I drove down to Seattle about mid-month in January, and in typical form my iPod was on shuffle. I had tossed a bunch of albums on it from my FensePost file, and was looking forward to some new tunes. One band in particular popped up a few times, with interesting synths, clean guitar licks and slightly higher pitched vocals. Each time, the band caught my ear, I had to check out who it was — and it was Jonquil.

“Fighting Smiles”, like all songs by Jonquil, is a highly original style of pop music. There’s no one, that I can think of at least, that sounds this way. The guitars have a hint of Minus The Bear, but the vocals are more like Mew mixed with Animal Collective (minus the feral shouting) — and those references are a long stretch. Listen, and you’ll likely be left wondering what you just heard and how something so oddly bizarre can be so refreshingly good.

“Fighting Smiles” can be found on One Hundred Suns, Jonquil’s new EP with eight equally confounding tracks. Pick it up from Dovecote Records!

Download: “Fighting Smiles” by Jonquil

Tim Williams‘ lovable pop is borderline contemporary, but only to the point of it being accessible to a wider audience than your standard indie pop band. Careful Love, his new album out this week on Dovecote Records, won’t likely be on your parent’s pre-set station on their car radio, but you might find common ground if you pop the CD in while sharing a ride with them. Then again, you could probably say the same about indie sensation Telekinesis. But the two artists share a little more than that.

They have that undeniably catchy pop sound that’s impossible to deny. Prime example, the album’s opening track and hit single “I Hit Another Wall”.

The video follows a few kids doing some very adult things like drinking and getting tattoos. The symbolism is pretty stark, and for a music video, quite unique; you could almost pinpoint the stereotypes placed on kids based on the doings of their parents, or how they dress even as young as early grade school, and how those stereotypes follow them as they grow older. The theme, too, fits well with the song title and content.

Of course, I’m probably reading way too much into it, as I often tend to do with videos. What it really comes down to is Williams’ ability to pump out a great song and couple it with a brilliant, must-see video with a pretty surprising conclusion. Again, Careful Love is out now on Dovecote Records. It’s an excellent album filled with great, heartfelt pop tunes many of which are just as powerful as “I Hit Another Wall”.

Above photo by James Goncalves.

Tim Williams: I Hit Another Wall [mp3]

Tim Williams – I Hit Another Wall OFFICIAL VIDEO from Dovecote Records on Vimeo.