THE LONESOMES / A Tribute to the Great Outdoors (NMC)
The Lonesomes are a mysterious "group" from Israel who seem to spend an unusual amount of time dressed in full cow outfits. Well, so it seems. It's actually the solo bedroom-recording entity of Adi Gelbart, who claims to "manage" those cows. Regardless, the Lonesomes' new disc is a quite lovely amalgamation of warm, fuzzy electronic synth-pop laden with effects, fiddles, guitar, xyolophones and as far as the theme of the music, it's summed up quite well in both the album title and such songs as "Flip Em and Grill Em", "Ode To Picnics" and the ominous "Day the Cows Take Over". Great site too: www.gelbartmusic.com/lonesomes, you can experience a virtual cowfield and make the cow moo with the space bar!

KELLEY STOLTZ / Antique Glow (Jackpine Social Club) & Crockodiles (CD-R)
It's always totally rewarding to see someone pour love and soul into a TASCAM home recorder and come up with a little masterpiece like this. Antique Glow is warm, fuzzy, full of purity, emotion, great songs, psychedelic inventiveness and nods to everyone from the Beatles to Sun Ra, GBV, Beefheart, Tom Waits, Barrett, Davies and the Clean all are found within these grooves, with a blanket of open-endedness and experimentation that's well balanced with pristeen pop. The lo-fi sensibilities enter the muddy zone from time-to-time, but in a way that hits the spot just right (the overpowering tremolo of "Underwater's Where the Action Is" guides the song along a dark-yet-sunny melodic path perfectly).
Also, Stoltz released a 2002 CDR where, utilizing similar home-production skills, recreated the entire debut Echo and the Bunnymen record Crocodiles, from 1980, and it's totally amazing. Rechristened Crockodiles, Stoltz reveals his inner-fandom in a way that complements his beloved Bunnys; some of the more complex production points of the original songs get reduced to simple, lo-tech trickery, songs like "Monkeys" get their similarities to krautrock examined a bit, and everything else gets dug out of the kitchen to fill up the remaining holes. He's gigging these songs out with fellow Echo fan Spiral Stairs (ex-Pavement, currently of the Preston School of Industry) as well.

MOE!KESTRA! / Two Forms of Multitudes (Pax/DKM/Edgetone)
If you live in California, you may have the rare opportunity to witness the DOZENS of musicians who surround the audience in the Moe!Kestra, headed by the enigmatic and animated Mr. Moe! Staiano. Moe! (exclamation point mandatory) is a composer and percussionist whom you may have seen bashing away at his elaborate corner of metal, garbage cans and other prepared and not-so-prepared debris in the fabulous Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Subtitled "Conducted Improvisations", The Moe!Kestra's new full length, was recorded in both Oakland and Los Altos Hills (for KFJC), and swings like an ape. Swelling horns, violins, theremin, voices and more lurch like a hippo down the autobahn into a beautiful big band mess that keeps nice company with records like Don Cherry/Penderecki's Aktions, the Ex Orkest, and Baden-Baden Orchestra where the beauty is only amplified by the masses involved. An organic, fantastic, monster of a record.