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June 27, 2009

Bachelorette - Her Rotating Head

(Triple Door) Bachelorette is the stage name of New Zealand musician Annabel Alpers. At the core of Bachelorette's songs on the new album, My Electric Family, is Alpers's alternately glassy and evaporating singing voice. Surrounding her singing are lush layers of traditional live instrumentation, expansive audio effects (delay and reverb up to the heavens), and tasteful electronic flourishes. The lyrics can get wincingly wonky, as on utopian electro-pop number "Technology Boy," but the arrangements—such as that song's stuttering vocals reminiscent of Morr Music softies Lali Puna—are consistently captivating. Bill Callahan is the dour tenor behind the much-loved, long-running solo project Smog. Recording under his own name for his past two albums, Woke on a Whaleheart and Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, Callahan continues to churn out the terse and brutal and just sometimes bright-around-the-corners folk songs, always sung in that coldly commanding voice of his.