Vashti Bun­yan’s per­for­mance at John­ny Bren­da’s had her seem­ing none the worse for wear, despite what’s been polite­ly termed a rau­cous evening at Carnegie Hall the night before, host­ed by David Byrne. Her piquant lul­la­bies sound­ed as crisp and pure as the cold night air, hush­ing an already rev­er­ent crowd. Con­sid­er­ing it was the first I’d heard Bun­yan, I found myself pleas­ant­ly sur­prised to find her music as much a touch­stone to today’s acid folkies as to Belle and Sebastian.

Most impor­tant­ly, Bun­yan expressed a skep­ti­cism that’s miss­ing from much of the cur­rent crop of folkies whose poseur pol­i­tics and ama­teur hour apoc­a­lyp­ti­cism I find hope­less­ly cyn­i­cal. When Bun­yan intro­duced her songs, she rou­tine­ly paused to qual­i­fy them either as dreams deferred, or as touch­ing trib­utes to her chil­dren. By putting her work in light of her own expe­ri­ences, it was a love­ly way to see how an artist can mature and be suc­cess­ful by admit­ting the imped­i­ments to their ambi­tions rather than let­ting that dis­ap­point­ment con­sume them.

What’s in your RSSe­nal? I’m look­ing for more and bet­ter out­lets for new video and mp3 con­tent. I’m look­ing to expand my cat­e­go­rized links with the new Word­Press and I’d like to pay clos­er atten­tion to hyped blogs to save myself the embar­rass­ment of mak­ing pub­lic pleas like this going for­ward. So if you’re feel­ing gen­er­ous, leave me a com­ment, endorse­ment, whathavey­ou. Thanks!

In an effort to keep tabs on 2007 favorites, I’m going to try to post lists of them on a month­ly basis. Here goes, in no par­tic­u­lar order:

• Times New Viking — Present the Pais­ley Reich [Silt­breeze]
• Andrew Bird — Arm­chair Apoc­rypha [Fat Possum]
• Antibalas — Secu­ri­ty [Anti-]
• I’m From Barcelona — Let Me Intro­duce My Friends [Mute]
• Of Mon­tre­al — Hiss­ing Fau­na, Are You the Destroy­er? [Polyvinyl]
• Loney, Dear — Loney, Noir [Sub Pop]
• Ortho­dox — Gran Poder [South­ern Lord]
• Deer­hunter — Cryp­tograms [Kranky]
• Shin­ing — Grind­stone [Rune Grammophon]
• Deer­hoof — Friend Oppor­tu­ni­ty [5RC/KRS]
• Marnie Stern — In Advance of the Bro­ken Arm [Kill Rock Stars]
• Peter Bjorn & John — Writer’s Block [Almost Gold]
• LCD Soundsys­tem — Sound of Sil­ver [DFA]
• Tim­ba­land — Presents Shock Val­ue [Inter­scope]
• Elec­tre­lane — No Shouts, No Calls [Too Pure]

I’m already sur­prised by how much indie rock has already entered this chart, but the Swedish inva­sion, which to me isn’t as self-impor­tant as its tune­ful Cana­di­an coun­ter­part, has real­ly cap­ti­vat­ed my imag­i­na­tion. It just took a lit­tle while to sink in, explain­ing the inclu­sion of records that were tech­ni­cal­ly released last year but will reach Amer­i­can shores and shops in March. Of course, now that I’ve writ­ten it, I’ll be no doubt unex­pect­ed­ly floored by Arcade Fire’s new record, at which time I’ll make a for­mal apol­o­gy to their homeland.

More impor­tant than those “dis­cov­er­ies,” I’m sim­ply heart­ened to see so much music here, doubt­less inspired by the idio­syn­crasies and edi­to­r­i­al habits at Paper Thin Walls, which have intro­duced music to me that I would­n’t have oth­er­wise sought out. Judg­ing by this list, 2007 is shap­ing up to be anoth­er inter­est­ing year. I say “inter­est­ing” because rather than make a fee­ble attempt at hear­ing every­thing, I’m hap­py to lis­ten to dif­fer­ent and new stuff, even pick­ing up with a few well-estab­lished artists like Andrew Bird and Antibalas, as well as reac­quaint myself with an old favorite like Of Mon­tre­al, who’d gone off my radar since the col­lapse of all things Ele­phant 6.

Per­haps best of all is news that Elec­tre­lane will release a new record — their last one, Axes, gar­nered my top rank­ing in 2005 — so expec­ta­tions are high. What will be dis­ap­point­ing is the SXSW after­math dur­ing which the music indus­try cools and slows to a glacial pace, leav­ing only col­lege bas­ket­ball and spring train­ing to shake off win­ter’s lin­ger­ing dol­drums until late sum­mer when the CMJ fes­ti­val cranks up the hype machine again.

Last­ly, in case it seems disin­gen­u­ous to sim­ply post these artists and albums with­out much com­ment, I has­ten to add that I’m review­ing [and inter­view­ing] three of them for Paper Thin Walls and I hope to col­lect my thoughts on sev­er­al oth­ers in the near term. As always I’ll be sure to post links, etc. Right now I’m late to see Vashti Bunyan!

When Griz­zly Bear cov­ered the Crys­tals Thurs­day night, it was love. They update tried and true Spec­torisms with icy motifs of long­ing and detach­ment, result­ing in a sound like the shaft of light enter­ing the emp­ty house that adorns the cov­er of Yel­low House.

If I told you I’ve been work­ing on a project that involves David Cross and Stephen Malk­mus, would you believe me? Since an indie rock sched­ul­ing con­flict with Yo La Ten­go has come up, I can’t attend myself, so I’ll pray to Youtube that every­thing goes well.

P.S.: If your name is Carl Young and you’re mag­i­cal­ly read­ing this, please get in touch re: deep back­ground, ex-girl­friends, etc. etc.