In their own humble and low-key way, the Kansas City, Missouri-based trio Namelessnumberheadman have been blazing a trail that solidifies the invisible bridge between far-off galaxies and rural landscapes. They take heartfelt, melodic pop songs with a folk-ish acoustic tinge and swirl them into futuristic, electronic soundscapes. Stylus writer Derek Miller said of their newest album, Your Voice Repeating, “You couldn’t possibly remove a single track for a mix tape or compilation; the rest of the work would crumble without it, and the one removed would refuse to eat or sleep until it was put back in its place.”

Chuck Whittington, guitarist and keyboard player for the band, was kind enough to talk about three of his current favorite songs for the Stypod.

Trespassers William– Flicker, [Different Stars]

Listening to their Morning Becomes Eclectic performance, they initially struck me as a quite good Mazzy Star update. I love myself a little mopey female-sung pop that uses to its advantage intentionally mysterious or ambiguous lyrics about lost love or missed connections. I’m also enthralled by bands that seem to thrive when they’re drenched in reverb (probably because I’m personally afraid of using too much on my own recordings). So I started yanking their MP3s from the internet and found this song. I don’t even remember if they played in on Morning Becomes Eclectic (I’m too lazy to go figure it out for you). It’s beautiful (like their other songs), but there are some times that I just have to go back and listen to this song. Maybe it’s the slight tension of the insistent bass guitar contradicted against the slightly lazy delivery of vocal melody. Maybe it’s the airyness in the whole track. Maybe it’s just a really good song.

[visit Trespassers Williams’ website here, buy Different Stars here]

I am Robot and Proud– A Proposal To Tune The World To F, [Big Art Sound Commission]

A concept song with the idea that “everything you hear becomes part of the music you’re listening to.” This not only includes the music you choose to pump into your ears, but also all the sounds around you. This song melds the two for you all in one song, by including field sounds in parts of the music (though in a meta-musical way, as you listen to the song, you also have your own sounds around you which become part of the music.). Concept aside, the song is slow moving and in the first section, anticipatory, but never boring. Sort of like an escalator ride in an airport you’ve never been to before: yes, it’s just an airport; yes, it’s just an escalator, but once you step outside you’ll be in a new place. At almost ten minutes, it’s less of a song than a suite of short songs, but I feel the entire journey is justified.

[visit I Am Robot and Proud’s website here, buy I Am Robot and Proud releases here]

Olympic Hopefuls– Holiday, [The Fuses Refuse to Burn]

In many ways, I miss the early nineties. I came into musical awareness then, and will likely always enjoy saccharine guitar pop. Bring on your Matthew Sweets, your Lemonheads, your Trip Shakespeares, I will enjoy them all. Catchy will always catch me. Anyway, the Olympic Hopefuls are a sort of side project (there are too many projects and side projects these days) containing Darren Jackson (dark wintery indie band, Kid Dakota, over which I obsessed for many months a couple of years back) and Erik Appelwick (of Vicious Vicious whom, I must admit, I hadn’t heard of before) plus others to round out the band. A song using, presumably, the metaphor of drunkenness as a holiday. Sort of serious subject matter for guitar pop, but covered in the sheen of jangle pop, and misdirected by clever lyrical turns like “You passed out….invitations to your show.”, you’d never notice if you were only humming along and not listening closely.

[visit the Olympic Hopefuls’ website here, buy The Fuses Refuse to Burn here]