I’m a big fan of crazy.

I mean that strictly in an artistic sense. I’m not enamored of skipping-down-the-halls-setting-fire-to-the-walls insanity, and there are definitely people I know who could use some professional help. I don’t mean that kind of crazy. What I do mean is the willingness to follow one’s muse, no matter how batshit that muse seems to be. Like when California goth outfit Saviour Machine decided they would re-tell the book of Revelation in song, in four volumes. That’s the good kind of crazy, especially since they’re still working on it 15 years later.

Or when Texas enigma Jandek committed decades of his life – 70 albums over 34 years and counting – to capturing a nigh-unlistenable form of improvised dissonance with as many collaborators as he could wrangle. The very fact of Jandek’s existence gets more and more insane as the years go by and the records keep coming out. After a while, it starts to look like a life’s work, and it demands you accept it on its own terms.

The best crazy stuff accomplishes that. It gets under your skin, and after a while, it forces you to view the world from its skewed angle. I have all 70 Jandek albums, and I’ve heard them all multiple times, and while I definitely wouldn’t say I understand how he sees the world, I now hear patters and see sense where many hear random clatter and see dementia. It’s this kind of viewpoint-altering magic that keeps me coming back to the crazy, and continuing to seek it out.

That’s the thinking behind my semi-regular WTF Awards, given out to records that make me wonder if I’ve wandered into an alternate dimension, where crazy-sounding ideas are pursued to their fullest. I don’t just hand these out to the most bizarre things I hear. To receive a WTF Award, you have to make me wonder just what was going through your head when you conceived of a particular record. I have to ask the question, “Why did you think this would work?”

Here’s a great example: Joe Jackson’s tribute to Duke Ellington.

Now, on its face, that doesn’t seem too wacky. Jackson is an avowed fan of all forms of jazz, and Ellington is certainly an influence on some of his better works. If you’ve heard Jackson’s 1981 big band classic Jumpin’ Jive, you can probably envision how his tribute to the Duke would work, and work well. And Jackson’s been on a roll recently – his last two albums, Volume 4 and Rain, displayed tremendous energy and vitality, and it’s not hard to picture him bringing all that vigor to bear on an homage to one of his heroes.

Jackson, however, didn’t do any of that on The Duke. What he did is indulge his worst tendencies as an arranger and record-maker, turning out some extremely odd, synth-driven squiggles full of mad ideas that don’t quite work. And then he invited the strangest collective of guests he could think of to make things even weirder. Here is Steve Vai, playing the melody of “Isfahan” over programmed drums and keys. Here is ?uestlove, playing hip-hop rhythms on about half of these tracks. Here is Iggy Pop – yes, Iggy Pop – lending his voice to “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).” On that last one especially, I have no idea what Jackson was thinking.

Granted, some of the guests make a lot of sense. Christian McBride is one of the best acoustic bassists around, and he graces a whole bunch of these tunes. And Sharon Jones was an inspired choice to sing “I Ain’t Got Nothin’ But the Blues.” But even those turns sound very strange on this record. McBride and ?uestlove turn “I’m Beginning to See the Light” into a jazz-hop gallop – I can almost hear Q-Tip rapping over this. Regina Carter adds her violin genius to that track and to a bizarre “Mood Indigo” played on reverbed guitars and accordion.

The electronic drums add a level of cheese to the carnival romp Jackson has made out of “Rockin’ in Rhythm,” played on synthesizers, sousaphone and piccolo. It’s kind of a mess. But at the other end of the spectrum, Jackson and Sharon Jones blues up “Blues,” with some help from ?uestlove and McBride, and find a way to work in the immortal “Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me” for a few seconds. There’s a fine line on this album between inventive and ridiculous, and it’s one Jackson’s programmed-samba take on “I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good),” for instance, walks with unsure feet.

To the man’s credit, The Duke doesn’t completely fly off the rails until the end. I can’t even explain how awful the reggae version of “The Mooche” is, Steve Vai wailing away on a melody that deserves better. That track also slips into “Black and Tan Fantasy,” one of Duke’s earliest triumphs, and Jackson whips out his accordion again to really give it that unlistenable edge. And then comes Iggy Pop, and to call this version of “It Don’t Mean a Thing” disastrous is an insult to disasters. Four people are credited with “programming” on this thing, which should tell you a lot of what you need to know.

I would never come down hard on Jackson for trying new and radical interpretations of these songs, if they worked. The Duke shows remarkable imagination, and an equally remarkable inability to tell a good idea from a bad one. It’s only successful about half the time, and while I admire Jackson’s ambition – he hasn’t made an album this complex in some time – I can’t get behind some of his choices.

Though it’s beside the point, I do wonder what Ellington might have thought of this. On the one hand, it celebrates his try-anything attitude to jazz music, and it clearly comes from a place of deep affection for his tunes. On the other hand, though, it mostly sucks. It’s an ill-formed mess of a thing, and it breaks Jackson’s recent hot streak. But it’s certainly worthy of a WTF Award, so I guess he can feel good about that.

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The Flaming Lips deserve a WTF Award just for existing lately. When the most reasonable thing they’ve done in the last four years is a full-album cover of The Dark Side of the Moon (with Henry Rollins and Peaches in tow), it’s safe to say the band has been going through a strange period. Freed from their major-label contract, the Lips quickly began releasing whatever they wanted, as often as they wanted. They gave us songs on thumb drives lodged inside full-size gummy human skulls, for instance. Last year, they released a six-hour-long song, and then followed it up with one that spans a full 24 hours. That one was sold on a drive lodged in a real human skull, and retailed for $5,000.

So in comparison to all that, their new album The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends probably isn’t that strange. But it is the weirdest thing they’ve released to the general market in some time, so it’s deserving of its place here. Basically, Heady Fwends is a 68-minute compilation of some of the Lips’ spur-of-the-moment collaborations with the unlikeliest of people. The list is enough to make your head spin all on its own: Ke$ha, Biz Markie, Bon Iver, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Jim James, Nick Cave, Yoko Ono and Erykah Badu, to name a few.

Basically, over the past couple of years, the Lips would take a lot of drugs and play with whoever walked by their studio. Some of these tracks come from full EPs the band released, collabs with Ono, Neon Indian, Prefuse 73 and Lightning Bolt. But many of them are just one-offs, nutty songs created for no other reason than to create them. You can hear the band figuring out if each one of these pairings works as they play through them. And that’s oddly exhilarating. This record is even more of a mess than you’d expect, and yet it teeters on the edge of the precipice with such verve that it’s hard to dislike it.

In fact, I quite like a lot of it. I’m a fan of the Lips’ more bizarre releases, like Zaireeka and the soundtrack to Christmas on Mars – when they’re on these trips, they sound like no one else on Earth. In the best moments on Heady Fwends, the Lips invite these unlikely cohorts into their own universe, and let them root around in it for a while.

I was probably most nervous about Ke$ha’s appearance, but “2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)” is something of a minor classic. Ke$ha sings out of tune over a computer beat, interrupted every few seconds by a robot voice spewing the subtitle, and it works surprisingly well. This is abrasive and noisy and nuts, until you get to the rather lovely swirly-synth bridge. Not only is it better and more listenable than I had feared, but it’s much more of a song than I was expecting, as opposed to a drugged-out jam.

The same can be said for most of these tunes. The Bon Iver collaboration, “Ashes in the Air,” is actually quite lovely, exploring the soaring, ambient side of the Lips. (It’s got a great chorus melody, too.) “Helping the Retarded to Know God,” the team-up with Edward Sharpe, is gentle space-folk, and “Children of the Moon,” with Tame Impala, is a floaty, strummy festival over a loping beat. Things get weird when Nick Cave wanders in for “You, Man? Human???,” a slow, grating, distorted slog that sets Cave’s snarling voice over a screaming volley of backing vocals.

“I’m Working at NASA on Acid,” with Lightning Bolt, is a true multi-part noise epic, stretching to eight minutes, and at this point in the record, I’ll admit some fatigue. Yoko Ono doesn’t help things – her contribution to the computer-funk “Do It!” consists of yelping the title phrase over and over. But the real gem of this album is a cover of the Roberta Flack hit “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” The vocals are handled by Erykah Badu, but the Lips cast her soulful pipes in a completely new, altogether noisier and spacier setting. Yeah, this is the song that led to the video that led to Badu scream-Tweeting at head Lip Wayne Coyne, and it’s hard not to hear it in that context. But it’s really remarkable, and beautiful.

Heady Fwends, in its original vinyl incarnation, concluded with “I Don’t Want You to Die,” a lovely duet with Chris Martin of Coldplay. That song is mysteriously missing from the CD issue, and has been replaced by the infinitely inferior “Tasered and Maced,” a tasteless spoken-word ramble by Aaron Behrens of Ghostland Observatory. Put that one in the loss column, but much to my surprise, you can consider most of this album a win. On paper, this album doesn’t make sense. (And let’s be real – much of it doesn’t make sense when you’re listening to it either.) But it works far better than I could have hoped. Here’s to one of the strangest bands ever. Long may they reign.

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And finally, we have something that shouldn’t exist.

I have an innate distrust of sequels, mainly because most of them suck. I’m not sure what the draw of musical sequels is for the artists. I get why the record company bean-counters like them – they can trade on the affection people have for the original. But artistically, sequels rarely live up to their first installments, and will automatically be ranked against them. The more highly revered your original album is, the more harshly judged your sequel will be, generally speaking.

So there’s no reason I can see for Jethro Tull mastermind Ian Anderson to have gone ahead with Thick as a Brick 2, a sequel that arrives 40 years after its predecessor. Thick as a Brick was Tull’s first real foray into progressive rock – a single 45-minute song ostensibly based around an epic poem by one Gerald Bostock, an eight-year-old cynical (and fictional) prodigy. If you like Tull, you like this – it’s pretty much the apex of their vision of insanely complex flute-adorned folk-rock. It’s the one that drew the line in the sand – after Brick, you were either a Tull fan, or you found them ass-achingly pretentious.

I’m a fan, and always have been. But one thing I never wondered was how Gerald Bostock turned out. It never felt like an unfinished story to me. This is the element that Anderson has returned to, four decades on, the hook on which he hangs this follow-up. The first two-thirds of Thick as a Brick 2 imagines the different paths Bostock might have taken after his brush with fame, envisioning his life as a banker, a homeless man, a member of the military, a chorister, and a “most ordinary man.” It’s sort of a Choose Your Own Adventure suite, and it only comes together in the final four tracks.

Tracks? Why, yes. There are 17 of them, breaking with the original Brick’s premise, but in keeping with the pebbles-in-a-pond theme of this new album. I suppose I would consider much of this progressive rock, but the production and the unimaginative songwriting keep this a pale imitation of old-school Tull. It’s definitely the best thing I’ve heard from Anderson in years, and he’s in fine form on that flute, but I can’t say most of these songs did anything for me. The album leaps moods as often as it leaps Bostock’s parallel universes, and ditties like the pseudo-sermon “Give Till It Hurts” and the synth-Beatles “Cosy Corner” feel like stumbling blocks.

Still, there are some fine little rockers here, like “Swing It Far” and “Shunt and Shuffle,” the song that concludes Act I. Anderson’s flute slides nicely against Florian Opahle’s crunchy guitar, and the old bugger comes up with some genuine musical surprises here and there. But then he slips into a theme from the original Thick as a Brick, reminding you just how much better that record is. It’s a trap Anderson never quite finds a way out of.

Which is a shame, because some of these songs – particularly the album’s centerpiece, the eight-minute “A Change of Horses” – can stand on their own. At the album’s end, Bostock the old man looks back on the one life he chose and wonders what might have been, and I can imagine Anderson, all of 65, doing the same. It’s hard to begrudge him for taking this record on, even if the results are nowhere near as good as they’d have to be to bear the Thick as a Brick name. He gets a WTF Award for even attempting a sequel 40 years later, but he gets my respect for making the best sequel he could. That I don’t hate this – that it makes me view its world from its point of view – is a minor miracle.

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Next week, the money comes rolling in, and the new reviews fire up in earnest. What would you like to see discussed here? Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’ve had a long and complex relationship with synthesizers.

I fell in love with them when I was a kid. My first band, if you want to call it that, consisted of me, my next door neighbor, and a Casio sampling keyboard. We had heard “Pump Up the Volume” by M/A/R/R/S and said to ourselves, “We could do that.” We were 12 years old. What did we know?

My love of synthesized sounds came from the hot music of the day. My Rosetta Stone was Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F,” a keyboard melody so indelible that I bet at least half of you are humming it right now. It was my grandmother who taught me how to play piano, but it was Harold Faltermeyer who initially made me want to play keys. And in the early ‘80s, every band had a keyboard player, even the hard-rocking ones like Bon Jovi and Europe.

I loved that stuff, but I also loved the Pet Shop Boys, who crashed into my world with “What Have I Done to Deserve This” in 1987. It was a duet with Dusty Springfield. Did I have any idea who Dusty Springfield was? No, I did not. You’d think a musically-inclined person like me would have looked her up, and perhaps heard Dusty in Memphis before I was 16. And if I were making this story up, that’s how it would go. But no, my Pet Shop Boys fascination just led me to other synth-pop bands, and eventually to the king of the keyboards. No, not Keith Emerson, you silly person. I’m talking about Yanni.

When I was a teen, I adored Yanni. I bought all his albums on cassette. I scored my high school films with his goopy instrumentals. I had enough residual Yanni love in my later teen years that I brought his cassettes to college, and bought Live at the Acropolis when it came out in 1994. How, you may be asking, did I reconcile this with my teenage metalhead phase? I don’t know. I just did. It’s Yanni, and you don’t question it.

But Yanni and the Pet Shop Boys were the only constants. Over time, I developed a strange aversion to synthetic anything in music. I think it coincided with the Seattle grunge explosion, when “real” music was made with guitars and drums, and “pop” was electronic drums and keyboards. I still liked pop music, but I hid it, holding fast to the notion that programming wasn’t playing, and anything synthetic couldn’t be as good as anything organic. I clung to that for a depressingly long time, despite bands like Garbage, who seemed to exist mainly to prove that those divisions didn’t.

Of course, at the same time that I was dissing any band that didn’t play acoustics and angst, I was secretly listening to an awful lot of synth-pop. Not sure why I thought it was an illicit thing, but I think I equated synthesizer music with falsity, with insincerity. I don’t remember how I snapped out of that, but I’m glad I did. In fact, after college, I dove into electronic music pretty heavily. I even made my own – hours and hours of it, some trance-like and simplistic, some ass-achingly complex, as if to prove that electronic music could be “real” music.

These days, synthesizers and I have an understanding. I think they’re a remarkable tool, when they’re not being used to emulate something organic instruments do better. Synth strings and horns usually leave me cold, because they’re no substitute for real strings and horns. (I’ll admit here that Mark Kelly of Marillion sometimes overuses the string patches.) But when synthesizers are used to create sounds only they can make, they mesmerize me. Take an artist like Ronnie Martin, who goes by Joy Electric. He uses analog synthesizers exclusively because nothing else could spin the sound he hears in his head.

And it’s become abundantly clear that synthetic music doesn’t necessarily mean synthetic emotions. In fact, some electronic music is fathoms deeper and more honest than most of the confessionals made by six-string troubadours. As with virtually any kind of music, it’s all about how much of yourself you put into it, how much of a reflection of the artist the art is allowed to become.

And so after all that, I’m going to talk about Owl City.

If there’s a poster child for insincere electronic music, as far as most of the world is concerned, it’s probably Adam Young. Over three albums as Owl City (and one as Sky Sailing), Young has put forth a twee, faintly ridiculous vision of electro-pop. It’s sugary-sweet, and full of magical allusions and terrible puns, and those things – plus the ever-present Auto-Tune on Young’s voice – are take-it-or-leave-it propositions. Most have decided to leave it.

It’s no secret I’ve taken some grief for defending Owl City. But I’m not ashamed. Despite lazy comparisons to Ben Gibbard’s one Postal Service album (to which Adam Young’s music bears only the slightest resemblance), I find his work defiantly individual. I can’t think of anyone else who would make an album like Ocean Eyes, honestly. There’s too much whimsy, too much effervescence, too many anti-radio-pop decisions for it to be anything but an artistic vision. “Fireflies” was a fluke. If “The Bird and the Worm” or “Umbrella Beach” had become a hit, that would have been amazing.

I’ve always felt that Adam Young puts a lot of himself into Owl City. And if you’ve ever wondered what he would sound like if he really did aim for the charts and the teen girls’ hearts, well, you only need to listen to his disappointing fourth album, The Midsummer Station. It’s everything Ocean Eyes was accused of being: pandering, hit-obsessed and phony to the core.

The sad thing is that Owl City still sounds about the same, and it’s a sound I love. Young’s laptop-pop still burbles along confidently, his voice still innocent and Auto-Tuned. There are a few more guitars, particularly on the laughable half-punk embarrassment “Dementia” (featuring Mark Hoppus of Blink-182, no less), but casual listeners probably won’t notice much difference between The Midsummer Station and any of Young’s other records.

But it’s there, and it’s enormous. Young has worked with a veritable army of co-writers and producers on this album, and they’ve surgically removed his whimsy and replaced it with boring, straightforward dance-pop. There isn’t much to separate this from your average mainstream club record. If you don’t notice much difference between something like “Speed of Love” and Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe,” that’s because there isn’t much. And just to drive the point home, Jepsen herself appears on the putrid “Good Time,” one track later.

Here’s the first verse of that song: “Woke up on the wrong side of the bed, what’s up with this Prince song in my head, hands up if you’re down to get down tonight, ‘cause it’s always a good time…” Later, Jepsen takes a whole verse to say she “freaked out, dropped my phone in the pool again, checked out of my room, hit the ATM, let’s hang out if you’re down to get down tonight…” Anyone who made fun of “Friday” but likes this is just fooling themselves.

The lyrics on the whole record are this average, this straightforward, this boring. “Shooting Star” (produced by the same folks who made Katy Perry’s “Firework”) is exactly the vague anthem of hope you think it is: “When the sun goes down and the lights burn out then it’s time for you to shine brighter than a shooting star, so shine no matter where you are…” People shine all over this record – observe this bit of “Gold,” which goes, “You’ll never be far, I’m keeping you near, inside of my heart, you’re here, go on, it’s gotta be time, you’re starting to shine…” Although it’s better than “Dementia,” on which he actually claims that “dementia is driving me crazy.” Good lord.

Why am I harping on lyrics, when they never mean that much to me? Because Owl City’s lyrics were a reflection of Adam Young himself, geeky and funny and full of joy. And the lyrics on The Midsummer Station are a reflection of a marketing push, an attempt to turn this strange, quirky artist into a pop star. It’s a misguided effort, one that has resulted in a soulless album. Late in this record, Young pulls out “Silhouette,” an achingly pretty piano ballad with what may very well be a heartfelt lyric about loneliness. It’s the one moment here that sounds honest, yet its presence on an album this ill-conceived makes me doubt it. And that’s a bad thing.

I’m never going to hate the Owl City sound. But somehow, that makes this even worse – a sound I love is being used to prop up these empty songs. I’ll give Young credit for trying to pull out of the tailspin near the end – “Silhouette” and “Metropolis” are decent. But they can’t make up for the bulk of the record (and the awful closing track, “Take It All Away”), which wallows in its own insincerity, hoping for mainstream success. It’s already happening – “Good Time” is a hit, meaning he’ll probably keep on walking down this path. More’s the pity, because Owl City used to be something pretty special.

If, after suffering through The Midsummer Station, you’re on the hunt for an electronic album with a beating heart and a free flying soul, well, I have one for you. It’s the second full-length from Michael Angelakos, who goes by Passion Pit, and it’s called Gossamer. Passion Pit used to be a band, but for this record, Angelakos dropped all pretense, dove in on his own (with drummer Chris Zane), and came up with a wonderfully individual electro-pop masterwork.

Gossamer is as autobiographical, as confessional as the starkest folk record you could name. It deals directly with Angelakos’ struggle with depression, and with the healthy relationship that has pulled him out of it. This isn’t some mawkish love-conquers-all sopfest, though – it’s real and dark and unflinching stuff. Take “I’ll Be Alright,” in which Angelakos and his love split up: “I’ve made so many messes and this love has grown so restless, your whole life’s been nothing but this, I won’t let you go loveless, I’ll be alright…” This is the album’s second track, and already things seem hopeless.

“Cry Like a Ghost” is similarly dark, sending Angelakos to the brink: “See what I’ve done now, I don’t understand, she says I screamed and that I raised my hand, I never meant to, I wasn’t even there, I never meant to, I would never dare…” He asks his love to marry him in “On My Way,” and three tracks later he’s declaring that “Love is Greed.” The whole mess comes to a head on “It’s Not My Fault, I’m Happy,” in which he learns to push through the madness of his life and realize the joy he has. The final track is called “Where We Belong,” and it’s a lovely summing-up moment: “All the things you can’t control should never destroy the love one holds.” When Angelakos sings “I found a place where we belong,” seconds before the record ends, it’s an emotional catharsis worth celebrating.

Even the seemingly disconnected opening song, the awesome “Take a Walk,” is ripped right from Angelakos’ family history. It’s the story of an immigrant trying to make a new life for his family in America, and even though it includes a few clunky lines (“But then my partner called to say the pension funds were gone”), it’s a remarkable summation of the plight of millions, rendered in specific human terms.

All of this is wrapped up in danceable, glorious electronic pop. “I’ll Be Alright” is practically club-ready, with explosive drums and pulsing, thumping bass. There’s a real string section in here somewhere, but it’s all been processed and synthesized. “Carried Away” is a mid-tempo keyboard festival, and “Mirrored Sea” is probably what Arcade Fire would sound like if they used nothing but synths. (There’s a lot of Ronnie Martin in this one, too.) Over all of this, Angelakos sings in a clear and forceful falsetto – he’s particularly effective on the soulful slow jam “Constant Conversations.”

Musically, this is just as plastic and elastic as Owl City, but there’s a tremendous sincerity to it that wipes the floor with Adam Young’s effort. And that makes all the difference. While I shudder at the thought of pressing play on The Midsummer Station again, I will treasure Gossamer, and study it, and wear it out, and wrap my life around it. That’s what the best art inspires, and the tools used to create it are secondary. What matters is that you mean it.

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Next week, I promise, the WTF Awards return. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but there are some real head-scratchers here. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

The best artists, to me, are the ones who constantly surprise you.

Beck definitely falls into that category. He started out as the very definition of a one-hit wonder, with the estimable “Loser” lampooning that wave of self-loathing that drowned out the ‘90s. But then, with his very next major-label record, he proved himself a genius. Odelay still stands as a remarkable record – it’s much less dated than you’d expect – and it began a string of consistently surprising works. He went from the breezy Mutations to the sex-funk parody Midnite Vultures to the shimmering, moving Sea Change, all in four years.

We haven’t heard from Beck since 2008, but in December, he’ll release another collection of 20 new songs. But because he’s Beck, he’ll do it in a most surprising way. Beck Hansen’s Song Reader is being touted as Beck’s new album, but he’s not recording a note of it. In collaboration with McSweeney’s, he’s releasing these songs as sheet music, and encouraging people to create their own recordings and share them online.

Which is, to say the least, brilliant.

I was initially taken aback by this idea, considering it a bit gimmicky. I mean, it’s sheet music. It’s expected – you write a song, you release the sheet music. It actually took me a while to figure out what’s so amazing about this concept: Beck is not recording these songs. There’s no “definitive” version for people to compare themselves to. So when those people get together with other musicians and try to hammer out their own versions of these tunes, there will be no “right” way and no “wrong” way to play them.

Think about a song everyone knows. We’ll choose the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” partially because it’s the most covered pop song in history. You all know it. If you were to hum it, you’d hear the song in your head first. And you’d hear it at a certain tempo, and you’d hear the lyrics sung the way Paul McCartney crooned them on Help. You’d probably hear an acoustic guitar and some strings, too. There are a lot of covers of “Yesterday,” and quite a lot of them stick to the tempo and arrangement of the original. But even those that don’t – the industrial takes, the reggae versions, the metal scream-throughs – feel like a reaction to the original.

The brilliance of Beck’s idea is to eliminate that cornerstone recording. When Song Reader hits, and people try to play these songs, no one’s going to know how Beck envisioned them. No one will know the “right” tempo, the “correct” arrangement. Even the vocal inflection, which tells more of the tale than people realize, will be a mystery. And so we’re going to get all kinds of versions of these songs, and none of them will be definitive. This will be music that truly belongs to everyone who participates.

This is an idea that could only work now, in the age of YouTube. It’s astonishingly quick and easy – and best of all, free – for anyone to share their versions of Beck’s new songs with the world. I hope this spreads like wildfire. I’m fascinated by the idea, and I’ll be keeping a lookout for these songs, and maybe trying my hand at a couple. But this is what I love about Beck. I could have guessed a million different things, and I’d never have predicted that this is what he’d do next.

December. Start practicing.

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I can’t believe I haven’t already reviewed the new Shawn Colvin album.

I’ve been enjoying it almost non-stop since its June 5 release, and at times it feels like I’ve already shared my thoughts on it here. I’m kind of amazed to find out that I actually haven’t, that I only imagined doing so. I know I’ve had several long conversations about it, and about how it single-handedly boosted one of my favorite songwriters out of the rut she’s been in for more than a decade, recasting her singular voice in new and surprising lights. I’ve told enough people how much I love this record that I guess I thought I’d told all of you, too.

Silly me. Let me rectify that right now.

Colvin’s seventh album is called All Fall Down. Hard to believe she only has seven albums, but Colvin is known for working slowly – her last record was released in 2006, the one before that in 2001. She’s also known for a particular sound, a sort of shiny folk music produced a particular way. Each of her previous albums has existed in this same space, primarily because most of them were produced by the same person – her longtime writing partner John Leventhal. On several of Colvin’s previous efforts, Leventhal even handled the lion’s share of the instruments. There’s no doubt this arrangement worked – just check out the wonderful A Few Small Repairs, her best-known album.

But it all got a little repetitive. I’m a Shawn Colvin fan, and I barely remember These Four Walls, her last effort. Something needed to change, and on All Fall Down, something did – Colvin left Leventhal behind and enlisted Nashville legend Buddy Miller to man the boards. The result is her earthiest, most organic album ever. There’s dust in these grooves, and the smell of desert air, and a sense of space and heart that you probably didn’t realize was missing.

Keyboards and electric guitars have been replaced by fiddles and lap steels here, but that’s easy. The real trick is finding the world-weary honesty that has sometimes been lost in Colvin’s songs, and bringing that to the fore. That’s a trick she and Miller accomplish with admirable aplomb on All Fall Down, so much so that at times here, the 56-year-old Colvin sounds like a completely new artist.

You may not hear the difference right away. The opening title track is a classic catchy Shawn Colvin song, built on acoustic guitars but fleshed out with ringing electrics and gang vocals. It’s one of only a few songs Colvin wrote with Leventhal this time out, and it’s the one that sounds the most familiar. But track two is a cover of Rod McDonald’s “American Jerusalem,” and it’s here that the new tone is set. Pedal steels and accordions provide texture over a spare guitar and whispered drum. The loping country original “Knowing What I Know Now” continues in the same vein, with fiddles and electric piano and some sweet harmonies from Miller.

Colvin and Leventhal co-wrote “Seven Times the Charm” with Jakob Dylan. I point that out because it’s a terrific song, despite those odds. A dusty waltz that would make Gillian Welch smile, the song is a perfectly-crafted portrait of a doomed relationship: “And we go once down the aisle and twice round the stars, you had all the persuasion of a snake on my arm, and seven times the charm…” This one features dazzling lead guitar by Bill Frisell and backing vocals by Alison Krauss. Beat that.

And the record never comes down from there. “Anne of the Thousand Days” is ghostly and captivating, Frisell’s ringing guitar complimenting Colvin’s voice perfectly. (A reference to email is the only false note. It’s certainly a songwriterly detail, but it jars with the organic tone of the song.) “The Neon Light of the Saints” is a stomper with a mini-orchestra in tow, and “Change is On the Way,” co-written with Patty Griffin, is a piercing breakup song that floats along on its pedal steel lines.

All Fall Down ends with a pair of covers, one of recent vintage, one a golden oldie. It’s a tribute to newly-minted Irish singer Mick Flannery that I think his “Up on That Hill” is one of the best songs on this album. Colvin hews close to the original, but adds an ocean of emotion to it, and just to top things off, invites Emmylou Harris to sing it with her. She closes things out with B.W. Stevenson’s 1972 lullaby “On My Own,” and it’s just the kind of tune these musicians might pull out to end a session on a graceful note. It’s pastoral and beautiful, like a slow kiss goodbye.

Shawn Colvin’s been so very good for so very long, but All Fall Down may well be her best record. It’s the best kind of redefinition – it retains the core essence of Colvin as a songwriter and artist, but replaces all the scenery with something new. Teaming with Buddy Miller was an inspired decision, and the record they made together is a deep, memorable high water mark for an already-tremendous artist. Sorry it took so long to review this. I hope, like All Fall Down, it was worth the wait.

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Peter Mulvey is one of the most interesting songwriters I know. From the wry “The Trouble With Poets” to the fiercely humanist “Deep Blue” to the righteously furious “The Fix is On” to the phenomenal spoken-word piece “Vlad the Astrophysicist,” Mulvey has proven himself one of the most versatile folk artists around.

But even though he has a strikingly original songwriting voice, he loves interpreting other writers’ material. He always has. Mulvey began his solo career in the subways of Boston, playing covers and trying to snag a few seconds’ attention from busy passersby. The first fascinating cover I heard him pull off was a guitar-and-vocal read of Prince’s “Sign o’ the Times.” He’s included other people’s tunes on virtually all of his albums, some total reinventions and some straight homages, and he released a whole album of them, Ten Thousand Mornings, recorded live in those subway tunnels.

And now he’s given us a studio album of interpretations, one that runs the gamut from country to jazz to pop balladry. It’s called The Good Stuff, and it’s delightful. Mulvey assembled some old friends, dubbed here the Crumbling Beauties, and embarked on this trip without a map, pulling songs out of a hat and giving them a whirl while the tapes rolled. The result is a loose and fun collection that runs all over the place, beholden to no genre, style, or train of thought. After 2009’s dense Letters From a Flying Machine, it’s great to hear Mulvey cut loose on some of his favorite tunes.

And if you think I’m kidding about the variety on display, think again. The Good Stuff slowly strums to life with a take on Melvern Taylor’s ballad “Sad and Blue,” but then jumps into Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” and Willie Nelson’s “Are You Sure.” (As you can imagine, Mulvey’s deep, sonorous voice proves a perfect fit for the Cohen song.) In short order, he’s slamming through Chris Smither’s skipping “Time to Spend,” spinning a graceful version of Bill Frisell’s lovely “Egg Radio” and taking on Tom Waits’ creeping “Green Grass.” Oh, and then he whips out Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo.”

This record just goes everywhere, and shows the depth of influences Mulvey brings to his work. That all of these covers work to one degree or another is remarkable. Mulvey pulls off a back porch ramble through Jolie Holland’s “Old Fashioned Morphine,” brings that low voice to bear on Schwang’s “Sugar” (which he previously covered on 5:30 a.m.) and strikes just the right tone with Joe Henry’s complex “Richard Pryor Addresses a Tearful Nation.” And then he chooses Monk’s “Ruby, My Dear” to finish things out, like a breeze gently closing a door.

But wait, there’s more. The Crumbling Beauties had such a good time making The Good Stuff that they stuck around for another half-dozen tunes, which Mulvey has released separately as an EP called Chaser. While it begins with Randy Newman’s acerbic “It’s Lonely At the Top,” the rest of Chaser hews closer to old-time jazz tunes: “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye.” It’s a less invigorating listen, but still a fun one, and it makes for a perfect… well, chaser.

Peter Mulvey’s carved out a singular career, essentially by doing whatever he wants, and doing it very well. He’s been under the radar for years – this is his 12th album – and I don’t expect The Good Stuff to change that. But like everything he’s done, it’s well worth hearing. It’s a fun wander through Mulvey’s musical mind, laying bare the full scope of his inspiration. It’s a nice palette cleanser for whatever he whips up next, which will no doubt also be well worth hearing. Check out Mulvey here.

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By my count, this is my 600th Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. column. I know, I don’t look a day over 400. Thanks to everyone who has followed along this far. On to 601 next week, with the return of the WTF Awards. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Has there been a more important innovation for independent music in the past few years than Kickstarter?

I don’t think so. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Kickstarter, it’s essentially the Marillion Method for financing projects in advance – pre-orders of an unfinished thing, with special incentives for those who pony up early. The cool thing about Kickstarter is that the musicians/artists/whatever set a goal for their fundraising, and if they meet it – through their own marketing efforts – they get the cash. If they don’t, they get nothing. It forces artists to learn how to sell themselves, a skill they definitely need in this brave new world.

Kickstarter allowed my friend Andrea Dawn to finish her tremendous new album. It gave Amanda Palmer the freedom to make the forthcoming Theatre is Evil on her own, and on her own terms. It provided full recording budgets to both Brothers Martin, Jason of Starflyer 59 and Ronnie of Joy Electric, to make their new, upcoming records after they were dismissed from their shared label. And it financed one of the two albums I’m reviewing this week.

There’s just nothing bad here. It’s the greatest technological achievement of the modern age, as far as music is concerned. And now it’s going to help one of my favorite unsung bands get back into the studio for the first time in more than a decade.

Daniel Amos has been around since the late ‘70s, and for most of that time, they’ve been in the “simply incredible” category. Their ringmaster is Terry Taylor, one of our finest living songwriters – between DA, the Lost Dogs and his solo work, Taylor has written more great tunes in the past 35 years than nearly anyone whose name isn’t Costello, Mann or Finn. The Daniel Amos catalog is vast, but it’s also deep, and their records – particularly the angular Darn Floor, Big Bite, the Beatlesque Motorcycle, the impressionistic concept piece Songs From the Heart, and all four Alarma chronicles – are worth sinking into and soaking up.

The last time the four members of DA got together in the studio, the result was 2001’s mammoth 34-song Mr. Buechner’s Dream. It’s a classic rock record of titanic proportions, and had it been released by a more well-known band, you’d have heard every critic in the country falling over themselves to praise it. A double album with no weak songs – that’s an achievement in itself, but Mr. Buechner’s Dream goes beyond that. It’s a true American classic, and only a few thousand people heard it.

Terry Taylor is 62 now, and I wouldn’t blame him for resting on his laurels. He’s spent the years since MBD concentrating on the Lost Dogs, his country-rock supergroup – their 2010 album Old Angel is a masterpiece. But now he’s hoping to revive Daniel Amos, and I couldn’t be happier. This week, DA launched a Kickstarter page to fund their new album. They asked for $12,000, and they had it within a day. That’s how dedicated Daniel Amos fans are, and how hungry they are for new Taylor music.

We’re gonna have a new Daniel Amos album, probably next year. That’s just awesome. But although the band has reached their goal, they could still use support – it costs way more than $12,000 to record, mix, master, produce and distribute a nationally-released record on one’s own. The music of Terry Taylor has meant a lot to me, so I’m happy to give. If his songs have touched your life as well, please consider it. Taylor and his bandmates have languished in obscurity for their entire careers, with only the love of their fans to sustain them. This is a great opportunity to show them how much they’ve meant to us.

New Daniel Amos! Life is good.

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This is a good week to mention Daniel Amos, because the theme this time around is bands returning after some time away. Granted, neither of this week’s contestants have been out of the spotlight as long as DA has, but the albums on tap this week definitely serve as reintroductions.

In the case of Sixpence None the Richer, it’s been 10 years since Divine Discontent, an album that was pretty late itself. Sixpence once had momentum – their early records built up to their dazzling self-titled third effort, and that one included a little song called “Kiss Me.” You may think this happens to me a lot, but Sixpence was one of the few bands I watched explode, going from an obscure favorite to a nationwide sensation in the space of weeks.

That’s long in the past, though. It took the band five years to deliver Discontent, due largely to record label issues, and even though they turned in a shimmering, complex, gorgeous pop album, it was roundly ignored. I expect the same fate will befall Lost in Transition, their long-awaited new one, but that’s OK. Where Discontent was a bid to recapture their acclaim, Transition is just a Sixpence album, relaxed and confident. It’s the antithesis of a splashy return.

In fact, it’s so relaxed that it’s almost underwhelming at first. The core of the band has always been the delightful voice of Leigh Nash and the deceptively assured songwriting of Matt Slocum. They’ve long been risk-takers – that self-titled record includes tricky time signatures, surprisingly raw production and a track sung in Spanish, and Discontent features twisting pop songs like “Melody of You” and dramatic epics like the spiraling “Dizzy.” By contrast, Transition has a dozen simple little tunes, recorded minimally – guitars, drums, piano, some pedal steel, not a lot else. At 41 minutes, it’s their slightest and wispiest album.

That said, there’s nothing at all wrong with it, aside from a lack of ambition. Most of these songs sound homespun, and largely concern loneliness, and lost and found faith. There are songs here that could easily be about Nash’s 2007 divorce, but Sixpence has always written about standing on shaky ground, hoping for a lifeline. The simple arrangements actually enhance a song like “Go Your Way,” a sweet number of separation and reconciliation.

While I wish some of these songs, like the trifling “Radio,” went a few more places, there’s nothing I dislike on here. I’m actually quite fond of “Give It Back,” a classic Sixpence cry to the heavens, and of “Safety Line,” both of which put the emphasis on pianos and nifty melodies. There’s more than a hint of country to some of these tunes, like the relatively upbeat “Don’t Blame Yourself,” which could be a hit if Nash had more of a twang in her voice. The actual single is the pretty “Sooner Than Later,” which, at track 11, is the record’s emotional climax. And again, there’s nothing wrong with it.

But there’s nothing that screams “we’re back” on here, either. Lost in Transition is a good record, but it’s a bit too sedate and easygoing, especially after 10 years. It’s interesting to say that, since Sixpence has always been a band that erred on the side of trying too hard. This new album barely even announces itself. I like it just fine, and if it’s kicking off a new era of breezier Sixpence records, then it does its job well. But if this is all we hear from Slocum and Nash for another decade, it seems like it won’t be enough.

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The same cannot be said of Jonathan Jones, who has brought back his band We Shot the Moon for their first album since 2009. Now, of course, that’s not a long time, but Jones has made a pretty big deal about launching his solo career in the intervening years, effectively ending We Shot the Moon after two albums to focus on softer, piano-driven music. (His latest, Community Group, was also released this year.) So the band’s return is something of a surprise.

Even more surprising is the fact that the new album, Love and Fear, reunites the original WSTM lineup – Jones, multi-instrumentalist Dan Koch and drummer Joe Greenetz. There have been a lot of other players making their way through this band since their 2007 debut. Longtime fans will no doubt have noticed that the new album’s title is the mirror image of that debut, Fear and Love, signaling this return to basics.

But this is in no way a sequel to the pianos-and-guitars punky pop WSTM used to create. Love and Fear is full of big pop songs with big arrangements – it is, in fact, the most interesting sonic canvas Jones has ever given himself to sing over. Just check out “We Can Wait,” a synthy tune that would be danceable if not for that tricky missed beat in the verses. Electronic drums burst and pop, keyboard washes roll in like waves, and Jones harmonizes with himself.

This is also Jones’ most varied work, a lesson he learned well while making Community Group. The album zips from the bass-driven ebullience of “Sonrisa” to the ‘80s rock of “When I’m Gone” and the introspective reflection of closer “Blind” with confidence. I do wish these songs were stronger – Jones is good at coming up with decent, but unexceptional melodies, and few of these tunes try as hard as they should. He’s getting better, though – “Forgive” is one of his best, and “Me Vs. Myself” goes some interesting places. And like the Sixpence album, there’s nothing bad here at all.

Jones financed Love and Fear entirely through Kickstarter, raising almost $15,000. He’s used that cash to create one of the richest records he’s yet made – and for a 29-year-old, this guy has made a lot of records. Love and Fear is an impressive return for We Shot the Moon, and another step in Jones’ evolution. So far, it’s been fun to watch. You can hear all of Love and Fear for free here.

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So I have just enough time left to tell you about a piece of music news I’m pretty excited about.

On October 2, the world’s greatest ambient shoegaze band, Hammock, will release its first double album. It’s called Departure Songs, and the first track released from it, “Tape Recorder,” is here. Hammock music is some of the most impossibly beautiful stuff I’ve ever heard, and a double album just means twice as much floaty goodness. If you’re unfamiliar with Hammock, go here, and then buy everything you see for sale. You won’t be disappointed.

Next week, a folksy good time with Shawn Colvin, Peter Mulvey and Girlyman. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Doctor Who fans can be pretty odd.

Case in point. My best friend Mike, the man who got me back into Who with a vengeance eight years or so ago, owned a number of cats when he was growing up. Well, in truth, they were stray cats that somehow found their way to his boyhood home in Massachusetts, and his mother fed them, and that was that. They stayed. And they all had fairly prosaic names. Kitty. Blackie. Friendly.

That is, unless you asked Mike. He would tell you their full names: Kitanadvoratrelundar, Blackanadvoratrelundar, and Friendlanadvoratrelundar. Every cat in the house had a full name that ended with “dvoratrelundar,” and Doctor Who fans are now nodding their heads, because they get the reference. The cats were all named after Romanadvoratrelundar, or Romana for short, the Time Lady companion of Ton Baker’s Doctor in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Besides the frankly amazing name, Romana was a remarkable character, the first denizen of the Doctor’s own race to travel with him since his granddaughter Susan in the ‘60s. She was prickly and witty, a match for the Doctor’s own intelligence, and over the course of her three years as the Doctor’s partner, she was played by two delightful actresses. It’s Lalla Ward who gets most of the accolades – she stayed longer, she had a more dazzling chemistry with Baker (the two were married during their time together on the program), and she starred in City of Death, one of the greatest Doctor Who stories of all time.

But it was Mary Tamm who originated the character, playing Romana for the 26-episode Key to Time arc in Season 15, and if you go back and watch those episodes, she’s simply terrific. From her first entrance in The Ribos Operation, in which she haughtily tries to put the Doctor in his place, to her double role in The Androids of Tara, to her heroic work trying to keep The Armageddon Factor from flying off its tracks, Tamm proved herself a fine actress and a worthy match for Baker. (One of my favorite exchanges between the two: “I’ll call you Romana.” “I don’t like Romana.” “It’s either Romana or Fred.” “All right, call me Fred.” “Good. Come along, Romana.”)

Simply put, she was great, and she made her mark on the series despite only hanging around for one season. Tamm went on to do lots of other television, but she always returned to Who, for commentaries and conventions and audio plays, a whole slew of which are slated to come out soon. Mary Tamm died on July 26 after a long battle with cancer. She was only 62. Watching the Key to Time series – episodes that rekindled my love for this show in 2004 – will never be the same now. All hail the original Romanadvoratrelundar. May she rest in peace.

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It’s been nearly a month, and I think I’m finally recovered from Cornerstone.

Of course, I mean physically recovered. I’m not sure I will emotionally recover for quite some time, and I expect I’ll feel the same flood of loss and mourning come July 4 next year. But as for the toll four solid days of heat and music took on my tired old bones, I think I’m back to normal.

So now it’s time for one of my favorite parts of the annual Pilgrimage to Bushnell: going through and devouring the new music I bought. And since this is the last Cornerstone, my kid-at-Christmas routine – tearing off the shrink wrap, reading the liner notes, digging in to new music from old favorites and discovering artists for the first time – is bittersweet. I’m never going to get to do this again. Couple that with my smaller-than-average haul this year, due to finances, and my Cornerstone 2012 experience is kind of going out with a whimper.

But not really. While I didn’t buy a lot this year, what I did pick up is pretty well magnificent. And the records I didn’t end up getting – the hard copy of Josh Garrels’ Love and War and the Sea In Between, the debut album from Kye Kye, a two-part acoustic release from The Violet Burning – will be winging their way to me as soon as I can afford them. So I’m going to call the last C-Stone haul a success.

Let’s start with my friend Jeff Elbel. I was an Elbel fan before I was his friend, but I will definitely cop to a bit of bias on this one. I heard Gallery, the new album by Jeff’s band Ping, in stages as he recorded it in his home studio, and I’ve been getting to know the songs live for years. I can’t deny that parts of Gallery are like comfortable old shoes for me at this point. But I promise you, I’m being as objective as I can when I say that Gallery is Elbel’s best record, ever, under any name.

If you’re not familiar with Ping, here’s the scoop. They’re a loose collective of about 10 to 15 musicians, who gather at irregular intervals to play Elbel’s winning, witty songs. While they’re all great players, there’s an appealing lack of pretension to what they do. Jeff’s tunes are funny, breezy, thoughtful things, and Ping plays them like old friends having a ball. But there’s nothing shambling about this outfit, either – Gallery is the best-sounding Elbel album, belying the fact that most of it was recorded in Jeff’s garage studio, and though the live-band energy is present from first note to last, all those notes are precisely arranged.

Jeff’s a tremendous musician, able to play just about anything well, but with Ping, he’s surrounded himself with wonderful players. Check out Mike Choby on the organ – he shines on “Early Birds and Night Owls.” Dig John Bretzlaff on the guitar, laying down subtle flourishes throughout, and Andrew Carter, formerly of LSU, knocking the six-string solos out of the park. Most of all, marvel at Maron Gaffron, who is essentially Ping’s other lead vocalist here – she has at least as much mic time as Elbel, and her soulful pipes elevate every tune she’s on. (Take special note of her showcase, “Your Wicked Mirror,” a splendid slice of soul that allows her to dig deep.)

But the real stars of this album are the songs, the strongest set that Elbel’s ever delivered. Where Ping’s last record, The Eleventh Hour Storybook, balanced its more considered pieces with a handful of throwaway novelty tunes, Gallery is a solid slab of witty wordplay and catchy melodies. It’s an album of faith and family, and while there are laughs, they’re thoughtful ones. It’s the closest Elbel has come to the work of one of his heroes, Terry Taylor – it gets the balance exactly right, and earns its big moments.

My favorite here is probably “Light It Up,” a song of domestic discord. Its characters – clearly Jeff and his wife – find themselves fighting over insignificant things. “Trampling a field of eggshells, leaving not a screw unturned,” Elbel sings, before announcing that “I don’t mind if you don’t mind, so what’s there to fight about?” The music is reminiscent of the Cars, and Elbel’s vocal duet with Gaffron is just swell. My other favorite is probably “Make Sure Your Eyes Are Fine,” the record’s most rocking number. Over a stomping groove, Elbel lashes out at critics who forget the planks in their own eyes. (Best bit: Gaffron crooning the middle section. “Mama should have taught you better, it shouldn’t be for me to tell you…”)

“I Forget” is the record’s funniest piece, Elbel running down the list of things his sieve-like brain just can’t retain. The kicker line is sweet: “But I remember you love me, and I remember I love you…” Elbel’s voice is a character all its own on this song, and the arrangement is buoyed by some peerless violin from Matt Gadeken of Photoside Café. And yes, Twilight Zone fans, “Time Enough at Last” is based on the famous episode starring Burgess Meredith.

But Gallery’s most affecting moments are the ones that reflect on Elbel’s faith. In particular, the album features two modern hymns – straightforward, simple and direct. “In a Place Where Shadows Grow” is from the point of view of St. Peter, after his denial of Jesus, and its lyric is reminiscent of Leonard Cohen to these ears. And closing number “Comfort Me” is as lovely a prayer as I’ve ever heard. There’s nothing complex about it, but then, there’s nothing false about it either. It’s exactly what it should be.

And so is Gallery, in fact. Elbel named this record after the Cornerstone stage he helped bring to life, and it’s fitting – Ping’s shows there always felt like family reunion parties. They were comfortable and loose and all-inclusive and fun, just like this album. Like I said, I’ve been an Elbel fan for longer than I’ve been his friend, and I think this is the best thing he’s done. If you haven’t heard Ping, you should start here.

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I don’t know Lauren Mann, but I have met her twice.

I first discovered the Canadian songstress at last year’s Cornerstone, where she and her band, the Fairly Odd Folk, performed a fun, melodic set of piano-driven pop. I bought her first record, Stories From Home, which is actually a collection of formative recordings, and at the time, she promised that the “real” album would be out soon. Well, it’s here now, and it’s just great.

It’s called Over Land and Sea, and it more than fulfills the promise I saw in Mann last year. It’s a light and breezy affair, full of simple songs about wonder and love, but there’s so much joy in these grooves, so much pure, heart-on-sleeve delight, that only the hardest of hearts could dislike it. This record was produced by Aaron Marsh, formerly of Copeland, and his fingerprints are on every minute of it – the instrumentation is adventurous, but never detracts from the songs, and the whole thing floats 10 feet off the ground.

Much of Over Land and Sea is quiet – it starts with “Fragile,” plucked out on a ukulele while Mann’s airy voice softly announces itself, and even when the clarinets and strings come in, it’s a whisper. The second track, “I Lost Myself,” begins with a whistle over yet more ukulele, so I was not prepared for the Fairly Odd Folk to come crashing in about the 1:10 mark. The band (which, on this record, includes Marsh on bass and a bunch of other instruments) remains subtle throughout, but the album contains some remarkable crescendos like that, most notably in the second half of the string-laden closer, “Like the Mist.”

The songs may be ditties, but they’re not trifles. Mann tackles love, life, death, parenthood, depression and joy, all in simple but poetic language. Take “Of Life and Of Death,” perhaps my favorite here. It’s a farewell to someone who has passed, and when Mann sings, “I’ll tell them stories so I won’t forget you, and I’ll keep your photographs so I’ll recognize you,” it’s devastating. “Weight of the World” is a song of encouragement, in the most straightforward way: “Now is the time to carry on from here, to march on and plant your flag where you belong…” And “Love, I Lost” is about going back to go forward: “When we find the place where we first embraced, beginning and the end, could we begin again?”

But it’s the dittiest of these ditties, “Dance With Me,” that leaves the strongest impression. A simply delightful, swaying piano number, “Dance With Me” is a snapshot of new love, and it perfectly captures that blooming-rose feeling, that limitless possibility. Yes, it’s corny: “Dance with me under the stars, I’ll get lost in your arms…” But it works beautifully, and the 30 seconds of ambient atmosphere that conclude it are more lovely than I can tell you.

Over Land and Sea is a treasure. It’s a small thing, one that doesn’t call much attention to itself, but its charms are many, and they unfold with time. This is exactly the kind of record I hoped Lauren Mann would make, right down to the sumptuous, elaborate packaging. It probably won’t make her a star, but it’s a simply wonderful calling card from a new artist to watch. I love it to bits. Buy it here.

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But no one celebrated the final Cornerstone like the 77s.

Mike Roe has played the festival more times than anyone else. The original lineup of the 77s performed at the first Cornerstone, and Roe and David Leonhardt closed out a night of the final festival. In between, Mike played nearly every one of these things, either on his own, with the 77s, or with the Lost Dogs. And that means audiences in Bushnell got more than two dozen chances over the years to see one of the finest guitar players alive ply his trade.

My first Cornerstone experience, in 2002, was highlighted by a full-on 77s rock show on the Gallery Stage. And sweet lord, was it amazing. The three-piece band put on what is still one of the finest rock ‘n’ roll explosions I’ve ever seen, pausing only slightly to play all of their then-new acoustic-led EP Direct. Roe is equally adept at the acoustic – his solo shows will make you weep – but when he, Mark Harmon and Bruce Spencer lock into a groove and unleash their full power, it’ll knock you down. The 77s are the best band nobody knows.

And with three new releases, they have truly commemorated the last Cornerstone. I’m actually surprised that more of the long-running acts didn’t do something like this. But if I wanted what is essentially a retrospective live box set from any Cornerstone band, it would be the 77s. And that’s what they (and Chicago-based label Lo-Fidelity Records, the band’s best friend in recent years) have given me. Five CDs of live 77s goodness.

The first release is a reissue of their 1996 acoustic live document Echos O’Faith, which preserves the unfortunate misspelling. (It was recorded in 1992 at Echos Of Faith Church in California, and “echos” is Greek for sound, so it may well be on purpose, but man, I’ve always cringed at it.) The original album is on the first disc, and it’s 79 minutes of glorious melody and resonance. The band – Roe, Harmon, Leonhardt and Choir drummer Steve Hindalong – is in brilliant form, and they don’t stick to the quiet numbers. Rockers like “U U U U” and “God Sends Quails” and “Do It For Love” are simply fantastic in this stripped-down environment.

And you have to hear these songs. This is basically a best-of from the Sevens’ first 10 years, and it’s a treasure trove. “Nowhere Else.” “Bottom Line.” “The Lust, The Flesh, The Eyes and the Pride of Life.” “Happy Roy.” Even a song called “Hard to Say” that never ended up anywhere else. This is a catalog of songs that should be praised to the skies, not all but forgotten. The Echos reissue comes with a second, shorter acoustic show from 1992, recorded in the same venue, and while there’s a lot of overlap, this one includes “Don’t, This Way,” one of the saddest songs I know. It’s just lovely here.

But that’s the reissue, the album Mike and the boys would have released had this not been the final Cornerstone Festival. The second and third new things truly celebrate the fest, and offer a one-of-a-kind perspective on the past 29 years. And they did it in a way that included their family of fans, and brought the Cornerstone faithful together.

Earlier this year, the band asked the fans for recordings of their Cornerstone shows. The 77s have played the fest 12 times, and the fans sent them halfway-decent-quality recordings from every show. The band then assembled the best of them into a chronological collection called Cornerstone Is Dead… Long Live Cornerstone. More than two hours long, this record includes 21 songs from all stages of the band’s career, and serves as a look back at a phenomenal run of shows at the fest.

Now, this is not a polished live document. The earliest recordings naturally suffer from the worst quality, and it all sounds like bootlegs, but everything here is listenable and enjoyable. The first disc is pretty straight-ahead – you get to hear the original 77s lineup, with Aaron Smith and Mark Tootle and Jan Eric, slam through early tracks like “A Different Kind of Light” and “Caught in an Unguarded Moment,” and they’re a tight, energetic unit. By the time they get to “I Can’t Get Over It” in 1990, they’re firing on all cylinders.

Disc one gets them up through 1995, and the debut of the three-piece band we know and love today. Before that, though, the Sevens bring in Harmon and Leonhardt and deliver marvelous takes on “This Is the Way Love Is,” the dark “God Sends Quails” (always amazing in a live setting), and the rollicking “Nuts For You.” But when the trio arrives, it really arrives, with the signature cover of “Nobody’s Fault But Mine.”

The second disc is Roe, Harmon and Bruce Spencer discovering their own power before our ears. If you want evidence of my claim that they’re one of the best rock bands in the world, this is all you need. Just marvel at the 2000 burn through “Woody,” or the awesome 2001 take on “The Years Go Down.” They’re nimble, fearless, and on fire, a band with few peers.

And then we get to the only thing on these discs I personally experienced – the astounding 12-minute medley/jam from 2002, with Scott Reams on keyboard. It starts near the end of “Unbalanced,” which they performed in full, if I recall, but quickly burns through parts of “Indian Winter, “Rocks In Your Head,” “Snowblind” and “Honesty,” the band stopping and turning about on a dime. It’s a jam of monumental proportions, and I remember it pretty well.

But we’re not done. “Unbalanced,” one of the band’s best tunes, gets a full eight-minute rendition from 2003, followed by an amazing “Blue Sky” and an extended, loose, stunning “Outskirts” from 2006. And the collection ends with another epic jam from 2008, when the Sevens were supporting their album of gospel covers, Holy Ghost Building. They start by covering “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning,” but over the course of nearly 14 white-knuckle minutes, they hit “Riders on the Storm” and “Money (That’s What I Want),” and show off their raw power once again.

And if you still want more, the Sevens are happy to oblige. The third disc in their Cornerstone series is a three-song EP called Cornerstone Forever, and it includes three songs from the band’s final performance at the fest in 2008. You get a gospel song (“Stranger Won’t You Change Your Sinful Ways”), another rip through “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” and a Mike Roe classic, “The Lust, The Flesh, The Eyes and the Pride of Life.” Among his fans, that’s the song that will outlive him, the quintessential Mike Roe confession, a tale of shame and addiction. I have more versions of this than any other Roe song, and still, I’m glad to have one more.

Like I said, I’m surprised more long-running Cornerstone bands didn’t memorialize the festival this way. But if any band was going to do it, I’m glad it was the 77s. I will miss this festival like mad, and along with it my yearly chance to see Mike Roe tear it up, but these archival releases will help ease that pain. Heaping helpings of gratitude to Jeffrey Kotthoff and Lo-Fidelity Records for seeing this through, and to the 77s, in every incarnation, for being one of the best damn bands on the planet.

Listen and buy here.

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Wow, that ran longer than I expected. Next week, something shorter. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.