Sam Amidon + HEALTH

Sam Amidon is a New York folk man with a voice the now-sadly-defunct Stylus likened to "a more assertive Kermit The Frog", which isn't far wrong. Some of his stuff, like his ill-advised cover of "Head Over Heels" by Tears For Fears, crosses into wet-tissue feyness and I have to listen to some strident disco to get the wobblyness out of my head. However, "Saro" is easily one of the years best songs.

It's a rendition of an old folk song, so Amidon can't really take the credit for the awesome vocal melody. It's absolutely effortless and timeless; and like all great melodies sounds as if it's been hewn from the natural world rather than forced out of a mind. Particularly affecting is the way the line "for to be alive" falls, a beautiful little moment. To give Amidon his due, its a very moving performance, managing to convey both a resignation to lost love, and the awful time it took to get there.

Sam Amidon - Saro

Sam's album featuring this track, All Is Well, is out in February, and was produced by Valgeir Sigurðsson, who has worked with Bjork, Bonnie Prince Billy, Mum, Sigur Ros, CocoRosie and, er, Kate Nash.

At the other end of the melodious prettiness spectrum we have HEALTH. They recorded their record (and are regulars) at the not-really-underground-anymore underground L.A. club The Smell, which has also nurtured such experimental-hipster-punk luminaries as No Age and Mika Miko. The Smell has a habit of putting on bands with silly names, try these on for size: Heavy Face, Vomit Bomb, Disposable Thumbs, Child Pornography, Bipolar Bear, Pocahaunted, This Moment In Black History, Good For Cows, Toxic Loincloth, Stay Fucked, Mattress, Moth Drakula. Lovely.

Anyway, HEALTH (why the block capitals? Smell-brand silliness again) may look nu-rave and even sound it on the Crystal Castles remix of their "Crimewave", but they actually play a brand of punk that fans of Liars and Black Dice will dig, garage rock meets noise bursts meets electronic noodles with tribal drumming and eerie vocals. I love "Perfect Skin", in which titanic chords call on the po-faced monolithic riffage of metal to slowly lay waste to the landscape. The way they fall fractionally off the on-beat is just great. Turn this one way up.

HEALTH - Perfect Skin