Baroque pop band Tomten debuted their most recent LP, Wednesday’s Children, last week. It is their second record, the first being 2010’s self-released Tomten.

By and large the group cultivates a musical aura that does not depend upon contemporary indie music tropes. Their sound is clearly and unabashedly linked to the sonic influences of 1960’s and ’70’s pop music – think The Kinks or Big Star for just a start.

Organist, guitarist and lead singer Brian Noyeswatkins steers the ethereal ship through patient, emotive songs that do not waste a single note. Bassist/vocalist Lena Simon, lead guitarist/vocalist Gregg Belisle-Chi, and drummer Jake Brady join him in forging a unique set of delicate but confident tracks on Wednesday’s Children.

The eponymous song "Wednesday’s Children" is an elegant anthem which feels like a folk song that fell out of a dream. This is a consistent characteristic in their sound: each song conjures its own private universe which the listener is sweetly invited into. "So So So" is a great example of a track that puts Lena’s voice on full display; Jake’s subtleties on the set and Gregg’s reverb-laden guitar parts are critical additions.

Wednesday’s Children is available on vinyl and compact disc via Flat Field Records in local record stores and online.

– Cameron LaFlam

 Watch Tomten perform "So So So" below:

A unique cast of characters will roll into the streets of Westport tonight. Performers yielding stage names like Magic Cyclops, Mean Melin and Thunderball will aim their talents at the 2012 US Air Guitar Championships being held at the Beaumont Club.

One winner from this competition will win a trip to Denver on July 21 to compete in the National Finals. The winner of the National Finals is crowned The 2012 US Champion and will win a trip to Finland in August to compete in the Air Guitar World Championships, where he or she will represent the United States of America against national champions from 25 other countries all around the world.

The rules are simple. Each performance is played to 1 minute of a song. During the first of two rounds all parties participating will choose a song of their liking. Survivors of that round reconvene in a second round in which the song is unknown to them. The participant with the best overall score after two rounds is the champion of the event.

Scores for the event are placed on a scale between 4.0 and 6.0. A panel of judges determine scores based on three key points; technical ability, stage presence, and airness.

The first of these three criteria, technical ability, is based on the manner in which a performer’s gestures match the music. The more concise a person is with their riffs and where they place their fingers on beat, the higher a score is likely to be.

Stage presence is the second factor to be scored. This is determined by the participants ability to present a realistic picture. The more believable a performance is the higher the likelihood of a quality score.

Lastly, the participant is judged on airness. This is the total package. Airness is the moment when the imitation of playing guitar stops and the art of being an air guitarist begins. When a person has the ability to get a room of a hundred people on their feet and into the event without actually playing a single note, they’ve achieved airness.

For example, check out Mean Melin and Thunderball achieving airness as they rock out in the face of the Westboro Baptist Church protesting a Van Halen concert outside of the Sprint Center in Kansas City.

For a closer look at those two and a collection of others, be sure to make your way to the Beaumont Club. Doors open tonight at 9. Rockstar high kicks start at 10. You must be 18 years old to attend this event.

–Josh Hammond

Seattle quintet Motopony, who just released their self-titled debut last month, will headline a show at Neumo’s on July 7th. They will play with two other Emerald City locals, Smokey Brights and Cumulus. Motopony’s sound is a winning combination of Grateful Dead-esque folk music and the funky and soulful voice of frontman Daniel Blue. Listen to one of the album’s highlights, “Seer,” below. – Josh Johnson

(pictured above: The Blackbird Revue)

Ah, the simple joys of dancing, drinking and puppets. Jersey band The Everymen have developed a sizable audience by creating the kind of music designed to perfectly compliment each of these activities, although the soundtrack of their puppet shows might be too noisy for kids.

Much of the band’s live recordings from their latest release ‘Seconds as an English Language (Live from Asbury Park),’ document a career spent convincing their audience to stop thinking so hard, and get down to the business at hand. This business can range from such activities as smoking tar (‘Rotten Smokes’) or insistent ruminations on inebriation (‘I Might Be Drinking’). However the sound pours down your ears, it’ll surely leave you in a better place than where you started. Such is the magic of The Everymen.

The band just finished studio recordings of their new album, which should be announced in early July. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

(Pictured above: Betse Ellis and Jason Beers)

The grit of Americana music is in the story. A person’s entire life can be summed up in 3 of 4 minutes. The most joyous of moments, the inexplicably painful experiences, the randomly bizarre episodes, all wrapped up in a neat little structure of verses and choruses. Last Friday at The Brick, an attentive crowd listened as 3 different groups of songwriters took the stage with handfuls of stories to tell.

The night got off to a fast-paced start with a solo set from Betse Ellis, the fiercest fiddle player in Kansas City and likely beyond. With the talent, the material, and the personality to enhance it, a solo set from Ellis can be far more captivating than watching many full bands. As an original member of The Wilders, Ellis has the experience and the chutzpah to command a stage by implementing a mix of her own tunes and classics. Her set included songs from artists like The Doc Watson Family and John Hartford, along with a few originals. These songs ran the gamut of humorous ("Drunkard’s Hiccups"), insightful ("It’s A Hard Time in This World," a song she played on tenor guitar), yet always entertaining. Ellis closed out her set with a rendition of The Clash’s "Straight To Hell" – a fine example of her rock influences tinged with a traditional flare and culminating in an amusing and accessible flavor.

 –Michelle Bacon

It takes a special kind of confidence to name your group I’m in You, but with the naked honesty in elecro-charmer ‘Sure,’ I’m starting to believe this is exactly what singer Chris McHenry wants to do with… you. The unexpectedly catchy 5-piece loves a good drum machine, but the band makes it their own when placed underneath the twists and turns of their rolling bass, clashing guitars and even occassional horns and strings on display in their second LP "Songs". Standout song "DMNR" (streaming below) brings to mind a bouncier version of icy Brits Clinic, but caught us by surprise with its explosive chorus. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets) – I’m in You submitted their music for review here.

For a band buried in fictional roots, The Dust Engineers have a very lasting effect. The band started out in the mind of leader Zachary Meyer as a solo project soundtrack for a fictional South Dakota teenager on a roadtrip. The Ziggy Stardust-eqsue idealized singer songwriter idea didn’t pan out, but his songs stuck and a real band was formed around it did. Dust Engineers have a 90’s sound with alt-country influence, with wailing guitars over a bouncy, poppy melodies from the male-female vocals of Meyer and Sara Maeder. The group released a self-titled EP last year, following with the single “Snot Nosed Dweed” this June. See them on June 23 at somebody’s Bushwick apartment on 13 Thames St, 3rd floor.

Singer and keyboardist of the band Au Revoir Simone Erika Forster has released the first track “Hidden” (streaming below) off her upcoming self-titled solo EP under the moniker Erika Spring. The EP will be out on July 10th by way of pop label Cascine. The song provides a dreamy landscape of keyboard melodies and distorted drum samples. Erika’s smooth crooning guides us through the composition, which is driven by equal parts sparse instrumentation and loaded with samples. Be sure to check her out while she’s still in New York on July 12th at the Ivana Helsinki Space in Manhattan. – Bob Raymonda

Apophenia creates music that surrounds you in every direction. It’s like listening to their lush and powerful orchestrations from the bottom of a canyon. Whether discussing the final steps before reaching the gallows, or the freedoms of the open road, singer Seamus Kerley and band bring a majesty to their stew that mixes their ingredients with hearty soul and pointed harmonies. Recalling groups from CSNY to Sunny Day Real Estate in their latest self-titled LP, the three-piece paints with a large brush to cover such a wide territory.

Songs like ‘To The Gallows (our green mile)’ and ‘Open Roads’ begin the record with an open invitation, and even when exploring rockier fields in later tracks ‘Serenity’ and ‘I’m Coming Home Soon,’ the Long Island group always keeps a large view on whatever situation they find themselves in. – Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)

(photography by Todd Zimmer)

Overview:

The Latenight Callers’ latest EP, Easy Virtues, is a 21-minute exhibit of what you’ve been missing if you haven’t by now heard of them. It is full of noiresque, sinfully sexy music that will have you turning the lights down low in order to fully appreciate. Fill up your hip flask, dust off your fedora… it’s time for The Latenight Callers.

Track 1: "The Mad Season"

Ellen O’Hayer’s guitar intro is as unsettling as it is swank. It’s not until Gavin Mac’s painkilling bass line drops in like a velvet bomb, you know you’re going to be okay … or are you? “It’s over now. You had your mad season with me,” begins the tale of regret and revelation that lyrically hearkens to Nancy Sinatra. The patented Latenight Callers “Noir-a-Go-Go” sound enchants and hypnotizes. It’s like that distant radio, playing softly against your unwinding mind as you drift off to sleep after a couple gins too many. The track then shifts into a driving pop chorus that shows The Latenight Callers have a few more gears in the box than one might have expected. Krysztof Nemeth’s baritone guitar solo abducts your fear and bathes you with that rare sensation of letting yourself fall when you know it’s a dream. His seductive melodies, accompanied by O’Hayer’s sparkling hollow body strumming, could entrance a crazed gorilla. Julie Berndsen and Ellen O’Hayer’s harmonized vocals have the same tantalizing effect as a cobra swaying to his master’s flute. Except, with the femme fatales of the Latenight Callers, it’s no ruse.

Track 2: "Electric Park"  

"Electric Park” begins with a familiar-with-the-80s synthesizer loop that you might hear some Face Value in …  Suddenly, it slides into a smile inducing, hip swaying carnival rhapsody, showcasing more of Nemeth’s chiming, echoing, double agent guitar pangs—and another Latenight Callers trademark—the crooning of Julie Berndsen into a bullhorn. The trebly crackle of her amplified voice weaves a tapestry of lyricism, from stiletto heels to blushing schoolgirls. Graciously, The Latenight Callers know how to mix bullhorn vocals into their live and recorded sessions, pleasantly. No Al Jourgensen banshee wailings present here.

Track 3: "Calaveras"

Beginning with an old sample of Raymond Chandler reminding you that “anything can happen when the Santa Ana blows in from the desert,” saying “Calaveras” (“Skulls”) has noir soaked into it is like saying David Lynch makes strange movies. This track is the most serious in tone on the EP, though it remains ultra inviting. The hauntingly emotive vocal outro, harmonized between Berndsen and O’Hayer, is angelic; like the fabled capturing of a siren’s swan song. This is the 45 your subconscious spins while you drive down a lost highway during hours of darkness. Berndsen’s lusty vocals; Mac’s relentlessly groove-oriented bass measures; the patient hitman guitar arpeggios of Nemeth and O’Hayer; and the gentle backbeat conjured up by Nick Combs all would perfectly provide the score behind the iconic smoking ashtray scene in a black-and-white new wave film.

Track 4: "Wrecking Ball"

What would this EP be without a prominent organ part? You need not worry – here it is. “Wrecking Ball” downshifts into cerebral oblivion. By this fourth and final cut on Easy Virtues, you’ll blissfully feel like you have been doped by Jackie Treehorn. “It’s not about the way it tastes, it’s all about the way it feels…” This closing number begins to slip below the horizon and out of sight in the midst of a mournfully sustained violin, the distant whale song of a theremin, rich echoing guitars—and at the end of the tunnel—a few gentle finger snaps. Then it’s gone, leaving you all alone, where you’ll probably select track one, and start over.

Summary:

Few bands can convincingly create such ambience. The Latenight Callers pull you from the everyday sphere, and send you packing, into that smoky parallel reality depicted in art-noir; where characters walk among the dark, seedy side of society. The Latenight Callers have worked painstakingly hard in crafting their own contemporary brand. The members have only been playing together as a unit for a couple years but they have earned the respect of Kansas City, in spades. Their shows always lend to a night to remember – I highly recommend catching them. It adds to the appreciation you’ll undoubtedly have for their albums. With that said, Easy Virtues is a must have in the music collection of any lover of the avant-garde.

You can catch The Latenight Caller’s sultry noir live show at Nica’s 320 this Friday, June 22 at 8 p.m. with The Blackbird Revue and Kentucky Knife Fight.

–Christian Anders Liljequist