Chris Tsefalas - Follow The Sun (2009)

This album took a little while to sink in, but now that it has, I am enjoying it like late-night nachos. The Portland based artist puts together a solid set of tracks that remind me a little of Sam Roberts' sound and style, especially "Not Coming Back," and the rockin' "See What You've Done," anchored by strong pop structure and assorted instrumentation and influences. With production administered by The Decemberists' John Moen, Follow The Sun has a little bit of everything. My favorite song, "Roses and Silk Sheets," features Latin-esque guitar work and beats borrowed from Manu Chao, with the voice-mailed rejection message introduction to boot, mixed in with a catchy pop hook. The bluesy "Bad Rat" saunters along like a Jimi Hendrix throwback, to lyrics written by Tsefalas' daughter, I am told. The others offer mellow guitar and piano work, with smooth vocals. All in all, this is a enjoyable album with some really catchy stretches.

The Mattoid - Glory Holy The EP (2007)

I recently met a French exchange student at a bar in North Beach. I told her of my interests in French soccer, French food, and Serge Gainsbourg (pretty much the extent of my French knowledge). She told me that she wasn’t much into le foot, preferred Italian food, and absolutely loved Serge Gainsbourg. It was our discussion of Gainsbourg that inspired this heavily accented French art student to tell me about The Mattoid, or as she pronounced it: Ma•TOOD (neglecting the “The”). This omission, her mispronunciation and the additional complication of The Mattoid being Finnish and not French, temporarily hampered my ability to track them down, but I did, and was surprised by what I found… mainly because “Ma•TOOD” sounds very little like Gainsbourg. Nevertheless, I wasn’t entirely disappointed.

You know immediately that The Mattoid, made up of Ville Kiviniemi and others, has little interest in camouflaging his absurdly humorous lyrics and style behind conventional sounding music. Instead he manufactures a sound that falls somewhere between lounge, folk, alt. country, & classic rock, all accompanied by Gainsbourg meets Wesley Willis-esque singing. Sounds awesome, right? Well, some of it is. The opening track of the EP, "Hey Dude," is an amusing modification of Jimi Hendrix's infamous "Hey Joe"—where Joe is a Dude, my old lady is an Eskimo Lady, and the gun is actually a whaling harpoon. I would tell you to check out The Mattoid’s 2008 album Glory Holy, but all the best songs are on the 2007 EP. So, if you are interested in very unconventional, playfully-humorous Finnish indie rock, check out these tracks off Glory Holy The EP: "Burn and Rob," “Hey Dude,” “Suicide,” and "Breaking Wind."