Down By The Water — The Decemberists

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR9DjdMrpHg

A departure, unlike anything that came before; this is rustic, more folk, more natural; more produced, yet more realistic. Just as a low-budget home-movie film will seem vintage, personal, and uncomplex, yet a professionally-shot film with color-correction, soundtrack, and makeup can seem more like real life; this album is not vintage, not folk, not Americana; yet, it exudes those things. It wants me to think of it as a classic (I do!) and it wants me to know it was there first (it wasn't!).

This song is a folk shanty, set in the 1800s (back when they had accordions and, I guess, jangly electric guitars); a riveting tale of a port town with riotous youth; drugs, sex, and rock'n'roll of the literary schools of the Nor'east; it's anachronistic, but charming and perfect.

Red Right Ankle — The Decemberists

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYwkmPKsctQ

I don't know folk music, really. I know the genre of folk music, music written and recorded to sound like older music, written with Americana heritage, that goes alongside Ichabod Crane and pumpkins as symbols of fall in the northeast, things I'm tangentially aware of but seem never to have experienced — and when I have, they don't much count, they're exceptional and rare, the way that vacations seem. I've gone apple-picking, but it wasn't a part of my childhood the way perhaps it ought have been. And this is folk music, simple and repetitive and with provocative lyrics, sad and uptempo and with a definitive story — emotive but not emotional. The Decemberists are an art band; they reach for many goals and hit some of them, but this is one they hit, powerfully.