Ulu (2009)

Young Coconut Water
It just so happened, when we were each-others,
We pricked our fingers and became blood brothers.
It was an accident, really, kids climbing on barbed wire,
to go feed the colts little bombs on fire.

And, then again, when we were older,
By coincidence met ice-climbing frozen boulders.
We both anchored the pick-ax and by surprise,
It struck simultaneously in each of our sides,
And so this time we became blood sisters.

I’m your Type A when you’re needing transfusion,
And you’re not to blame, it’s both our confusion.
I, too, walk away like god’s born-again daughter.
Like fresh-pumped-in-the-vein Young Coconut Water,
Ignorant and Ignoble.

Through all adventure, I’ve learned a score.
It’s not your lover you’ve been searching for.
No matter the carriage, the wheel spoke aloud as you drive
They sang it’s not about your lover, this here’s not about your lover.

It’s your genius your longing to keep alive,
It’s your genuis your longing to keep alive.

mp3: Leslie Helpert – Snowfall – Cupcakes And Radishes (2005)
mp3: Leslie Helpert – Good N’ What We Had – Cupcakes And Radishes (2005)
mp3: Leslie Helpert – Honey Pot – 13 Songs (2002)

Leslie’s MySpace

Download through Amazon: Ulu

Animal Collective just released their latest EP, Fall Be Kind. The cohesive 5-song collection speaks to the continuing progression of the group’s sound. Sound effects shimmer throughout the EP and the echoing of Animal Collective’s characteristic otherworldly and layered vocals transport the listener into fantastical realms. This is just what I’ve come to expect from this band. I desire to live in their dream world.

“Graze” begins as a hash-induced lullaby, “Let me begin, feels good ’cause it’s early… some ideas are brewing”, floating into a jubliant swirling of pan flutes. The chorus lures an emphatic sing-a-long. And the end is just mesmerizing as it fades.

I am most infatuated with the stream of consciousness, ethereal vibe of “What Would I Want? Sky”. One is immediately lost in a cloud of thought. Avey Tare’s vocals float above a Grateful Dead sample from “Unbroken Chain” (off Grateful Dead From The Mars Hotel, 1974), widely known as the first ever to be licensed. A clip of Phil Lesh’s vocals “…sky. Whoa I oft-” is looped and somehow reshaped into the title phrase. What results is a gorgeous feat. Near the end of the track, Avey sings “I should be floating but I’m weighted by thinking”, encompassing what Animal Collective has always been about. Ironically, the band coaxes you out of thought and into visceral feeling. Their music is a way for the intelligent mind to let go of anxiety and wrap itself in the complexity of sound instead.

“Bleedings” is not my favorite, but its darkness is beautiful nonetheless.

“On A Highway” follows Avey on another daydream as he travels down the road while the band tours. Singing “I let some hash relax me, get lost in human pleasure,” you can just imagine the feelings he is experiencing in that vehicle. Meditative lyrics and colorful imagery drive the song through a continuous flow of thought. Avey is yet again beset with an racing mind as he sings “…can’t help my brain from thinking. I can’t breathe.”

On the closer, “I Think I Can”, Panda Bear lets loose with jarring rhythms, claps, and array of synthesized samples. It starts out rather eerie but ends up soaring into one of my favorites songs on the EP.

With the Fall Be Kind EP, Panda Bear’s, Avey Tare’s, and Geologist’s brilliance is exposed once again. On the tail of their January 2009 release of the widely acclaimed Merriweather Post Pavilion, this new EP is noticeably less hooky, but no matter as it wraps me up further in Animal Collective and makes me wonder what we’ll hear next. This band perfectly pleases the mind by making a cacophony of sounds sound concordant.

Animal Collective, formed in Baltimore, MD, recently transplanted to NYC….

mp3: Animal Collective – Graze
mp3: Animal Collective – I Think I Can
mp3: Animal Collective – What Would I Want? Sky

“What would I want? Sky!”
Is everything alright?
You feeling moany?
You feeling lonely?
You’re not the only

Is everything alright?
You feeling stormy?
You feeling phoney?
You’re not the only

Do you get up up up?
Clouds stop and move above me
Too bad they can’t help me
What is the right way?

Do I float up up up?
When I stop and look around me
Grey is where that color should be
What is the right way?

Old glasses clinking and a
New order’s blinking
and I -
I should be floating but I’m weighted by thinking

That I got on the river
Really can’t make you change
And the sky gets filled up too fast
and the taxi man’s saying, “You betta
give me some money; stop daydreaming, dude!”
When the point of horizon is hiding from you
What would you want sky?

Are you taking it lightly?
Lost in the flurries
You start to worry
You will be buried
Taking it lightly
and so I hurry
I start to worry
Here come them flurries

Is everything alright?
You feeling lonely?
You feeling moldy?
You’re not the only

Is everything alright?
You feeling stormy?
You feeling foamy?
You’re not the only

Do you get up up up?
Clouds stop and move above me
Too bad they can’t help me
What is the right way?

Do I float up up up?
When I stop and look around me
Grey is where that color should be
What is the right way?

Old glasses clinking and a
New order’s blinking and I -
I should be floating but I’m weighted by thinking

I’m a fly on the river
That’ll make me some change
When the sky gets filled up too fast
and the taxi cab’s waiting, “You betta
give him some money;
stop daydreaming, dude!”
When the point of horizon is hiding its blues
What would you want sky?

What would I want? Sky!
What would I want? Sky!

Website | MySpace

Download through Amazon: Fall Be Kind EP

Built to Spill’s new album, There is No Enemy, brilliantly captures the melodic beauty of these indie rock forefathers. It’s good old, traditional Built to Spill sounding as great as ever. The album is their 7th and the 1st since they released 2006’s You In Reverse, the band’s highest charting album yet. On There is No Enemy, Built to Spill investigates an aesthetic they’ve created and honed over the years, revolving around Doug Martsch’s soft, yet penetrating vocals swimming in a bath of refracting guitar tones. The band again finds a new and interesting way to approach this sound.

Martsch’s lyrics are poignant and inviting. When he sings “Goddammit, things fall apart” on the appropriately titled “Things Fall Apart,” it’s hard not to feel like you understand. And on “Life’s A Dream”, he wisely reflects, “Waste your life/ but you don’t know what it’s worth/ Comb your mind/ For all the treasures of this earth / Too close to find/ anything outside yourself.”

Below are the 3 tracks that lead into There Is No Enemy. The band is currently streaming the entire album on MySpace.

mp3: Built to Spill – Aisle 13 – There Is No Enemy (2009)
mp3: Built to Spill – Hindsight – There Is No Enemy (2009)
mp3: Built to Spill – Nowhere Lullaby – There Is No Enemy (2009)

Nowhere Lullaby
Trying not to solve this
Doesn’t mean it’s not that bad

And everyone gets through the night
And everyone wakes up all right
And the fear you feel will pass
Then a calmness that will last
We will learn to drift off fast

Another nowhere lullaby
You can rest or you can try
And this waste it shines in every way
Yeah this waste it shines in every way

Make me laugh every single day
And you hardly make me cry
Made fifteen years fly by
Still here and I don’t know why

Has it been that long
Is the time and the table gone

Hope it’s longer than that now
Don’t forget we don’t know how
And everyone gets feeling down
Everybody understands
We’re all doing what we can

Another nowhere lullaby
You can rest or you can try
And this waste it shines in every way
Yeah this waste it shines in every way

Built to Spill | MySpace

Download through Amazon: There Is No Enemy