Early February,  the sky is uniformly cardboard grey and the first big chunk of summery pop music has plopped through the letterbox of Suitcase Orchestra HQ.

In The Sun by the deceptively confusingly named She & Him (Is it Him & Her? He & She? His & Hers? Hers & His?) is two minutes and fifty four seconds of shimmering sunshine pop. Aided and abetted by Tilly and the Wall, the result sounds something like Carly Simon sings Badly Drawn Boy, with pretty piano, subtle orchestration and an immediately catchy melody.

In The Sun will be the first single off the second She & Him album, Volume 2, the ingeniously titled follow up to their 2008 debut Volume 1, and will be released on March 15th with the album following on April 5th.

The summery feel is continued with the single’s second track, a cover of the Beach Boys‘ I Can Hear Music.

Owen Pallett will release Lewis Takes Off His Shirt as the first single from his recent album, Heartland, on March 29^th.

Lewis Takes Off His Shirt, features Owen’s trademark looped violin and vocals augmented by the Czech Symphonic Orchestra and comes very close to Pallett’s stated aim of ‘putting so many notes on the page that the paper turned black’, with its layers of electronica, strings and flute which build to an ecstatic crescendo

Simon Bookish has remixed album track  Keep The Dog Quiet which is available as a free download here.

Following his recent show at the Union Chapel in London, Owen Pallett will return to the UK and Ireland for a handful of dates in March with support on all shows except for Dublin coming from Next Life.

Full dates are as follows:

MAR 18 DUBLIN – WHELAN’S

MAR 25 CARDIFF  – MILLENIUM MUSIC HALL

MAR 26 LONDON  – KOKO

MAR 27 LIVERPOOL  – RAINBOW WAREHOUSE

MAR 28 MANCHESTER – THE DEAF INSTITUTE

Craig Fortnam, the creative heart of the North Sea Radio Orchestra, is the man behind Arch Garrison who are very much a pared down version of his mother ship. The lush orchestration has been stripped away to reveal a very English folk record.

Fortnam is evidently fond of the same records that Midlake’s Tim Smith has been immersing himself in, though while the American take on Fairport Convention,  Fotheringay, Mellow Candle and the like sounds bleak and wintry, this is a much sunnier sounding record.

While at times it does sail perilously close to the historical re-enactment society wind, particularly on Thames Fluvius, a medieval sounding instrumental in the Greensleeves mould, the album works best when the folksy feel is tempered with often unexpected layering of sound and use of instruments which on paper have no place on a record like this. The finest moment of the whole album comes  in The Days Don’t Feel The Same – the album’s standout track, when Fortnam’s beautifully finger picked guitar drops out to be replaced momentarily by a squelchy synthesiser which sounds like it has been sampled from a Pacman game.

Other highlights include Here’s To The End Of The Road and Stone On The Pound, both of which have something of Ray Davies in his more pastoral moments about them, while Fortnam’s vocals bring to mind Gregory Webster of indie janglers The Razorcuts, who were themselves the nearest thing the C86 generation got to authentic British folk rock.

King Of The Down will be released on Double Six Records on 22^nd February.

Arch Garrison’s Myspace is here.

A fraction shy of two years since their last album, Beach House have taken a great leap forward on their third long player. Their love of Phil Spector has been placed at the forefront of their sound and the production effects dial has been cranked round from the ‘Dreamy/Woozy’ setting to ‘Wall-of-Sound’.

Teen Dream is a big sounding record with everything seemingly up in the mix.  The sleepy wash of droning guitars and lullaby vocals has been replaced by twangy reverb heavy guitars, looping organs, scratchy hip hop beats and Victoria Legrand’s suddenly soaring voice. It’s the most startling vocal transformation since a young Barry White awoke one morning with his testicles an inch closer to the ground.

Legrand and co-Beach Houser Alex Scally suddenly find themselves subject to a fair amount of mainstream media attention, shifting them from cult band to being cited as essential listening for 2010. This may well be due to their close links with Grizzly Bear who frequently mention them in dispatches and who are again taking the Baltimore duo out on tour with them.

There’s certainly a dash of Grizzly Bear’s sound to Teen Dream – the album was produced by Chris Coady who lists the Grizzlies on his CV and the pounding organ on Walk In The Park more than echoes the intro to Two Weeks (on which Legrand contributed backing vocals). Never though does this record feel like Grizzly Bear-Lite. This is a bold ambitious album which will undoubtedly and deservedly muscle its way into many an end-of-year review.

Before touring with Grizzly Bear, Beach House play a handful of dates at small venues. With the British broadsheets salivating so profusely, it may be the last chance to catch them in such intimate settings. February
10 Glasgow King Tuts
11 Salford Islington Mill
12 Leeds Brudenell Social Club
14 Belfast Speakeasy
16 Cardiff Arts Centre
17 London Bush Hall