Summer Lovin'! (Well, May lovin')

I don't often have steamy love affairs with music, but boy howdy am I plunged deep into one right now. The album is Thistled Spring by Horse Feathers, which came out in early-ish 2010. Let me tell you right now: you would be best served by just dropping this, hopping over to iTunes or a vinyl store or whatever shady music-acquisition service you use, and get this album.

The brainchild of Jason Ringle, this album is a set of beautifully, beautifully composed songs every bit as ornate and sun-dappled as the album title and cover might suggest. Classical instruments and sensibilities lay melodies and counter-melodies, so that the songs feel like they're grown organically or captured in flight. Ringle's voice flits among the instrumentals so naturally that I just listened to the album's music about three times through before realizing that I should probably pay attention to the lyrics. And they're wonderful, too; "Belly of June," one of my favorites, opens with the delightfully mysterious "It's noon, in the belly of June/Let's wager with bodies, the night's coming soon." Ringle's lyrics, like Sam Beam's when he's not solipsistically obscure, draw the attention like that fascinating girl with pretty eyes you see across the lawn at a spring barn bash (because we've all been there, right?). Inviting, promising reward for the one man enough to ask her to dance.

Since my iPod crashed a week and a half ago, this has been the only album I've bothered to burn to CD for my car. Its complexity and beauty make it resistant to feeling overplayed, much like Sufjan Stevens' albums. Now, shoo! Go buy it! You've spent enough time without listening to this album. This is my first taste of Horse Feathers, and I'm excited to see what work they have prior to this.