HOPE SOON I'LL DREAM WITH YOU.

Our dude Brad Oberhofer is one of our city's brightest young things and most captivating new talents, so we're throwing this up late in the game just in case you missed its first strike last week. "HEART" marks the first single from his upcoming debut full length, Time Capsules II (top marks on the name sir), and starts off with a classical piano arrangement that rockets into a frantic Alberti bass just as Oberhofer's familiar concave vocals begin to sink into your psyche. As the flickering toy piano plays hooky with the emphatic drums and sweeping string sections, he turns on the dark charm and dreams up an epic lullaby for the unrequited.

Under the production wing of the legendary Steve Lillywhite - a curveball of a producer for this project but one that suddenly makes perfect sense here - "HEART" manages to combine the nail-biting bravado of pre-Glassnote Oberhofer with an incredible orchestral majesty reminiscent of our own ANR's "Blood on Blood". NYC, meet your new favorite son.

MP3: "HEART" - Oberhofer

SLIPPING UNDER COVERS.

Harriet is the brainchild of Alex Casnoff, the lone wolf who cut his teeth playing in LA's wildly revered PAPA and Dawes, already an impressive pedigree in its own right. Over the relentless locomotive piano of debut single "I Slept With All Your Mothers", Casnoff's howling vocals come bursting from your speakers with the emotional intensity of a man at his breaking point. He breaks it down real slow so his half growl, half croon sweet talks its way into your head like the lovechild of Neutral Milk Hotel and Wilco, delivered twenty years late. All in all, it's a full-bodied elixir for the heartbreak of a crashing American Dream, like a Richard Linklater film in song form that ends on a vindicated Oberhofer-esque final note. Look out for Harriet's debut EP Tell The Right Story on January 31st.

MP3: "I Slept With All Your Mothers" - Harriet

NOTHING I CAN DO.

We've had our mouths wired shut about but this one for a few months now, but now that word seems to be out we might as well join the party. This whole lo-fi renaissance is hardly our favorite thing going on in music right now, but then a rough gem like Oberhofer comes along and all is well in the world again. We saw the rough beginnings of his live show last December, and then again last month playing with Keepaway at Webster Studio, where he blew us away with the leaps and bounds of progress he'd made in barely two months time. Then there's the fact that his handmade 7-track EP hasn't left the office stereo for months and it's safe to say we're pretty way into this. "I Could Go" is our favorite track of the bunch, but "Away Frm U" is the clear-cut single here, combining all the best bits of Modest Mouse and Animal Collective while the 19 year old Tacoma native yelps and strums his way to 4ish minutes of lo-fi pop brilliance. Special stuff, this Oberhofer.

MP3: "Away Frm U" - Oberhofer