 by Rob van Alstyne
 Fan Modine
Homeland
(Grimsey Records)
This release comes to us courtesy of stalwart Minnesota record label Grimsey, but doesn’t quite qualify as “local” since Fan Modine (known as Gordon Zacharias in the work-a-day-world) actually hails from North Carolina. After spinning Homeland incessantly, however, I find myself hoping Zacharias feels inclined to relocate closer to his record label’s base of operations.
An elegant, at times flat-out masterful, piece of art-pop, Homeland’s
lush orchestrations, stately pianos and icy vocal intonations are sure to appeal
to fans of higher-profile baroque pop groups like the Magnetic Fields and the
Aluminum Group, but to these ears, Zacharias pens stronger melodies than both.
The album’s 10 songs flit by quickly (Homeland clocks in at just
over a half hour), yet manage to cover a lot of ground from the Euro style electro-pop
maneuvers of the title track to the classic Bacharach-ian pomp of “Newsstand
of the Sun.” A hidden gem of 2004 if there ever was one.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Owen
I Do Perceive
(Polyvinyl Records)
 Owen
is Chicago’s Mike Kinsella, and I Do Perceive is his third full-length
album of home-recorded music therapy. Like Owen’s previous outings, I
Do Perceive finds the 27-year-old Kinsella looking back on the detritus
of calamitous relationships past and trying to make sense of it all. In lesser
hands this tends to be the recipe for disastrous emo crap. Fortunately, Kinsella’s
musicality—he’s a technically stunning guitarist and accomplished
drummer who handles nearly all of the instrumentation and production on his
records singlehandedly—sets him apart from the rest of the wounded-boy-with-a-guitar
pack.
I Do Perceive reins in the expansive sound of its immediate predecessor,
The EP, and shifts the songs’ focus mostly onto Kinsella’s
nimble acoustic guitar work and able voice. Although some of the bells and whistles
of previous outings are missed—particularly the searing electric guitar
lead work—Kinsella makes up for it by improving his songwriting craft,
particularly in the lyric department where his subtle observations regarding
the aimlessness of post-collegiate life never fail to ring true. On one of the
album’s strongest cuts, “That Tatto Isn’t Funny Anymore,”
Kinsella weaves his way through windy headphone-friendly passages of layered
vocals, dreamy keyboard beds, overlapping acoustic guitar patterns and mesmerizing
downbeat mantras (“I’ll miss you when you’re dead”).
Kinsella is a one-of-a-kind talent who deserves wider acclaim. Anyone enamored
with studio adept singer/songwriters should do themselves a favor and pick up
I Do Perceive.
Rating: 9 out of 10
A Girl Called Eddy
A Girl Called Eddy
(Anti-)
 “Eddy”
is actually one Erin Moran, but whatever she wants to call herself is fine with
me as long as she can crank out albums of this caliber. Recorded with ex-Pulp
guitarist Richard Hawley providing the bulk of the instrumental backing (handling
such exotic accoutrements as Hawaiian Lap-Steel and Baby Glock) and Moran on
piano and vocals, A Girl Called Eddy is a lavish classic fireside-lights-down-low
kind of listen. A collection of shadowy torch songs (“Girls Can Really
Tear You Up Inside”) interspersed with the occasional step into sassy
R&B (“Life Thru The Same Lens”), Moran shows herself equal parts
Aimee Mann (with a far superior vocal range), Dusty Springfield and Karen Carpenter
on her debut. An unabashedly romantic songwriter, A Girl Called Eddy has added
new chapters (full of sweepings strings, brass-led lamentations and sad songbird
poses) to the classic heartbreak songbook. Be warned: If you can make it through
the swelling chorus of the inconsolably tragic “People Used to Dream About
The Future” without feeling a lump coming on in your throat, you may not
have a pulse. Not to be missed.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Early Day Miners
All Harm Ends Here
(Secretly Canadian)
 The
Early Day Miners, hailing from Indiana, continue to perfect the art of musically
capturing the feeling of traversing the desolate flat landscapes of the rural
midwest on All Harm Ends Here, their fourth album.
Singer/guitarist Dan Burton mumbles pleasant vagaries (with some lovely harmony
vocals courtesy of Maggie Polk), but the real action here stems from the slow-burning
electric guitar interplay of Burton and fellow ax-slingers Joseph Brumley and
Kirk Pratt. The three play off each other perfectly, riding a sedate groove
until one of them steps forth with a lumbering, languid riff that changes the
whole shape of the tune. Sure to appeal to fans of latter-day Red House Painters
or other meditative, trance-inducing rock outfits that know their way around
a classic guitar hook.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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