There are moments in life when the joy of the unexpected trumps the predictably incredible. This is rarely truer than when watching a band you know very little about play live as your first real exposure. Enter Local Natives, an LA band who I  happened upon at Coachella, and watched rip through 50 of the most joyous moments of the festival. The blogosphere refers to the band as a kind of “Weekend Foxes,” but to me it more a cross between the percussive side of the Dodos mixed with the intensity of a much bigger band. There are also bits English Settlement era XTC, the rootsiness of Blitzen Trapper and the emotion of the Frames.

With all buzzy SXSW bands, there is a chance to outgrow the hype and really build an audience that extends beyond the tiny clubs of Austin. In an age where many bands can make a great recorded piece of work, the real skill comes in playing live and delivering real energy and authenticity. Local Natives are young, but there songs are big. On “Shape Shifter” think Coldplay, and perhaps My Morning Jacket on “Wide Eyes.”  I listen to them as I write this and can’t help but smile. Not bad for a bunch of kids from Silverlake, CA.

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I got an advance of this record in late January, and was floored within 30 seconds. I then managed to forget about it for a month, and happily rediscovered it after beginning to see a small groundswell across the twittersphere. 

This is a dream collaboration between Danger Mouse and the Shin’s James Mercer and is a short but impeccably dreamy piece of work. For Mercer, this was a much needed break from the Shins whose great records haven’t evolved much since the beginning. For Danger, who lost me a bit on Gnarls, has again proved himself the most versatile producer/composer on the planet.

The ten songs here borrow from late 60’s Beatles on “Sailing To Nowhere,” to a much simpler slower ballads like “Float” to dancier beats-driven tunes like “Citizen,” and my favorite the Cure-esque “The Waiting Game.” But the sound has a crisp and cohesive feeling, based in part on the lush Mercer vocals and Danger’s specific spacey vibe that runs throughout. But like a “fun sized” candy bar, you keep wishing there was more …

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It took me a month to listen to and process the latest Midlake record before I felt qualified to speak objectively about “The Courage of Others.” I would have to go back to Buckley’s stunning “Grace” fifteen years ago to find another record as important to me as Midlake’s predecessor “The Trials of Van Occupanther.” That record was immediately captivating both musically and emotionally, lifting the best bits from Fleetwood Mac-  a band I never really considered as deeply as perhaps I should have, and combined it with the indie folk I have grown older gravitating towards.

It is rare that I read the reviews of others before attempting my own, but in the case of Midlake my three years of eagerness for the follow-up to left me in some ways too biased to resist the urge. What I found was a massively polarizing reaction to a record that I took longer to fall for than I would have expected. “Courage” is in some ways as satisfying as I could have hoped for, but also perhaps more somber and precious than it needed to be. That said, with every listen, and I have found myself doing so more and more often, I am increasingly drawn into this reflective and emotive masterpiece.

They have grown closer to new influences this time around, but they tend to go further back than Fleetwood Mac, settling into the mid-sixties Brit folk of The Fairport Convention, than they do west coast Americana. Vocalist Tim Smith, has a voice a pure and urgent as anyone making music today, and like previous efforts is bathed in impeccable production. Songs like “Rulers, Ruling All Things” and “Winter Dies” represent the closest approximation to singles or pop songs, but to describe them as such would be to miss the point – this record is takes some getting used to. There is much emotional acclimation, but below the surface where initially there seems pretension, there is joy and hope. The songs build to a triumphant crescendo, and in the end with headphones this is an epic voyage that is both uplifting and contemplative. Just surrender yourself to something truly special, and use the music to help express emotions often to hard articulate.

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