Released in 2003, Stars Like Fleas’ Sun Lights Down the Fence was a sleeper of a record, causing nearly everyone who heard it to take a few months to simply digest all that was going on. Stylus writer Todd Burns described it as such: “For listeners looking for what Talk Talk would sound like if they were working in the dust of Texas and in the 21st century, Stars Like Fleas is the closest approximation to it.” Recorded over two years and featuring 21 musicians, the album is primarily the child of Shannon Fields and Montgomery Knott. Fields was kind enough to take some time to talk about four of his favorite tracks of the moment for the Stypod recently. The results:

Joanna Newsom– The Sprout and Bean, [The Milk-Eyed Mender]

I certainly had the impulse initially to try to send over something more obscure (Gang Gang Dance, Duotron, Get Hustle, some of these Roy Rogers-esque radio hits from 1950s Japan that I cannot get enough of, or at least a track off of the BEAUTIFUL new Panda Bear record), not only to drop some indie cred on y’all (but really, go track down everything I just mentioned), but because the point of these blogs should be to share and proselytize the overlooked and unheard, right? So I was slightly apprehensive about including especially Joanna Newsom, given the hype she’s riding on right now. But I can’t help it and Todd said to include recent stuff I was liking. I can’t lie. The Milk-Eyed Mender is absolutely my favorite record of the year (probably next to the Animal Collective record and SmiLE), and this song probably my favorite song of the year. And believe me, I resisted her like hell before I’d ever heard a note.

I don’t buy the PR mythologies being built up around her and am increasingly tired of a lot of this new school of hipster-freak-folk “authenticity” that she’s always contextualized within. But I was destroyed by this record and this song. Even at a textural level, I haven’t heard anything more evocative all year (including the regretfully poor record by my sometimes-hero, Fennesz)—I mean, I could (and have) listen to her sing the word “pinecone” (from “Sadie”) 20 times in a row. Her songs succeed on multiple levels: they have an interior, they are intimate and crafted with muscle and they shock me awake and feed me once I’m there. I could split their bellies and crawl inside to keep warm, listening all day. I do. I could suddenly start gushing like a third-rate college poetry instructor over these songs. As I just have. Because I believe them and they move me.

[visit Joanna Newsom’s website here, buy The Milk-Eyed Mender here, read Scott Reid’s Stylus review here]

Stina Nordenstam– Fireworks, [And She Closed Her Eyes]

I think that And She Closed Her Eyes was Stina Nordenstam’s debut, at least her major label debut. At the time she was touted as the Swedish Bjork or something and this came out on East/West in the Nordic territories in ‘94. I have to say it up front: This record makes no sense at all. And to a large degree it’s what I can only describe as the “wrongness” of the production that compels me, alongside the sweet guile of her persona and the imminent hummable-ness. The first time I heard this record I was so thrown off I let down my cynical guard and Stina proceeded to whoop my Midwestern ass (embarrassing because, trust me, this is not ass-whooping music).

All of her vocals are recorded as in this song: bone dry and waaaaaaaay on top of the mix. Her voice is strangely high and off-putting like Joanna Newsom’s—but unlike JN, Stina suggests no bold sense of abandon, no reason to sing, and frankly no range or real body to her voice—like Cyndi Lauper whisper-yelling in your ear, in slow motion—every song is the same monotonous, helium croak. Occupying the same song will be instruments that sound like they were recorded on a cassette 4-track, others hyper-produced, and a piano plinking from the bottom of a well. The arrangements are splattered with miserable Kenny G-esque soprano figures, adult contemporary vocal backings, Top40 90s R&B Roland key sounds, and then sharing the same unlikely space with warbling dissonant noise and field recordings.

You can’t really pick this up from one song. The subtle and bizarre scope of this failed pop record becomes visible only taken at once and with concentration. In less charitable moods I think of this as a teen angst record for marginalized suburban Nordic girls. On her later records the music turned unexpectedly edgy, hip, and she seemed to be going for some sort of Lisa Germano-esque lo-fi or something…angular, ragged and cool. And I cooled on her as well (though the latest one is pretty decent). THIS record is not cool at all. But it IS disquietingly beautiful. And while I don’t believe in her, on songs like this one (and, hell, half of em), I am fully seduced by her for the duration of the songs. I may condescend to this record but I don’t listen to it for kitcsh value. It may not sound like it, but I love this record.

[visit Stina Nordenstam’s website here, buy And She Closed Her Eyes here]

Gastr Del Sol– Eight Corners, [Mirror Repair]

Nobody I know talks about Gastr Del Sol anymore. Maybe there’s a silently acknowledged Gastr backlash going on that I don’t know about. Which makes me sad. Maybe this has been fed by all the printed disavowals by the ubiquitous and (perhaps rightfully) arrogant closet-conceputalist, Mr. Jim O’Rourke (one half of Gastr Del Sol from their second record on); or maybe due to the steadily declining strength and conviction of founding member David Grubbs’ solo output, people have become frequently embarrassed admitting that they were ever blown away by a Grubbs project; maybe it’s because of the waning favor for the Chicago post-rock scene (of which Gastr is always claimed to have partially parented, but I can’t think of a single Chicago ‘post-rock’ band I could say was occupying the same spaces Gastr Del Sol records inhabited). But anyway, all that shit aside, it may not be the most accessible track, but this song and this record were my introduction to them, and musically they sort of changed my life.

[visit Drag City’s Gastr Del Sol website here, buy Mirror Repair here]

US Maple– Babe, [Acre Thrills]

I heart US Maple so very much. They disassemble rock and roll down to its most atomic level and then reconstruct the kibbles and bits into fist-pumping collections of truly cubist proportions. I think they’re easily one of the greatest and most devastatingly unsung rock bands on planet earth (which by no means is to say they can do no wrong, cause that Dylan cover on the Purple Time was super stanky, and not in a good way). Singer Mark Shippy is Bon Scott with throat cancer writing lyrics the way Henry Darger drew pictures—ending up with the same stolen tracings reassmebled into ambiguously unethical fantasies you can’t unpack and don’t want to. If you’ve never heard anything like ‘the Maple’ you might find it impenetrable, but stick with it…come on, you would stick with it if it were an attractive and impenetrable member of the opposite sex, so why do you want your rock records to shuck their panties off as soon as you hit ‘play’? Huh?

This was the next evolution in punk rock ethos and few bands were carrying the torch when U.S. Maple started. These days it seems everybody in NY is suddenly “no-wave” noise and into freeform punxpression and open to bands like US Maple (who have been at it for over ten years). But in truth there is very little that is freeform or no-wave about this band…this music isn’t about style, is structurally astonishing and is in truth, carefully composed…when they play live they *play these songs*. If you listen long enough you’ll learn the songs, you’ll hum along, you’ll go “ug, euh-huh, a-hoo0!!” right along with them in concert. And while I can appreciate the current crop of snotty-pisstaking-devilmaycare-irono-noise-hip-cabaret bands as much as the next guy for their youthful resistance-blahblah-etcetc, you know, US Maple is not a joke. And I like that more.

[visit Drag City’s US Maple website here, buy Mirror Repair here]