what I've been listening to lately

Among other things, I've been quite taken with the work of Nimbus Coleman. I first ran into his music courtesy of fluxblog, where the song "Who Is the Governess?" was posted about half a year back. That track is somewhat atypical for its opening haze of washed-out, distorted guitars, but its slightly tricky, chromatic chord sequence ends up being an indicator of one aspect of Coleman's music, his love of jazzy, bossa nova chords and sounds. It's not entirely clear, but from his website it seems he lived in Brazil for a time, so he comes by the bossa honestly. Combine that with a Pollard-esque love of short, tuneful, near-fragmentary songs, often with seemingly nonsensical lyrics, and a home-recordist's love of peculiar sounds, and you're most the way there: what that description leaves out is the ease and skill with which he playfully weaves these elements together. In terms of slightly more above-ground acts, I hear some similarities to the Caribbean, but that band's work is more songwriterly and tends a bit closer to electronic sounds (that their last full-length was released in Europe on Tomlab says something...). Coleman's music (at least in its sound: I haven't sat down and listened closely to lyrics yet) seems a bit more on the cheerful side, although the oddities of his song titles ("O, My Vitaphone, Excelsior"; "Terminally Soylent"; "Sinister and Dexter") are less Seuss than Residential in tone.

I can't say whether Coleman's earlier work (which was originally released only to friends and family, and which is now somewhat more available by e-mailing Coleman directly, according to his website) is as good as the most recent stuff, but I'm definitely inspired to look into it.