Discquicks

Carolyn Mark and Her Room-Mates

A Tribute to the Soundtrack
of Robert Altman’s Nashville

Mint

Mark, Neko Case’s co-Corn Sister, gathers a host of Vancouver and Chicago pop and insurgent country luminaries to honor Altman’s 1975 epic.

Kelly Hogan, the Sadies’ Dallas Good and New Pornographer Carl Newman doing their best not to choke on the tongues in their collective cheek.

It’s hit-or-miss. Few songs match the hilarity of proto-Perot Hal Phillip Walker’s paranoid speeches read by an indie rocker with a bullhorn.

Let Your Shadow Out

Animal World

Smart, strummy guitar pop from voice-cracker Robin Bowser and some seasoned indie vets (Heather Dunn of Tiger Trap plus a Halo Bender and a Jick).

Occasionally raw, but smooth as peanut butter when they want to be. You will sing along to this CD, promise.

Do you make mix CD-Rs for long drives? Save a place for track five, the simple, classic "Girlfriend."

Beat Surf Fun

Magic Marker

More wistful, wimpy, winking punk from these Northwest pop dorks.

Guitars, drums, keyboards and Sean Tollefson’s scrawny voice, all delivered politely and with good humor.

When Tollefson sings "Fuck me, I’m twee," he’s only half-kidding.

Oregon

Mr. Lady

Solo, Kaia Wilson’s not as politically pointed as when she rocks out with the Butchies, but these songs are still sharp as shark teeth.

Stream-of-consciousness acoustic strummers from a person with a million things on her mind.

Finally available on disc, "World’s Greatest Haircut" is a chilling, foxy tribute to Amelia Earhart as a person, not a symbol. Awesome.