FL33t Foxes- Sun Gi@nt EP (2008) / S/T (2008) MP3 & FLAC

"Penniless and tired with your hair grown long, I was looking at you there, and your face looked wrong."

Art is often, if not always, some form of bricolage, a tapestry woven using various and sundry materials that are collectively transformed into something new. I mention this because Fleet Foxes epitomize the artistic alchemy that can occur when familiar things are taken up and re-contextualized. An obvious contemporary touchstone for this band's sound would be My Morning Jacket, and while vocally, Robin Pecknold and Jim James wander through similar ornately desolate canyons of reverb (though James has been known to take these excursions to extremes), these bands pursue very different muses. What sets Fleet Foxes apart from the Indie pack is the timelessness of their sound and the often stunning vocal harmonies that can't help but recall, in a slightly refracted way, the early albums of Crosby, Stills & Nash. A perfect example of this is "Mykonos" from the Sun Giant EP; with its vaguely Hellenic feel coupled with Pecknold's backwoods vocal delivery and a seemingly looped acoustic guitar arpeggio, the song is already quite memorable in a quirky way, but once the bridge comes around with its transcendent vocal harmonies and classic rock flourishes, it simply sounds universal. Likewise, on "White Winter Hymnal" from the debut LP, Fleet Foxes seamlessly sew together elements of the Appalachian and British folk traditions, which, when punctuated with their wide-eyed vocal harmonies, creates something that sounds as if it could have been written any time within the past 150 years. Forget the hype and its inevitable backlash; this is simply gorgeous music created by some extremely gifted young musicians who have tapped into something both bittersweetly familiar and darkly beautiful.

Fleet Foxes
 1. Sun It Rises  (3:11)
 2. White Winter Hymnal  (2:27)
 3. Ragged Wood  (5:07)
 4. Tiger Mountain Peasant Song  (3:28)
 5. Quiet Houses  (3:32)
 6. He Doesn't Know Why  (3:20)
 7. Heard Them Stirring  (3:02)
 8. Your Protector  (4:10)
 9. Meadowlarks  (3:12)
10. Blue Ridge Mountains  (4:26)
11. Oliver James  (3:23)

MU: Lossy (MP3@320) 

MU: Lossless (FLAC)

Sun Giant EP

1. Sun Giant  (2:14)

2. Drops in the River  (4:13)

3. English House  (4:41)

4. Mykonos  (4:35)

5. Innocent Son  (3:07)

MU: Lossy (MP3@320) 

MU: Lossless (FLAC)