In 1994, Elliott Smith was joint lead-vocalist with forgotten indie rockers Heatmiser when he decided he had songs which were best recorded as solo material. Recorded in hissy lo-fi, on a four-track Roman Candle was born. With four unnamed songs and a distinct home made feel, Roman Candle contains song demos that we’re never given the full studio treatment.

Two further “acoustic” albums were to follow, marking out Smith at the vanguard of a minimalist, singer-songwriter movement where artistry and song-craft trumps studio gloss every time. His delicate songs, deftly picked on acoustic guitar, harmonica and occasional brushed percussion have been carefully and sympathetically remastered to lessen noise and fretboard squeaks without altering the original mix.

Smith would later be nominated for an Oscar for a song he contributed to the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, adding two more studio albums before tragically committing suicide during the production of  From a Basement on the Hill, awash with substance abuse problems and depression.

Roman Candle, remains an Elliott Smith classic with trademark double-tracked vocals, virtuoso guitar and low-fi chic.

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

Charlie has assembled quite a cast of friends for this his debut album; there are two High Llamas, one Stereolabber and one member of the uber-cool Metronomy on board.

Home/Hidden, a largely instrumental affair, sounds like a semi-acoustic Air or Royksopp, a little more chilled out and with a richer string driven sound that only real instruments can add. It’s somewhere between a fifties cocktail jazz album and the bedtime hour on ClassicFM (if there is such a thing) – but in a good way.

Kicking off with Plan9, the music that will backdrop Take-Hart’s The Gallery in the year 2525, complete with Robot-Tony-Hart, the album meanders along fuzzily for just over half an hour.

Fransisca’s Theme is the most straightforward of the tunes on the album – achingly beautiful strings over a softly bubbling vibraphone. The strings are back with maximum effect on Cortot No6, a delightful slice of chamber music that threatens on a number of occasions to mutate into a drum and bass track and one which remixers will be itching to get their hands on. Elsewhere, things are usually mixed up a little more with the addition of treated piano, a Theremin and even the ingenious use of typewriter keys and bell as percussion on Mao, possibly the most inventive use of a rhythm track since Brian Wilson taped Paul McCartney chopping carrots for the Smiley Smile track Vegetables.

There’s a very cinematic feel to this – Telephone Song would make an ideal piece of incidental music, with its jaunty yet haunty piano and slightly discordant harpsichord sound. Expect to hear various bits and bobs from this album crop up in adverts and TV shows and in a couple of years time when you’re nestled in your cinema seat making a mental note to check the credits to find out who wrote the score, don’t be at all surprised to read the name Charlie Alex March.

Home/Hidden is released February 1^st on LoAF Recordings.

Charlie Alex March’s Myspace is here.