The eMusic Dozen: Obscure Gems

Twenty years after its release, people will claim to have bought this album the day it came out. A door slams, a nerve-jangling piano discord clatters and, as it fades, a whispered "1, 2, 3, 4" ushers in a propulsive, staccato guitar hook to set up the tantalising opening line ("If only the moon were up, be trying to find my shoes." There are more ideas on offer in the first 20 seconds of song one than most bands manage in an entire album. Comprising songwriter brothers Peter and David Brewis and vocalist Andrew Moore, all of whom have been quietly illuminating England's North East music scene for years, Field Music eschews churning guitar riffs and plodding drums, concentrating on vocal melodies enriched by startling counterpoints and harmonies, chamber music orchestrations and unlikely lurches in time and timbre. With a little patience, though, the rewards are manifold and Field Music stands revealed as shimmering, luminous pop.

It's taken 40 years, but finally there's a generation of imaginative young songwriters for whom electronic instruments are as familiar, as everyday, as the acoustic guitar was to Woody Guthrie. Someone like Marc Bianchi, who has made music under the Her Space Holiday moniker since 1997, can be a one-man orchestra in a home studio and not have to think twice about it. This heady combination of liberation and familiarity, barely conceivable two decades ago, means that Bianchi can, and does, employ as-yet-unnamed sparkly twinkles, miscellaneous synthesised exotica and all manner of virtuoso-level electronic percussion to colour and propel whatever sweet little tunes and quirky lyrics his fertile imagination can dream up. And, boy, are they ever sweet and quirky. Comparisons with Bright Eyes and Eels are fair, but echoes of cult UK '80s bands like Prefab Sprout or Frazier Chorus are also in evidence.

When critics resort to dreaming up new genres to describe a band's music, it's usually a sign that something interesting is going on. "Blackgrass" and "death country" have been suggested for this Toronto trio. Ambassador, their first album, is said to have been recorded in an abandoned abattoir over three nights in the dead of winter, employing the basement stairwell as a makeshift echo chamber to achieve its live but otherworldly feel. Frontman Mark Sasso's scratchy voice is well suited to their relentlessly grim lyrics — the body count is generally high and an entire family is slaughtered in "Second Son" — but Sasso's gritty banjo plucking and Steve Pitkin's zippy snare drum work peps everything up so that no matter how morbid the lyrics get, there's plenty of life and drive in the music despite the total absence of bass guitar. This stuff would give Nick Cave the heebie-jeebies.

On MySpace, Efterklang describe themselves as "Friendly and nice people from Copenhagen"; if that's not enough to make you love them, their music almost certainly will. Formed as a trio in 2001, Efterklang has swollen to five (some say six) core members, frequently augmented by guest vocalists, choirs, Iceland's Amina string quartet and just about anybody else they feel their compositions require to make them live. That might mean the ethereal sound of a boy soprano, the ripe plumpness of a trombone or whatever else it takes to create music that communicates solemnity, serenity, repose, anticipation, loneliness, anxiety — all the hard-to-pinpoint sensations that the human mind can feel. Sonically eclectic, they often use analogue vinyl clicks or digital glitches as percussion but the overall effect is always powerfully emotive and uncannily beautiful. If Sigur Ros or Oval ring your chimes, it's hard to imagine that Efterklang won't.

Allison first quickened heartbeats as the willowy vocalist fronting early '90s pop-dance crossover contenders One Dove, but this second solo album allied her with techno-guru Keith Tenniswood (Sabres of Paradise/Two Lone Swordsmen) and revealed a much darker side of her personality. Musically, it's is a sinister fusion of icily ethereal vocals underscored by churning, computer-generated beats and doomy ambience. Allison's voice, once serenely haunted, was now poignantly alienated, enabling it to imbue significance even into lyrics as obtuse as those of the industrial-dance title track. The backwards drones, random electronic whoopings and spacey chitterings in "Performance" dehumanise Allison's lilting melody. Even on the album's most pop-oriented cut, "I Think I Love You," she sounds like a stalker undergoing hypnotic regression. Bub, the domesticated zombie in George Romero's Day of the Dead, would have loved this.

Nadine's trump card should have been that they re-lit the bravely flickering little flame that Neil Young lost when he became the Godfather of Grunge. Unfortunately, working out of a homemade studio in a St. Louis, Missouri factory building, they arrived at precisely the wrong time, when alt-country's turf had already been staked out by Wilco and the Jayhawks. Nadine's early work was derivative, but this third album found quavery-voiced main man Adam Reichmann asserting his own identity as a songwriter and performer. The heart-lifting "End of the Night" revealed his hopelessly romantic Midwestern American soul, while the pounding "When I Was a Boy" mapped out his childhood with no concessions to mawkish nostalgia. Rough-hewn, achingly elegant lines like "I never asked the world for much, dreams were the only thing I got/Go ask around, I dream a lot" hit the spot time and again.

Californian duo Deb Talan and Steve Tannen's second album might just be too deliciously understated for its own good. Recorded in their rented Pasadena cottage, it never rocks and barely ever rolls, so songs like the opening "Take It From Me" can take a while to attract your attention. Instead, like the unassuming girl (or boy) next door, they run the risk of being ignored for some while before finally insinuating into your head. Once lodged, though, they're there to stay. If the album contained nothing other than the almost unbearably lovely chorus melody of "Gotta Have You," it would be well worth owning. Fortunately, it also has "Nobody Knows Me at All," which ingeniously subverts a well-worn theme, transforming self-pity into celebration. Talan and Tannen are so unreasonably blessed with songwriting, arranging and singing gifts that it wouldn't be unreasonable to hail them as the new Buckingham-Nicks.

Chuck Prophet almost tasted success as half of acclaimed '80s paisley revivalists Green on Red, and since then he's been delivering the kind of consistently arresting, intelligent, gutsy rock that Tom Petty hasn't managed since his debut album. Imagine a demon axe-slinger with a sardonic Dylanesque lyrical bent and a voice like a sandpaper-throated Scott Walker and you're halfway to what makes Prophet just about the most underrated rock artist of his generation. Songs like this album's shimmeringly majestic title track, or the gritty slow-burn of "What Can You Tell Me?" or the widescreen twang of "After the Rain" will fill in the other half.